The Mesh Dealer Takes Over Live Free and Ham

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, no big deal.
So yeah, we'll continue Nowthat we've got.
Oh we got to put the chat inthere.
We're going to switch toshuffle around.
Yeah, and then edit here I waslike I got to pull all this crap
out.
Yeah, well, we're a well-oiledmachine here tonight, let's

(00:22):
unlock all this crap.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Oh, and Matt's going to do the talk for the club.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Oh, he is cool.
I did mention to him that heshould talk to you because you
had said something about that.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
Yeah, I told, I told, I told Ralph that he was so,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
We'll make Dave the big, big image.
Oh.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I, I turned off.
I turned off the music on myintermission screen.
I didn't realize that thefucking music was playing.
And when I did my live streamthe other night like I figured
like it'd be the respectfulthing to do to you know, like
just not leave a fucking deadcamera, yeah.
And then I watched the videoback and I was like fuck, no

(01:07):
wonder everybody was like are wetaking?
Because?
The fucking music was playing.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm going to kill everybody, I'm just going to
throw the dynamic in here.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Dave, you just don't talk.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I know right, it'll be like this morning when I did
brew and activate my audio andeverything and OBS decided to go
haywire and screwed me over.
So I was like Shannon, you canjust run the show did Shannon
say oh, todd's activating again?
Not that I know she didn't.
She did mention that, or no?
Shannon, the other Shannon, notShannon Socks Girl, shannon,

(02:09):
she was on the stream.
Shannon Jabberjaw OHT, oh, anactor?
Oht, yeah, they were at twoparks too.
Yeah, I couldn't get either ofthem.
I was bummed.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
How many did you get today up in Maine?

Speaker 1 (02:24):
25 in 25 minutes.
There you go go that's what itis.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
It's like you get them all at once and then they
just die.
It's like there's no one left.
I worked.
I was fine with that.
I worked two guys in Coloradofor like 20 minutes because I
could hear them pretty well, butI was getting like overrun and
finally I got them.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
I was psyched I think we're good, I'll leave all that
way and I look good, or I needto fix something.
I mean obviously we should have.
I just want to go, uh here,what the hell damn you.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Um, this is the better fix it while we're.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yeah, I know around here, eric, you see the new uh.
So if you're, if you're talkingto someone, if someone's
speaking in spanish, it's comingin to you in english there we

(03:25):
go Now.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I figured it out.
Stupid, you have to add theactual individual videos in.
All right, let's go here Backto grid.
Any news?
Okay, we're good.
Any news, what news?

Speaker 4 (03:40):
I didn't see any news .

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Oh, you're talking about emails and stuff.
I didn't see anything at all inany of the mailbox.
We got a voicemail, but it wasthe town of Hingham telling us
that we had to vote for somereferendum and I'm like, eh, not
going to bother playing that.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Town of Claremont, voting for their schools.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Apparently, we're not going to be putting our two
cents in.
So, dave, you catch Whoa bigspider.
Apparently, we're not going tobe putting our two cents in.
So, dave, you catch whoa bigspider.
What the hell.
Big daddy, long legs, fallinglike literally across the screen
as I'm going what the hell?

Speaker 4 (04:14):
All the other bugs in your house.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, true, and this one it's dead.
Sorry, the, what was I saying?

Speaker 5 (04:30):
I forgot what was I talking about.
I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
It was dave you uh, and then big oh yes, uh, have
you seen our show?
Have you listened and watchedthe live stream?
Okay, so we, we are kind ofyou're out of here, then dave
watch you get the the,000 footlevel.
So we'll do a quick introductionand just kind of the flow of it
.
I usually do just a hello to me, we'll do a quick hello for you

(04:51):
after we go through our usualco-hosts.
Then I do the typical marketingkind of you know, call to
action stuff.
Whose glass is that?
You figure that out yet?
Yeah, it's Brecker's.
And then we'll get into into.
We have a couple of segments.
We have a mailbag but we don'thave anything in the mailbag, so
we can skip that.

(05:12):
We have no doing goods thistime.
So oh, actually, do you haveanything in win link at all?
let me check should have gotthat one.
And then we do a littlesomething extra with todd where
we quiz him on his uh extrastudies for uh him, and so feel

(05:32):
free to jump in if you are soinclined you want to throw your
two cents.
You're an extra.
Well, then you're good, oh nicethere we go well, geez way to
pit them against us.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Thanks, listen these guys harass me every day.
We have two win lengths.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Okay, are they just regular straight?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, one's from Chris Radio Life and one's from
N2MAK.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Oh, okay, so then I'll just give you the show for,
or'll give you the segment for,uh, what we get for mail, yep,
and then after we do somethingextra, we dive into uh, what we
call our ham radio.
We catch up and so we'lldefault to you first and it's
just like you know, hey, if youdid anything ham radio week wise
you want to share with us, youknow or not, or whatever, feel
free to chime in and after thatwe'll uh kind of dive into you.

(06:23):
You know radios, okay, we'lltalk uh radios.
We'll talk a little bit aboutyou, your, you know your origin
ham story and you know talk moreabout seed and all of that cool
stuff and meshtastic, and youknow, educate our audience,
because I don't think we do agood enough job in our crew here
.
You know, promoting meshtasticenough up here in the northeast,
although there is a hugeconcentration of you know

(06:43):
northeast uh.
You know meshtastic enough uphere in the Northeast, although
there is a huge concentration ofyou know Northeast uh.
You know meshtastic uh folks uphere, but some of them are hams
.
But we haven't uh, you know wewe started that process, but you
know it kind of peaked out alittle bit.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
We had like a uh, a meeting and then after the
meeting it was like meshtasticand bring your device, and I
mean we, it was the biggestmeeting we've ever had and then
it just like it just died I havenoticed it's growing.

Speaker 5 (07:09):
I flew back and forth to portland, maine, for one of
our projects off and on, andalways bring my mesh tastic with
me, and the first couple tripsnothing.
And then the next trip therewas another node, but I guess
the guy wasn't paying attentionto it, and the next trip there
was four or five nodes, so youcan see where it's.
It's one of those.

(07:30):
If you build it they will comeexactly.
I can go into that story alittle bit later about how I got
into it and how I'm at where Iam now.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
So well, if you're ever interested, this website
real quick, I'll throw it in thelink.
You can check it out later is acouple of guys out of our club.
This guy why am I forgettinghis name who did the demo it is.
This is the website so you cango up there.
He's freaking phenomenal whenit came to you know his coding

(08:00):
and stuff like that.
So he's built a couple ofsimulators.
He's got a, you know, basicallya mesh tastic map that's real
time, updated from all the meshtastic nodes that are out there
barking Um, so you can see allof that message and all the data
out of, uh, pretty much theNortheast.
It's mostly been in NewHampshire, but yeah, I'm just,
I'm looking at the map.
Actually.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Wow, it's encompassing all of the
Northeast, uh, almost.
So I checked Daveave.
I got a question, yeah, so allright.
So I programmed the um, thet1000 with, um, the ham tubers
fucking channels, you know, downin huntsville okay do I have to
reset that back to regular now?

Speaker 5 (08:43):
yeah, you got to do a factory reset on it in order to
get back to normal mesh Because, with what we set up for
Huntsville, it switchesfrequencies, so you're on a
separate frequency and you're ona different protocol.
So, yeah, it's not going towork.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, that explains why I'm not picking anything up.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
It's super simple.
You go whether it's an iPhoneor an Android go to device and
then there's factory reset.
Hit factory reset, it puts itback to normal.
Then you just put your name,your long name, short name and
region in in your back Fantastic.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, there we go.
Make in your back Fantastic.
Yeah, there we go.
Make sure your node's on though.
Yeah, it doesn't help.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
I just turned it back on Because, like I mean, I've
got all the ham tubers in mylist still.

Speaker 5 (09:44):
Oh my gosh, what is with this fucking camera?
One more time here, all right.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
Well no.
Bob tonight, huh.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
No, what God dang.
It Stop being a bitch.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
It was really cool.
Bob wanted to jump on thestream on friday what oh, yeah,
like with us in the tent.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah.
Yeah, that was cool.
I thought he was like he wantedto be in the stream.
I'm like he's been telling mehe doesn't want to be on our
youtube channel.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
If he could avoid it, no cause he was, he was, he was
, literally on the live streamoh yeah, oh okay, wow, then I'm
impressed which was which wasgreat, because he had a a very
differing opinion than than therest of us on a lot of the stuff
.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
So oh, wait a minute, your live stream with weekend
warriors yeah oh okay, I thoughtyou were like on the 24-hour
photo because I knew he was noton that.
He tried to avoid some of thosecameras.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Oh, okay, yeah, no, he jumped on my live stream.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, I do remember seeing it.
I fell asleep, sorry, I gotthree quarters of the way
through and I fell asleep, soI'm going to go back and watch.
Replay you all good.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
What's the fucking code to parrot?
I tried four zeros.
That didn't work.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
It's the same as your luggage, paul.
There it goes, there it goesthere, it goes you have
challenges getting it up in apark.
I've got the solution just foryou.
Sorry, wrong button, alright,okay.
Well, we're ready to kick thispig off, since we are about 15

(11:42):
minutes in, we've already gotthings going here, alright, okay
.
So two wind links Todd youready for tonight.
For what?
Testing, as usual.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
Yeah, I haven't studied.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Okay, good.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
It's all about I'm seeing how much I've really
retained.
Got it.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
You heard it here, folks.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
There's no one watching.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Well, you know they will be later, they just don't
have a right now.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
No, All right.
Some people have told me not toget my extra.
They told me that I'mmotivating so many people to get
their extras that if I get myextra, less people will become
extras.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
I have so many retorts for that I just don't
know which one to pick, whichwould be right, fit right one to
say just get your fucking extrasimple as that I'm not gonna
like.
This is one year of my life,it's the best part of the show.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Oh, dave, you'll watch.
Go and watch one of the showsyou tell me all of the folks
that have used you to get theirextra, and now they're extra.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
They've forgotten about us.
So you know there we go, sothat demographics is totally out
the window everyone's favoritesegment exactly just a general.
All With that, let's go Five,four, three, two, one.
We've got some seeds in K-bootyon the next Live Free and Ham.
Hello and welcome to Live Freeand Ham podcast.

(13:15):
This is our weekly show wherewe discuss ham radio topics in
New Hampshire, New England andbeyond.
We're thrilled to have you hereand so, whether you're a
regular listener or you'retuning in for the first time,
thanks again for joining theshow and being part of tonight's
episode.
So let's get into the show.
I'm your host, Eric call signN1JUR, and I'm with my
illustrious co-hosts.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Hey, it's Paul N1OG the.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Grouch, I'm Todd W1STJ.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
And we've got a special guest tonight Dave
KB5UTY one stj.
And we got a special guesttonight, dave kb5 uty.
All right, cool.
Well, we're gonna get more intodave in a little bit.
Um, so buckle in and grab yourfavorite beverage and let's get
into the usuals.
So with that, uh, as always, youknow, head on over to our
storefront at livefreeandhamcomforward slash shop.
You got a bunch of great stuffover there.

(14:02):
We're adding a new, uh coupleof shirts.
I'm just on the verge offinishing up and hopefully
getting the Grouch's approval onhis latest shirt there.
That's coming soon.
I've got a couple of good ideasthat Todd's thrown my way from
the 24-hour poda.
That'll be in the mix there too, so be on the lookout for those
.
As always, I forgot on the24-hour poda to actually hand

(14:24):
out the stupid hammies.
I had them in full force and Icould have been like hey, come
get your hammies and uh, yeah, Ifailed on that department.
Yes, see, dave's got his cammy.
He knows, he knows exactly thehow beneficial they are.
Have you put any out?
Have you proselytized anddelivered any?
of those three out so far sweet,awesome, good, cool.

(14:45):
Any feedback?
Are you you a watcher or youjust kind of ducking?

Speaker 2 (14:49):
where'd you, where'd you get your hammy?

Speaker 1 (14:52):
I can see which one, that one looks very familiar
thank you, paul, for deliveringthat hem in a very wonderful way
.
So, yes, you can get yourhammies there, come be part of
such an awesome grassroots uhyou know fun activity.
You know heck, if you, if youare a jeeper, you know exactly,
uh, you know what those folks gothrough with their ducks.

(15:13):
So we got our hammies.
Uh, head on over to get hammedatcom to check out more of that.
And, as always, you can connectwith our community and our
community is booming.
It's on fire.
We've been seeing a lot ofpeople coming in and there's
been some awesome changes goingon in our discord and, uh, we
have been pretty impressed.
I don't know about you guys,but there's been a lot of
conversation, a lot of goodstuff happening.
So, uh, we say, keep it comingand if you want to come be a

(15:36):
part of that, you can head overto our discord and the link is
down at the bottom of thedescription there, uh, and check
that out and come be part ofour live free and ham community.
It's got grouch's stuff, it'sgot my stuff, that's got
tortoises in there and we'rejust adding more and more as we
kind of go on.
You know, as more and people,more people ask for more stuff.
So, with that, as always, we doa live stream every month and,

(15:59):
yes, we're getting back intothat cycle because I think I'm
happy to announce and by thetime this airs it'll probably
already have passed we will haveour live stream.
For September.
We'll say it's going to be the24 hour poda camp camp out recap
, so you don't want to miss that.
We're going to be sharing someawesome photos and a bunch of
other cool stuff, as well askind of just doing a, you know,

(16:21):
general summary from everybodythere, and we're going to have
some special guests on andthey're all coming to hang out.
It's going to be a blast.
So I want to make sure you arepart of our channel and you like
and subscribe and you hit thatnotification bell so you can get
notified when we do go live.
And outside of that, the lastthing, you can always reach us

(16:41):
in a number of ways, as always,via email, sms.
And of that, the last thing,you can always reach us in a
number of ways, as always, viaemail, sms, and you can leave us
a voicemail at our number at978-233-1142.
And all of those links are inour show notes, as always, and
so if you want to support ourshow and we all love our
supporters, especially the folksover on our Patreons you can
become a Patreon member andyou'll get a ton of stuff.

(17:03):
I mean, we are constantlyadding to that.
You get access to unfetteredaccess.
I like to say that we haveunfettered access to all of our
show.
You know videos in uncut format.
You get to come be part of ourprivate live stream here.
I see Mike is in our currentstream tonight.
Good to see you again, mike,and you know you can join for as

(17:24):
what Bob Koff always says andBob is our number one Patreon
fan- you can join for as littleas three hours a month.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
It's not a big expense.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Nope, it is not.
And, Bob, you know, when you'reready to record that enhanced
version, let us know We'll beready on standby.
So all good there.
So with that, as we always liketo do, we're going to to dive
into because we've got somestuff for the mailbag there.
No, it is not, damn it.

(17:54):
The order is all screwed upagain.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
Let's go ladies and gentlemen, can I please have
your attention?
I've just been handed an urgentand horrifying news story
everybody.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
We got some news.
Slow down, boog, let me handlethis.
We've got some news, I've gotbad news and bad news.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
I have reviewed ship's personnel captain.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Congratulations, you've got mail yeah, we do, and
you know, whatever I, you know,I go back and I make these
changes all the time, I modifythings and it still goes back to
the original format.
So yeah, I have not beendrinking, I promise, at this
point.
So, yeah, with that, we've gotsome stuff, some feedback.
Todd, we don't have anything onyour end, do we?

Speaker 4 (18:38):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
All right, but I hear we have something in the win
link bucket there, mr OG.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
We do.
We have two WinLinks this week.
Okay, so the first WinLink andI want to change my camera view
so that you can actually see melooking as I'm looking at the
screen.
But yeah, apparently my coloris very off.
But uh, yeah, apparently mycolor is very off.

(19:08):
Uh, so the first win link,anyways, comes from kilo delta 9
, yankee, sierra whiskey, chrisradio and life.
And um, he writes hey, all it'sbeen a crazy week.
That is why this email is late.
I'm still working nine to 10hour days and saving to go see a
fellow ham with cancer.
On the channel side of stuff, Ineed to get some content out.

(19:32):
So hopefully this weekend I'llget to play radio for a couple
of days.
Yes, I have 10 parks within 30minutes of me.
That is awesome.
Uh, he says you all knowsometimes I hate being an adult,
don't we all Yep and wish wecould do some playing.

(19:53):
N2mak saw the video with the HTover Lake Ontario.
So nice when ducting is there.
Other than that, back to thesalt mines.
So thanks for that, chris, andhopefully you're not too hot
making all the awesome cast ironsinks and things that you're

(20:14):
making.
Our second wind link comes fromthe one and only illustrious
N2MAK himself, and he writesHello, paul, eric and Todd, a
big thank you to you and all theothers who helped make the
first Live Free and Ham 24-hourpodocampout such a huge success.

(20:38):
It was great seeing everyone inperson.
Even with the weather, we stillhad a blast playing radio and
hanging out.
I always like to say that it'sthe people that make ham radio
awesome, not the antennas orradios.
Events that bring hams togetherare a tremendous value to the
hobby and service.

(20:59):
They build relationships,sharpen skills and show that ham
radio is fun that F word thatwe all freaking love.
Again, I really do appreciateall the effort that went into
making this happen, fromplanning and prepping to the

(21:19):
packing and cleaning up.
Keep up the good work on thepodcast, on YouTube and on
Discord.
I'm looking forward to what'sto come.
73, mike and to MAK PS.
This Winlink email was sentusing a Reliance antennas 56-1
bug out and fed halfway for 30meters.

(21:40):
On work ban Wednesday Leave noban behind.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
As Matt from Reliance would say, I approve this
message.
Man, mike, if you ever run foranother elected official
position, please let it be forARL president and I'll vote for
you.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Awesome, cool, I will cast my ballot and and I will I
will have a utica club yourofficial uh logo and, uh, you
know a poster.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Uh, you know, tie-ins will have to be utica's logo
radio and utica club foreveryone, the working man's
beard, all right.
Well, we thank you once againfor our lovely, illustrious win
link.
Um, you know senders.
Uh, as always, you guys have anear and dear heart to uh us and
being in our uh type a.

(22:36):
Uh, you know, um, what do wecall that?
I forgot what we call thatgroup.
It's been such a while thatwe've added a few.
But, uh, you know they they arein the illustrious group is
known as the overachievers.
Yes, thank you, that's exactlywhat they are.
So, yes, thank you both.
Uh, you know Chris and uh Mikethere's always for filling our
wind link mailboxes with awonderful messages and you know,

(22:57):
as always, you know you too canparticipate and be part of that
.
You can always use all of ournotifications via SMS email, our
phone number for our voicemailand if you're such an
overachiever like Mike and Chrisare, you can definitely send us
a win link and we will makesure we read it on our next
episode and it can be aboutanything.
So let us know if you've gotsome issues you want to share

(23:18):
with us.
We're happy to work throughthem.
But just if you want to sayhello or you know you wanted to
send that win link wednesdaymail so you can get it in uh as
a check mark in your book, thenfeel free to send it our way all
right, only send it to n10gthough well, I've got let's just
say I've got a mobi link.
Um, on the way, um, I somehowfell down a rabbit hole.

(23:42):
I don't know how I did it, butI fell down a rabbit hole and in
that rabbit hole I clicked thebutton to buy a Moby Link.
And so I will maybe be doingsome more Win Link, I think, in
the future, but we'll see, it'scoming nice, I've got a Moby
Link saved in my cart, justwaiting to pull the trigger on
that one yeah, actually, I thinkit was when I was doing a

(24:05):
little poking around on Dave'swebsite on the Seed Studios and
a few other things, and I don'tknow how I got there, but
somehow it showed up in my usualYouTube here let me feed you
from the algorithm stance and Iwas like, oh wow, I got to go
back to do this.
So, yeah, anyway, I guess it'sprobably because I was purely
pissed off with the wholeimplementations of, uh, you know

(24:27):
, aprs in the yezu world, that Iwanted something that was, you
know, more useful.
Yeah, wonderful, mike, I wouldlove to see that happen.
Dude, that that'll.
I want that recorded you know,they're like they are.
I mean, I don't think I've heardone repeater yet, at least in
the ones I knew had auto patches.

(24:48):
But yeah, that's that's goingto be interesting.
You might have to spin one upyourself, all right, so with
that, now we can get intoeveryone's favorite segment.
And now a little somethingextra with Todd W1STJ.

(25:11):
Still a general because, as wealways say, the r it was

(25:44):
unavailable for comment.
So, without any further delay,I'll hand it over to our VE
Quizmaster, paul Nwunogy.
Take it away, sir.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
All right, todd.
Question number one thisevening comes from sub-element
number nine.
What type of radiation patternis created by two
quarter-wavelength verticalantennas, spaced a
half-wavelength apart and fed180 degrees out of phase?

(26:16):
Is it A cardioid.
B a figure-eight broadside tothe axis of the array, c a
figure-eight oriented along theaxis of the array, or is it D

(26:40):
omnidirectional?

Speaker 4 (26:45):
I'm going to go with B Paul, my final answer.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Okay, and Eric.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, figure eight sounds about right Gone from
memory.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
Go ahead, dave, take a pick.

Speaker 5 (27:06):
That's what I was trying to look up actually.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
At least he's honest.
At least he's honest.

Speaker 5 (27:15):
I'm going to go C.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
All right.
So Todd said B and B isincorrect.
So Todd said B and B isincorrect.
So Dave said C and C is thecorrect answer.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
Emotional damn it.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Sorry, too quick on the button there.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, so the correct answer is a figure eight
oriented along the axis of thearray.
And for further clarification,this is one of those questions
that just needs to be memorized.
So, quarter wavelength apart,fed 90 degrees out of phase, is

(27:59):
a cardioid.
Half wavelength apart, fed inphase, figure 8 is broadside and
a quarter wavelength apart, fed180 degrees out of phase, a
figure 8 oriented along the axisof the array.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
I just got half a point, since I knew it was a
figure 8.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, you just got to memorize the correct answer.

Speaker 5 (28:25):
I thought the only way I knew that is and what.
Actually, what I was looking upis the website for for john in
j4z with the performance zarrays.
He set one up at at huntsvilleand it's two quarter wavelength
antennas.
It's a vertical array.
So I was like, all right, I wastrying to look up the guy to

(28:48):
remember his name.
So sorry, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
All good, my friend, and maybe we should start doing
phone of friends, because youcould have called, maybe, on
Matt if he was in the chat.
Matt from Reliance Antenna, hemight know that.
Or Dave, for all matters.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
All right, Well, just one, okay, so no.
Question number one is this isa strikeout.
So question number two comesfrom seven, element number six
what is the efficiency of aphoto voltaic cell cell?
Is it A the open-circuitvoltage divided by the

(29:30):
short-circuit current under fullillumination?
B the output in lumens dividedby the input power in watts, by
the input power in watts.
C the relative fraction oflight that is converted to
current, or D, the output RFpower divided by the input DC

(29:57):
power?

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Key is photovoltaic.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I'll give you a hint it is not D if your solar array
is putting out RF power.

Speaker 5 (30:14):
I'm going to go with C yeah, I think so yeah, it's
either A or C, but I'm thinkingc yeah I don't think it's an
open circuit so the, the peanutgallery, is in concurrence.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
The correct answer is c and you are correct at least
I'm not going 0 for 3.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Incredible.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
So to give you an explanation of the answer, the
best and correct answer is thatthe efficiency of a photovoltaic
cell is the relative fractionof light that is converted to.
Current Efficiency is expressedas a ratio or percentage.
It can range from 0 to 1 or 0%to 100%.
It does not necessarily have aunit.

(31:08):
You can eliminate the opencircuit voltage divided by short
circuit current option, becausethis gives you a number
expressed in ohms which is notunitless.
You can rf power divided byinput dc power, because the
question doesn't ask about theefficiency of a transmitter or a

(31:29):
radio.
It asks about the efficiency ofa photovoltaic cell, which
doesn't involve rf at all, whichis why I gave you that little
hint.
Thank god it doesn't so uh.
Another further hint is it'sthe only answer that has the
word light in it.

(31:49):
All right, todd, you're 50%.
So the third and final questionof the evening what type of
polarization is supported byground wave propagation?
Is it A circular, b horizontal,c elliptical or D vertical?

Speaker 4 (32:25):
And go with horizontal or elliptical or
vertical or circular.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
I'm going to say horizontal.
My second guess is ellipticalmy head is about to explode.
I'm going vertical, I'm goingvertical.
Alright, about to explode, I'mgoing vertical.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
I'm going vertical, all right.
So Todd said horizontal andhorizontal is incorrect and Dave
and Eric said vertical andvertical is correct.
So to give you an explanation,ground waves are a result of an

(33:10):
interaction with the radiosignal and the ground.
The interaction has the effectof causing the signal to follow
the curvature of the earth.
Ground wave propagation is mostuseful from 1.8 MHz to 3.5 MHz
during daytime.
This only works with verticalwaves.

(33:31):
Horizontal waves willshort-circuit immediately, since
the whole electrical fieldtends to end up in the somewhat
conductive ground.
One way to remember this answeris to consider commercial AM
broadcast ground wavepropagation via vertical towers
that polarize vertically, andthis is also the answer to E3B08

(34:01):
with a single silly jingleGround waves are best when they
sent up and down.
Increasing the frequency makesthem hiccup.
I don't know what the song'ssupposed to be for that little
ditty there.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
But Like okay, bits plus atoms.
What are you thinking?
Did you spend all nightthinking of this silly jingle to
remember this one?
Oh my gosh, oh God's sakes.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well, clearly that little ditty helped him remember
, and so he felt the need toshare it with everybody else.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
What I would love to see is when he took the freaking
test, did he even get thatsecond question?
Because if he didn't, that'sjust a whole waste of a jingle.
Oh my gosh, All right, Well,you know.
So if you're on the journey ofstudying for your technician
general extra class and comingup with some wonderful jingles,
then in that case hamstudyorg isan awesome resource for getting

(35:02):
your ticket, and they'reobviously looking for
crowdsourced feedback onquestions too.
So heck with that.
If you recently received maybeyour upgrade, or maybe you got
your license for the first time,we want to know so we can
recognize you on the nextepisode for all that hard work
and effort, because it is a lotfor sure, Paul, anything from
your end.

(35:22):
I hear any latest news onanybody getting their tickets.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well, actually, uh, I was, uh I was five minutes late
for a VE session on Fridayafternoon.
Uh, it was a military session.
Uh, I was completely not needed.
I think there was like 20 VEsthat were currently in the
session, but that's okay, that'sbeside the point.
So there were four soldiersthat took the test and all four

(35:50):
soldiers passed their techniciantest.
So congratulations to the fourFort Campbell soldiers that are
now brand new technicians.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Very cool, very cool guys, nice job, awesome.
Well, that deserves a round ofapplause.
Thank you for joining us.
Very awesome guys, nice job,awesome.
That deserves a round ofapplause.
Awesome guys.
And so, yeah, if you like youknow we just did now, if you've
gotten your ticket, just let usknow.
You can head over, send us anemail, sms at us, send us a
carrier pigeon, or just pick usup on the radio and let us know.
We'll be glad to share it nextepisode, for sure.

(36:21):
All right.
So with that that, we are goingto dive into our usuals here.
So we like to call this thisham, the ham radio week, catch
up.
And so, because dave is ourillustrious guest and he's put
up with all this crap up to thispoint, you know how are you
doing, buddy, how's your hamradio week been?

Speaker 5 (36:38):
I'm doing great um I.
I'm starting to play withall-Star, so I got my clear node
in nice, love that, love it,love it and a buddy of mine gave
me a VX1 old school, half watton battery, one watt with
external power, but specificallyso I can play with my All-Star

(37:02):
node.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
So there it is, there we go.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
There it is.
Yeah and yeah.
I got this working todaybecause he had had it in a
drawer tucked away, it didn'thave a battery, it didn't have a
charger for it, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
VX3s, VX1s they are the draw radios of life.
I mean, I've seen more peoplego yeah, I'll give you this for
four bucks.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
They're great that's such a cool little radio though
yeah, dude it's.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
I mean, this is my mesh tastic node, and I know
same size and it is not much toit, man.
Most of it's, like you know,pretty much all menu based.
But you know, once you programit, you really just use it for
what you want to use it.
One thing, and that's reallywhat it's built for.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
Well, yeah, and I found out.
Of course, rt Systems is myfriend, but it also uses the
same cable as the VX6.
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Nice, yeah, that's good for Yeju for actually not
changing programming cableshalfway through four revisions
or three revisions of radiosprogramming cables halfway
through four revisions or threerevisions of radios.

Speaker 5 (38:06):
But I mean I keep getting mesmerized about how
small it is.
I mean it's just tiny and itworks on my All-Star node.
And I've only talked to twopeople on All-Star.
I've talked to Jason, okay, onhis 2.0's node, yeah, and then
there was a guy from Englandthat was on 2.0 he's very much

(38:27):
hooked up to he's got, he's verygood friends and he's hooked up
his entire.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
They have a different version of all star over there.
I can't remember what it'scalled.
I got in a long conversation.
I can't remember his call sign.
It's driving me bonkers.
But yeah, they've got a hugenetwork of DMR, all star, you
know fusion all connected in andthen they're all backhauled to
jason.
So yeah, you will hear a lot ofuh, you know, over the pond
stuff, which is really cool.

Speaker 5 (38:51):
Yeah so, uh, that's, that's.
That's my ham radio updateright now.
Uh, just loving the fact that Igot my all-star node and man
clear node makes it so easy seetodd, it's todd.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
I've been trying to convince todd.
Isn't it worth the 300 bucksyou're paying for it.
It is well worth 375 yes, butthey have an app um I know, I
know you never have to get intoyou can do it anywhere as long
as you're going I know nothingabout res, me too and you can

(39:24):
get into it and do.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
Did you get the newest version?
Yeah, I got the Pi 5 one.
The Pi 5?
Yeah, yeah, that was 20 bucksmore and you sent me the 4, and
I asked Bill, I go.
So Eric wants me to get thisand I said, but I saw this one's
a little bit newer.
He goes yeah, get the newer one.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Dude, that was a ploy on purpose because I knew you
would be like oh, I'm just goingto buy the newer one anyway.
Because I'm like dude, if hegets a new one then he'll be
fine.
But you know, I've got to throwthe generation before that and
see what he does.

Speaker 5 (39:58):
But yeah, all-star, and get your node number and
then you buy it and right afteryou buy it they send you an
email with they'll ask you foreverything you could possibly
have.
Like, I don't have an Echo linkand I don't have any of the
other stuff, but this whole listof information and you fill out
all that list.
They even had my Wi-Fipre-programmed into it so I

(40:21):
plugged it in and it worked.
So you go to all-star first.
Yes, go to all-star first.
Gotta get a note and then buyit because they'll ask you for
your note number and yourpassword, um, and but yeah,
they'll, they'll set it upcompletely for you.
They test it out, make sure itworks and then ship it off.

(40:42):
You plug it in and they'llassign a frequency 433.5, I
think, is what mine's on and soyou program a radio with the
frequency and the PL tone andyou just work and then
connecting to different nodes issuper simple on the app.

(41:03):
You don't have to play with thePi, nothing.
That's why I went that route isI kept looking and looking and
looking, and I did not want tohave to learn how to operate and
work on a Raspberry Pi so thatI could talk to people over the
internet and they make it supersimple but Grouch, can do the
install with his eyes closed andhands tied behind his back with

(41:26):
linux, right?

Speaker 4 (41:27):
yeah, yeah, I don't think apple works with linux it
does but you you're in terms ofwhat you'd want to do.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
You just use the terminal and and on the uh apple
interface and be able, you know, access the device.
But yeah, I've got two of them.
I've got one of my truck, whichI love and that's fully like on
all the time battery backup,and then it's got a uh, westgate
, uh, you know, um epic powergate.
You know switching betweenpower and battery when driving
and stuff like that.

(41:55):
I love it.
I just it's way funner to be onthat than half the time I'm,
you know, dialing around all therepeaters locally trying to put
my call out there and no onecomes back.

Speaker 5 (42:05):
So you know and that that was my thing is.
I travel a lot throughout Texaswith my job and every town I
come into I call out on five,two and never get an answer,
never get an answer, never getan answer.
At least with this guy I can.
I plan on I've got the poweradapter, throw it in truck, my
truck has wi-fi in it.

(42:25):
Um, yep, so could haveconnected over to the wi-fi in
my truck and then I can talk topeople all day long on this
little guy.
Yeah and be good to go.

Speaker 4 (42:35):
You can bring that note in any car and use that hd.
Yeah, anybody can use that yeahyou have to have what Internet?
Like your phone internet?

Speaker 5 (42:46):
Well, yeah, I haven't tried to tether it to my phone.
I mean, I have a 2004 Silverado2500, and it's got way more
bells and whistles than I couldever care to learn.
But one of the cool things isit has Wi-Fi.
And the other cool part aboutthe Clear Note is if you want to
switch Wi-Fi, like, say, I putit in my truck, it has Wi-Fi by

(43:09):
light on the Pi 5 version.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Which takes a little bit of time to do.

Speaker 5 (43:17):
You have to do it in a freaking dark room, a
flashlight on your phone to sendthe information for your SSID
and your password for the Wi-Fiand then it'll reboot and it'll
connect.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
But you do know that if you go into once you've got
it connected to Wi-Fi, whateverthat is, you can go in and add
other future networks and thenevery time it reboots it will go
through that list.
I did not know that.
I'll have to figure that out.
So that's super helpful if yougot like multiple hot spots or
you got your home wi-fi and youryou know truck wi-fi?

Speaker 4 (43:48):
don't you have a?
Don't you have a separate hotspot in your truck?

Speaker 1 (43:52):
I mean, I do that you get like from verizon or
whatever yeah, I installed afull uh hot spot in the back, 5g
high spot in the back thatpowers off of a you know
distribution block and then it'sgot a step down buck converter
so it goes to five volts uh forusbc and then the same thing
goes for the pi.
I got a buck converter for thatand and I power that off of a

(44:14):
50 amp hour battery in the truckand so why don't you just use
your phone?
Why would I need?

Speaker 4 (44:19):
to well you, you bought an extra wi-fi thing,
right?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
I bought an extra hotspot for you know a job I did
for a customer once, and then Iwas like, oh, it's on my plan,
now I'll just keep it, and so itjust sits in the truck all the
time.
So my truck is basically likedave's it's got full, full white
, full-time wi-fi, you know, allthe time, as long as the
hotspots up.
But yeah, I love the app, Ilove being able to switch stuff

(44:43):
on the fly and, you know, beingable to do, uh, you know all of
the tweaks you're probably goingto want to make.
One change to your hotspot isget rid of the, the beep, the,
the roger beep, because that'llannoy you to death after a while
, and and basically mute your uh, your cwid, because nobody
really wants to hear on theother end.
Does it broadcast it across?
There is a setting in it thatyou got to make sure you don't

(45:05):
have on to broadcast that stuffacross, but I think by default
the clear node has it disabled.
Okay, so just, make.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
The other thing I like about the clear node is the
, the disconnect before connect,because that's one of the
things I caught on freddy max.
One of his streams just kind ofa little side conversation was
guys that will connect to a nodeand then connect to another
node, and connect to anothernode and never disconnect from
the other nodes.
Yeah, and next thing, you knowyou've got all these guys, oops.

(45:34):
Yeah, and I made sure to clickthe disconnect before reconnect
or before connect so that if Isteer myself somewhere it
doesn't bring everybody elsealong for the ride.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, what I do is I installed on the Pi the.
Was it Allmon?
Yeah, I think it's calledAllmon.
I always forget what it'scalled.
No, supermon, supermon andSupermon.
Basically, I went in.
It allows you to edit theconfig files in the browser as
long as you flip the bit switch,switch on the the pi side, so

(46:05):
you can edit those files.
And I created a list of uhnodes that I wanted to cycle
through, and so anytime that picomes up, it always connects to
hr20s first, and if that failsthen it goes to you know,
another couple other nodes thatI, you know, check into.
But yeah, I make sure I don'tconnect to nodes that have
broader, bigger networks,because they'll kick you off

(46:26):
fast.
Yeah, yeah, was it uh?
Is it America link?
No, what's the East coastreflector?
They, they do not tolerateanybody who connects multiple
nodes, and if you're foundconnecting into another East
coast reflector on another endand on the other side, they will
, you know, send you a nice long, stern letter and then kick you
off, and if you do it again,they'll blacklist you.

(46:48):
So just be aware.
Yeah, but that's understandable.
Their networks are frickinghuge.
So so, yeah, cool, yeah.
Well, dude, that's awesome.
Welcome to all star, and I amalways listening to HR2.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
I actually got it on in the background, so you know,
feel free to throw your call outthere.
Does he have a lot of?

Speaker 1 (47:08):
people on it.
Yeah, I think the last time Ilooked at his node, what was the
bubble chart on him?

Speaker 5 (47:13):
There's a lot connected.
I've been listening all day andI haven't really heard anybody,
but no, it's.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
you got to be the one to create noise and mine's
turned down because I couldprobably turn it up.
You'd probably hear yourself.

Speaker 5 (47:27):
But the only thing I just screwed it up.
Okay, do you have a?

Speaker 1 (47:31):
mobile in the car.

Speaker 5 (47:33):
Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Well then, just program like I do, program a
frequency on your mobile foryour hotspot, and then you can
leave the HD home.
I can do that and then that wayyou don't have to carry a
second radio with you.
Yeah, it's so cute it is, butyou can do it when you're on the
field, you know, and you canhug it and love it, and call it
whatever you want.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
I'm starting to think I could use that in my office.
You could.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Totally.
You'd stay connected all thetime.
That's why I want to getAll-Star on our repeaters I know
that would be because, it'slike it, I could be able to
reach it for maine when I'm onvacation or anywhere.
Paul, could you know I meanpaul's already connected now,
thank god.
Finally, I'm very happy for himand you know he definitely
comes back and answers has hesaid he finally set up his pie,
he's finally got all-star ohyeah, but not to the repeater no

(48:20):
, no, but he's connected tohr2's node, which basically I'm
connected to and Dave'sconnected to, and then you each
have your own node, correct,correct?

Speaker 4 (48:30):
Yeah, so I could be connected to Paul's node and
then call out to Paul and ifhe's on that node he'll hear me.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
And one JUR listening on HR2O.
Yep, that come through.
Two, oh, yep, I come throughprobably.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Yeah Well, yeah, the thing about this is freaking
Jesus.
No, this guy right here, If youstart to fly went to turn it up
.
I thought frequencies.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yep, and it's a knob.
Yeah, yeah, frequencies yep andit multi knob.
Yeah, yeah, they.
They never fix that either,with the ft65 too.
So, yeah, depending on what youhave it set for, factory, you,
you screw yourself over.
Very cool, awesome, awesome,well, welcome to the all-star
family.
And uh, yeah, just make a lotof noise.
That's all I encourage folks todo, because most people don't,

(49:25):
and you know they, they alwaysdo the.
Oh, I don't want to clog up therepeater.
I'm like dude, why aren't youtalking?
This is the problem.
Uh, and don't get me on mysoapbox.
All right, awesome, all right.
Well, cool, good on that one.
And so over to our uh grouchthere.
How has your ham radio weekbeen, man?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
well, ham radio week, so I've got a, I've got a
couple pies kicking around andum, so initially I tried to use
this one, which is uh, it's bythree 3b, with an mmdvm hat on
it and and I was gettingfrustrated with WPSD and I was

(50:08):
trying to get Fusion to DMRcrossover going and it wasn't
working right.
It was frustrating me, itpissed me off.
So I started looking intoAll-Star and thanks to Freddie
Mac for being super available onDiscord.
I sent him a message and I waslike dude, I don't understand,

(50:32):
I'm banging my head against thewall.
I got ChatGBT going and I'mtrying to get the MMDVM hat to
work with All-Star.
He goes oh no, he's like itwon't work.
It just won't work.
The MMDVM is expecting adigital mode.
You have to get a dongle.

(50:55):
He sent me a link for one.
It was $100.
I started trying to findsomething a little bit cheaper,
and so I did.
I found this little thing herethe All-Star Link and it's USB.

(51:16):
It was $54 on Amazon and so Itook my other old Pi 3, um, I
put the SD card in that and Ibanged my head against the wall
for a few days, uh, trying tofigure out why it wasn't working
.
Uh, programming All-Star overand over and over into this

(51:40):
fricking Raspberry Pi.
I got really good atprogramming the Raspberry Pi,
but after the sixth time,reflashing the whole thing and
starting from scratch all overagain, I got it to work.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Hallelujah, of course I turned you down.
So yes, it had nothing to dowith your skill set either.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
My friend damn Elon yeah, so, apparently, whatever
Starlink just doesn't allow theport to work, or whatever.
So, yeah, so I, whateverStarlink just doesn't allow the
port to work, or whatever.
So, um, yeah, so I ended upflipping it to the phone hotspot
, which ultimately, you know,that's the end goal, right, is I

(52:34):
want to.
I want to be able to take theRaspberry Pi, throw it in the
truck, plug it into the, the USBfucking outlet, and um, and
have have the ability to useall-star while I'm on the road.
Um, and so, yeah, I finally gotthat work in.
Uh, what I?
Tuesday, wednesday I think itwas and, um, yeah, super excited

(52:57):
to be a all-star now.
So what?

Speaker 5 (53:01):
what was up with the starlink?
Because my ClearNode.
I have Starlink at the houseand I just got, while they were
doing the $175 kit deal, got onefor my camper.
Was it with that device?
Because my ClearNode's workingjust fine?

Speaker 1 (53:26):
it's so, depending on what you have set up, if you've
got it's, a starlink uses whatthey call carrier grade nat,
which is basically a technologyor protocol that basically
spoofs your ip address with whatthe real ip address is out in
the internet and that type ofstuff.
Your clear node is going to beable to flip itself between iax
and and HTTP requests.
So if you were in HTTP on yourclear node, you probably

(53:46):
wouldn't work with the theall-star, because IAX is a you
know allows the protocol to passthrough seamlessly and doesn't
require any like public IPaddressing.
It does a lot of masqueradingand some weird technical jargon
I won't get into, but the onlyway I've found or at least stuff
I did research when Grouch wastelling me he was running into

(54:08):
problems was, as I found, thatyou had to turn on UPnP on your
router for the Starlink and thatsometimes fixes it and allows
the HTTPS to work.
But because you have a clearnode, it uses IAX out of the box
, so you'll never have a problemwith it going through.
When you turn to HTTPS it givesyou an issue, gotcha.
So yeah, there are someworkarounds.

(54:28):
I haven't heard many people youknow had major success and
that's why they just go to liketheir own hotspot or use, you
know, t-mobile or whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yeah, ultimately at some point I am going to figure
out the Starlink aspect ofthings, because what I would
like to be able to do is, whenI'm stationary, bring the
All-Star node into the RV,connect it up to the Starlink
and then still be able to use it.
And then, obviously, when I'mmobile, the Starlink's not up

(55:00):
and running, so it'll just beoff my phone's hotspot.
But yeah, apparently it's a hamradio week of all-star.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yes, if they ever need QA testers on their
installers, you are the man whenit comes to going through all
of those routines.
I would have gone nuts afterdoing it the eighth time.
I think my limit's three.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Well, I'm a budget-friendly ham, right?
So when it comes to doingthings on a budget, I will
always try and use what I've gotand figure out a way to make it
work with whatever it is thatI'm trying to do, and so that's

(55:48):
what I did Initially.
Originally, this Raspberry Piused to live behind my TV and it
was dedicated to only my hamclock, so it doesn't have a hat
on it or anything.
But these days I'm running theham clock and my ham dashboard

(56:09):
and all of those things off ofmy Pi 4, which is mounted
underneath the TV here in the RV.
So I had this 3B with no hat onit.
That was just sitting there andI said, well, I've got to be
able to use this.
And so that's where I went downthat rabbit hole of how do I
make this work and how do Ifigure it out.

(56:29):
I did a whole lot of pseudo-APTupgrade and pseudo-APT update
dash Y, because, yeah, I forcedmyself to learn some Linux stuff
.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Dude, that's all good stuff, man.
Definitely a good skill set tohave, for sure when it comes to
the Linux world.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
The downside, though, right, is that, because I'm a
terrible YouTuber, I don'tunderstand how to screen record
what I'm doing on the differentscreens and devices, Because
otherwise it would have made afantastic video Like hey, this
is how you avoid doing all thebanging your head against the

(57:15):
wall that I did.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
That's one way.
Obs does it dude, Just screenrecord OBS.

Speaker 5 (57:22):
I had to because I have an iPhone 14, so I had to
get from the iPhone to HDMI,hdmi to the computer.
But I was able to yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
The easy way to minimize those cables is to go.
I can't pull the cable, well, Ican.
I have an HDMI capture card,which is still in paul's
position, from uh 24 hour poda,but I have one of those adapters
for my apple that goes, youknow, hdmi to you know well,
this one's firewire or thisone's uh lightning, but I'm
going for you know usbc.
Well, that's, that's great.

(57:59):
I had to do.
Oh yeah, yeah, get yourself acapture card and you'll be able
to go straight hdmi off a littlelightning card and be able to
record your you know phonestraight from there yeah, that's
what that guy is is a videocapture.
Oh well, there you go, that'sperfect, yeah well, dude, I'm
happy that you busted your head.
You, you know, drank a lot ofwhiskey to get to where you were
and you know, things turned outgood because I was just like,

(58:21):
oh man, I know like it's alwaysthe biggest hill to climb once
you get over Lennox, but you didand you successfully conquered.
My applause to you, my friendCool.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
And my first all-star QSO was actually on the uh
Casey Casey five HWB node.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Yeah, jason's got a good node.
I mean, it was very busy wheneveryone was heading out to
Huntsville and so it was alwaysgood to talk to KMurder
everybody who was on thosetravels.
But it's quieted down a bit nowthat there's nobody out there,
so I'm encouraging folks just tomake noise.
Awesome, all right.

(59:09):
Well, with that over to you,todd.
How is your Hammer Day week?
My friend, you've been busy.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
Yeah, actually it's been real busy.
Did three POTUS, including onetoday, so that's four in the
last three, three weeks.
Where's that put you overnumbers for the rail trail?
Yeah, all right.
So working on the rail trail,eric's been up my ass to get

(59:34):
caught up to him.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
My fault I'm sorry, I believe you.
You both were supposed to kilothe rail trail by like March,
literally a year ago.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Yeah, last year.
Thank you, paul, appreciate thehonesty.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
So yeah, so you know, back on the 31st of August I
was up at Rachel Carson NationalWild Refuge in Maine, got 56.
Then I went to the rail trailon the 10th and I got 44.
Then I went on the rail trail,let's see.
On the 11th I got 44.
Then I went on the rail trail,let's see.
On the 11th I got 25, and thentoday I got 34, which puts me at

(01:00:13):
910.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Oh, wow, okay, I thought you were.
I thought those numbers did notinclude what you did today.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
Okay, yeah, so I'm at 910.
I'm at 910.
I'm going to get to 975 andquit, and then we'll let Eric
catch up to 975, and then we'lldo the kilo.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
That'll be a day, but whatever, listen, I have to do
it during my lunch.

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
The bands will be in my favor, my friend, I have to
do it in the lunch break.
The day you got 100, I was incalifornia and I could barely
make 10 and you're like I don'tknow what's going on.
I got like a hundred at therail trail.
I'm like what?

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
I'm gonna laugh my ass off.
If you guys get you.
You get within 25 of your kiloand you decide to do your live
stream and we get hit with likean x5 freaking solar flare and
the bands just go to shit andyou do a four-hour live stream
to get 25 contacts dude, I willcall 25 people.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
I know we're gonna be butting up the whole entire
time man don't be the fastesthere.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Let's be the random people you know make up a call,
sign, call me all right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
And then to top that off, today I, as I was driving
to the rail trail through hollis, I just uh scanned my uh, just
the local repeaters, you knowwhen I don't feel like listening
to just one or so.
I scanned it and I got someoneon simplex in hollis so we
talked on the way to the railtrail and he's like I didn't
think and he goes.
I'm so glad you're on here.
I don't think anyone listens tothis anymore.

(01:01:42):
Nobody does.
I think more people should.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
I listen to Simplex all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
I know I'd rather listen to my APRS beacon than
listen to 5.2.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
It was cool to have a Simplex QSO going on for a few
minutes, suck, suck Anyway.
So it's been good and I'll tellyou I have missed activating
POTA.
I really have.
It was needed and now I'm justlooking.
I'm trying to work my schedulearound.

(01:02:16):
Okay, when can I get out ofhere to get to POTA and say it's
my lunch and not get caught?
Say it's my lunch and not getcaught?
And of course, you know likeI'm doing the poda and all of a
sudden, like my my work phonestarts blowing up and I'm not
answering.
I'm like, fucking, I'm on lunch.
Then I forget to call them backin the with my ADHD and they're

(01:02:38):
like I told you yesterday andyou never called.
I'm like, oh, I must've been atlunch or something.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Sorry, I missed your call.
Really busy day, yeah, but I'vehad.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
I had.
I did have a couple.
You know, every day I've beenout there.
People have been coming by toask what I'm doing.
And one guy was actually.
He does something with securitysystems or something, something
with like kind of mesh tasticCause I asked him.
I said do you know about meshtastic?
And he said cause it?

(01:03:08):
I said do you know aboutMeshtastic?
And he said because it's kindof like that.
So I gave him all ourinformation, told him about the
club, told him about the podcastand hopefully he will check us
out and get into AM radio SweetNice.
I think he's ex-military.
You said Nice, very cool.
So, eric, since you haven'tbeen working the rail trail,
what else have you been doing?

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
I've been doing Many other things.
I have to say, I wrestled abear Thursday and Friday with
Matt's inflated antenna.
That thing is A working prog.
Mess, we'll say, is the bestway to describe that thing.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
I didn't even get to see it and he gave it To the kid
.
That's not even a ham.
Oh, did he?
You know when he threw it out?

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
yeah, the kid's not even oh, he gave it to.
He gave it to adam I guess Idon't know what his name or no,
the younger kid, the younger kidthat we had at the 24-hour
photo yeah, I don't remember.

Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
He wasn't even a ham, I'm like dude it's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
Put it this way if you, if you've ever thought
about maybe inflating a balloon,or maybe an aluminum balloon
like, say, the hindenburg, andthen decided to tuning that
thing up, that's kind of whatthe inflator tenant is.
The problem is is that you needa sheer volume of really good
pressure air in the tube to keepit solidly straight.
The lightest breeze isliterally gonna blow the damn

(01:04:27):
thing over.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
Can you do that again solid erecting that big hard
stiff black mast.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Yes, so he, um he, I'm in the middle of, like you
know, setting this thing up andI'm calling mad.
I'm texting mad back and forthand I'm like dude, the damn
thing will not thing up.
And I'm calling matt.
I'm texting matt back and forthand I'm like dude, the damn
thing will not stay up.
I I wish I could pull up mypictures on my camera roll
because literally you put thecollar up about three quarters
of the way and the the remainingpart, that's standing above the

(01:04:56):
collar, that's anchored for allyour guy wires, just kind of
flops in the wind like this.
So it's like a floppy penis andit's just like it kind of just
goes back and forth and I'm liketrying to tune this thing and
I'm like forget it.
I gave up and I texted matt.
I'm like, matt, you gotta likedo something about this thing.
It definitely needs to beimproved.
And so, yeah, him and I talkedback and forth, but yeah, I'm
doing a review on that one, butyou know, so I didn't get it do

(01:05:19):
you not have a 12 voltcompressor in in your truck?
Oh, I do, Dude.
I put 12 volts, I pumped a tonof air in the thing.
It does not want to staysolidly.
I mean it inflated.
But according to Matt it's likeoh, you just need to be able to
blow into it and it'll be fine.
Like Matt, I tried to blow intothe damn thing and whatever I
was putting into it wasn'tmaking it any worthwhile.
So I stuck my compressor intoit, filled it up, it got solid,

(01:05:41):
but then, slightest breeze manit right at that bending point
where the collar was just foldedin half.
Yep, so yeah, working on that,all all that said, you know
matt's got some improvements.
I'm testing it for him.
But uh, some of the reportsthat he sent out to other people
said it does really well on 160once you tune it up right.
So I don't know, we'll.
We'll try it out and see howthat goes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
I want to play with it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah Well, dude, you know I will more than happily
send it your way.
He didn't give you one, nope.
Oh well then you're more thanwelcome to have mine he gave it
to the kid.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
That doesn't do ham rating.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Yeah Well, hey, you know, dude, you make slip ups
all the time, so I haven't donea podo like you, todd, in a
while.
So this Saturday or today wasmy usual brew and activate in
the morning and Shannon OHT cameon and that was fun to hang out
with her and everybody in thechat and I was like, oh well, my
wife's like, oh, we should justgo up to Mount Aggie.

(01:06:40):
And so I'm like, all right,I'll bring my gear.
She's like, ok, so mount aggie.
And so I'm like, all right,I'll bring my gear.
She's like okay.
So I went up and we activatedfrom mount aggie for about half
an hour 45 minutes because wehad left late in the day and
schedule later mike, good to seeyou in there.
Um, and so, yeah, I made 25contacts and and it's funny
because I was using my verticaland that question that popped up
about, you know, uh, groundwave.

(01:07:02):
I had literally four or fiveground wave contacts in in saco,
maine, uh, you know, gonquit,maine.
Uh, new hampshire, portsmouth,new hampshire was another one,
and you know I was getting five,nines with all those guys.
But anybody who was in floridawas like a five, two, three,
three, four, four what the heckis going on here.

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
So I worked a guy today on one watt in wisconsin
on um and he was a five nine.
I was like are you sure you'reon one watt?
Like what kind of antenna youuse, hey good one at that,
probably wire.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
So yeah, I got 25 contacts in 24 minutes and wrap
things up, so it was a goodactivation overall.
Definitely uh gonna hop back onthe rail trail now that I know.
Uh, you know you'll be uh clearin uh my number soon in in the
next couple of days or so, andwe'll we'll get closer to that
final live stream that we'vebeen talking about forever, just
like todd's extra yeah, well,so, eric, I um, I saw you post

(01:08:03):
in the Discord that you were on20 meters activating right, and
so I was like you know what?

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
I need to have a freaking antenna up.
Because I don't have an antennaup because I'm in the RV.
So I grabbed the Reliance and Iplugged it into the coax jack
on the trailer and I did myadapters.
So it's, you know, 50 ohm to 75ohm through the trailer and
then out back to 50 ohm, tunedit up, and uh, then I looked and

(01:08:35):
I realized that I was like anhour late yeah, I've done that
before too.
Get out of the shack, all right.
Well, I've got the antenna outnow how well does that work,
paul?

Speaker 5 (01:08:48):
um going to 50, 75 back to 50 men okay, that works,
man, yeah so I I'm inheriting atrailer at the end of october.
Um, so my mom is hanging up thekeys.
She's 78 years old and has beentraveling for like the last
seven years.
Wow, we had a bunch of oldladies.

(01:09:09):
After my dad passed away, herthing was I'm going to buy a
camper, I'm going to go hang outwith a bunch of old ladies all
over the place.
And it's time for her to hang itup.
It's a 21 Freedom Express25-foot camper.
Oh, dude, that's nice.
Yeah, nice, freedom express 25foot.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, I get a half ton orthree-quarter ton to pull it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
I have a three-quarter ton diesel truck
that they won't care not to belike.
Is there something behind me?

Speaker 5 (01:09:32):
um, but so, yeah, I'm just now getting so like belton
ham fest is coming up at theend of the month, beginning of
october, um, and my firstshakeout of this camper is
actually going to be boondockingin the parking lot of Belton
Ham Fest.
You'll learn a lot fast, yeah,so my generator came in today

(01:09:52):
and got it warmed, burnt in orwhatever.
Yep Warmed up, warmed up,broken in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Listen, do yourself a favor.
Boondock in your driveway for acouple days.

Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Work out all the kinks.
That way, when you get toBelton, you're not trying to
figure everything out.

Speaker 5 (01:10:18):
I'm probably going to do that.
It's sitting over at my mom'shouse still and she wants me to
come over and hang out One ofthe things.
My Starlink comes in Monday.
So yeah, I do plan on probablynext weekend doing a shakedown,
spending the weekend in thecamper with my generator, not on

(01:10:39):
a pole, and kind of see whathappens.
Yeah, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Yeah, I know Good Game's.
In that same boat now he's beenfooling around with Trejo.
He was supposed to come up tothe 24-hour photo, but
apparently he ended up blowingout a tire and couldn't make it
on the way up.
So he had literally outfittedhis camper already, tore out the
bunks like Grouch did, and gota nice little setup there.
So you might want to ping himfor.
Well, Paul's probably a greatresource because he's outfitted

(01:11:06):
his whole entire shack likenothing changed from his house
to his trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
Literally it's almost the identical setup to what I
had in my house in the RV.
The only thing I don't have isthe big giant toolboxes and the
amplifier.

Speaker 5 (01:11:25):
Yeah, the layout of it is not really somewhere to
set up a permanent station.
It's laid out Front of thetrailer is a queen-size bed, and
then it has the slide-out whichis a couch and the kitchenette,
and then it's got a drybathroom, the fridge and stuff
and the pantryette, and thenit's got a dry bathroom, the

(01:11:45):
fridge and stuff and the pantryalong the back.
So, but it's just me, so I meanI can set up a little table and
play radio when I want to playradio I hear uh, you know the
6400s are really going, you know, 1500 bucks.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
You could put a 6400 in that trailer and you could do
right from your laptop on thecouch and not have to worry
about radio and cables.

Speaker 4 (01:12:11):
How much are 6400s going for?

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
I've seen them on the use from the refurb section
going for $1,500 to $1,800.
Jesus, that's because everyonewants the Auroras.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
I will tell you.
This is just something that Ilearned through the course of my
experience with RV life.
Had I known what I know now,back in January, I would have
left the bottom bunk and I wouldhave taken out the top and I
would have put a shelf forstorage, but I would have left

(01:12:47):
the bottom bunk as my place tosleep and then I would have
taken the bedroom and I wouldhave turned the bedroom into my
shack studio Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
I have a heck of a lot more space.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Because the bedroom is the biggest space in the RV
right and, other than the toteand some other storage stuff
that I've got in the bedroom, Ionly now I would have just slept
on the bunk, because the bunk,you know, is essentially like a

(01:13:31):
little bigger than a twin, whichis fine for me and the dog, and
then I would have had a muchbigger studio area.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
Yep, yep, not next to the, you know almost sitting on
the toilet kind of thing, butyeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
Literally literally like the wall behind me.
The toilet is right there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
So if you know he goes away and you don't hear
cans crushing, you know where heis.
We're going to institute theflushing sound some days but you
know we'll figure out how weget that way file later.
Cool, all right.
Good on that one.
Awesome, the camper dave,that's, it's as cool.
I'm excited it is one of thoseon my bucket list that we're

(01:14:14):
working on that.
For now I'm a rental guy andand seems to work out.
But yeah, I always wanted tooutfit camper and get that going
and be able to get away forweekends for sure.
It's a stressful life we alllive.
So yeah, it's coming, man,trust me, dude, that was that
was the uh impetus.

Speaker 5 (01:14:32):
We went, went to montecano and I had a, an airbnb
right at the bottom of themountain.
But it was still a 15 minutedrive right at the bottom of the
mountain and seeing everybodycamping up there when my mom,
right after Huntsville, is whenmy mom was like, hey, I'm going
to hang up the keys and I'm like, can I have your trailer?
Yeah, you can take the paymentsover.

(01:14:53):
I'm like I'll take the paymentsover, that's fine.
And I was like it immediatelybooked my spot for Montecino.
So the only thing that sucks isthat's a.
Well, it was two days without acamper to get up there.
That's a three-day trip.
That's a three-day trip now,which is I would love to come up

(01:15:15):
to your 24-hour podo, but thenno, when it becomes as popular
that you have to book in advance, then you're going to wish you
did it before.
Five days there and five daysback.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
Yeah, hey, figure out how to do the job remotely and
you'll be bonused and you can doanywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:15:33):
That's one of the things.
The RV Radio Network isactually having their fall rally
right here just outside of SanAntonio, so I'm taking the
camper over to that as well andI'll be working on the camper.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
There's an RV radio network.

Speaker 5 (01:15:50):
Yeah, yeah, the RV radio network.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
What are they?
Radio and RVs?
Well, radio or just radio.

Speaker 5 (01:15:57):
It's ham radio, oh, it's ham radio operators, and
it's.
I talked to Jason about it,because Jason does a lot of
stuff, and he was like, yeah,it's a bunch of old guys with
campers that are retired, soexpect that.
But yeah, there's the RV RadioNetwork.

(01:16:17):
So I met them at Huntsvillebecause they were there and they
were actually at Dayton.
They were the ARRL Club of theYear Wow, the ARRL Club of the
Year.
So they approached me atHuntsville and were like hey,
can you come do Meshtastic atour big rally?

(01:16:39):
And I'm like sure, where's itat?
Oh, in Cibolo, texas.
Do you know where that's at?
I'm like, yeah, that's like 45minutes away in Cibolo, texas,
do?

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
you know where that's at.
I'm like yeah, that's like 45minutes.
It's awesome that they're ahuge network, but my God, get
out of the 1980s with yourfucking website.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's allhand coded.
What is wrong with you?
Oh boy, oh, that must bepainful as a web designer or
webmaster.
But anyway, sorry, sidetrackedCool, all right.

(01:17:08):
Well, that kind of dovetailsinto a good thing here.
So, yeah, if you may not knowwho Dave is, dave has kind of,
let's say, set the scene in aMeshtastic light.
He's a ham radio operator, he'sgot a lot of accolades to his
name and he's come up with somereally cool Meshtastic devices
as well as contributions and abunch of stuff.

(01:17:29):
So to start us off, dave, kindof give us your origin story a
little bit, how you got into hamradio and then how kind of your
business and Meshtastic kind ofall blended together and gave
you what you're at to today.

Speaker 5 (01:17:41):
All right.
Well, I started out with GMRS.
A couple of guys around herewere starting to play with GMRS
and I started playing with GMRSand learned very, very quickly
that I wanted more.
It just the channelization, thelimitations.
I wanted more.
And I got my taste of more whenthe BTEC GMRS Pro came.

(01:18:05):
Pro came out right, and then7500 radio.
Those were gmrs radios but youwere actually able to do
location sharing and messagingon it like aprs, just not aprs.
And gmrs actually allows shortmessages and location sharing
Right.
So started playing with that.

(01:18:25):
And what I didn't realize is Iwas learning how to use APRS.
Um, got my ham ticket and wasable to on the N 7,500, able to
check the box for APRS and nextthing you know, I had a
DigiPeter in my pickup truck.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Um, okay, yeah, Going really hardcore.

Speaker 5 (01:18:44):
Yeah, um, and it.
And it's super simple with thatdevice.
It just needs an internetconnection.
So I got my ticket and startedplaying.
I got into POTA immediatelybecause I was traveling a lot,
but I was a tech and I got myticket in January, february of

(01:19:04):
23.
And so 10 meters was wide openand it was great, february of 23
.
And so 10 meters was wide openand it was great, right.
So I was doing podo activationafter podo activation, traveling
around with a 10 meter dipole,and it was awesome.
And then it got hot outside and10 meters died and I couldn't
do anything.
The music stopped.
Yeah, couldn't do anything.

(01:19:30):
The music stopped, yeah, soimmediately went, got my general
ticket and, uh, I've been kindof playing ever since.
Love poda.
Um, my job over the last threeyears has enabled me to travel
all over the state and doactivations.
Um, it was actually kind of anescape because Texas is huge and
so I would have a seven, eighthour drive to the job site.

(01:19:51):
Wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Dude, that's like driving halfway across New York,
yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:19:58):
Still in Texas, wow.
And what I started doing is Iwas like, okay, I'll find a park
in between and I'll drive, takea break, get out of the truck,
play radio, then get back in thetruck and head on.
And so every time I wouldtravel I would pick a path one
way to be able to hit a park.

(01:20:18):
Hit a path another way hit apark, come back, find parks that
were in the area.
So I've got a bunch of parks inWest Texas because that's where
a lot of our job sites were.
So, yeah, pota was is my kind ofmy thing when it comes to ham
radio, which is why having an RVis going to be awesome, because

(01:20:38):
now I can go camp and POTA andnever go home.
So, yeah, I've had my ticket.
I've had my general since Juneof 23.
So a little over two years nowI don't do anything half-assed.

(01:20:59):
So I jump with my.
I mean, I've got an FTD X 10 infront of me which I heard you
guys bashing, the FTD X 10.
I love my FTD.
I had to.
I sold it to another hambecause I wanted to give it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Trust me, grouch is the only one who's ICOM all the
way.
He'll go with that dead, bloody, cold hands.
Where's the world?
Where did you get that?
Did Julie send that to you, oris that the one Izzo gave you?

(01:21:31):
Is this is the too small shirtthat iso gave me?
Oh okay, I was wondering wherethat camera because he gave one
to me and I'm like dude, this isnot gonna fit me.
This could be like a half shirt.
So he gave it to you got it.

Speaker 5 (01:21:38):
You know, I have a 9700, I have a id52, I'm an, I'm
an equal opportunity guy.
Okay, kenwood's kind ofdepressing.
I do have the d74.
I bought it at a uh uh silentkey sale and I'm not.
I mean, it's a beautiful radiobut not really impressed and the
battery life wow, well, thebattery life definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
I've heard that on the kenwoods a lot.
The battery life is kind ofshit.

Speaker 5 (01:22:01):
But well, dude you have to carry three batteries to
get through a day whoa okay,that's not my radio, then
horrible um, so I never.
I mean, it's like I said, it'sa beautiful radio and it does a
lot of really neat stuff, but II like to carry a radio around
with me and I don't want tocarry four batteries hoping I'll

(01:22:22):
make it through the day get ahundred amp hour on a battery on
a backpack, get it for my HT.
I'm good, well and everybody'slike oh, we'll get that because
there's a 500-hour battery packthat one of our fellow hams
makes a little 5-amp hourbattery pack.
But it takes a nice sleek,slender, beautiful radio and

(01:22:44):
makes it have this huge humpbackLike a big booty.
Yep, yeah, exactly, um so, butyeah, so I love all radios.
Um, I just happened to buy oncecry once when I was trying to
find my first hf radio.
I tried to find what was thebest I could afford and the ftdx

(01:23:04):
10 was the best that I couldafford.

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
Now, you had originally said earlier, you
don't half-ass anything.
Is that how your call sign cameabout?

Speaker 5 (01:23:11):
Uh, actually my call sign is my father's call.
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
Because everyone's like oh, he's K booty.
I'm like where'd he get thatnickname from?

Speaker 5 (01:23:20):
It worked out, but uh , it's unique, but my shit.
But my first call sign washorrible.
It was KI5ZKA.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
Oh God.
Yeah, it's not even Zach, it'sZika, it's Zika, oh man.

Speaker 5 (01:23:38):
And so I went on there and, sure enough, my dad
was a ham.
He was more of a ham for what'sthe right word for it Utility,
than anything else.
We were volunteer firefighters.
I was a volunteer firefighterfor a long time, got my dad into
it, and it was cheaper to buy aham radio and open it up than

(01:23:59):
it was to buy a at the time backin the early 90s, than it was
to buy a public safety radio.
Public safety radio was, youknow, eight $900.
Ham radio was three $400.
And you pull a little solderchip off of there and it'll work
on the.
The public.
Yeah, wide band it, yep, yeah,you're good to go.
So, um, yeah, when I found outmy dad's call was still

(01:24:22):
available, I snatched it up.
Oh, dude.
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Yeah, yeah, I, uh, I have a few friends or like that.
I for a while I had a fewmentors that I was like when I
was thinking about changing mycall sign, but then I realized
that their call signs were likewhiskey, alpha one, yankee, you
know, quebec, you know.
I'm like no, sorry, I needsomething shorter.
And so I was like I'm justleaving it, my call sign, the
way I have it, and I'll be good.

Speaker 5 (01:24:44):
Which it kind of sucks, because I really like the
fact that I have my dad's callsign.
But I am going to startstudying one day for my extra
because I would like a littleshort call sign but not many
have to give up my dad's callsign, so I don't know if I do
that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
And Grouch is probably.
I'm sure he's never going tochange the og again because I
know he busted hard to make thathappen.
I'm the same way like I once II got my no code tech call um
and when no code technicians wayback in 93 were out they
weren't getting n1 calls.
Those were what you knownovices got which had 10 meter
privileges.
So when they fcc assigned meone like all the FCC examiners

(01:25:27):
are like you've got to hold ontothat call because that's like
you know you've got noviceprivileges and you know no one's
going to be able to look you up, but you know you're going to
be able to get on the 10 meterband.
I'm like that's illegal.
I'm like no code technician.

Speaker 5 (01:25:49):
They're like but yeah , they'll never know because
only you know, call, sign andI'm just like, okay, fine, so I
held on to it and then, you know, took a 20-year hiatus and got
back in the hobby and it's kindof stuck, it just sticks.
It's weird, yeah, I, I mean, II have an 891 and an atos on the
truck, I have a 510 in thetruck, I I have 12 different hf
radios now.
Um, yeah, so I, I don't I jumpin with both feet and try and
get into everything I possiblycan.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Um, so then you need a flex in the trailer.
That's just the way it's gonnago.
I thought about it.

Speaker 5 (01:26:15):
I really should dude you should?

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
I mean, because then with the remote head I could
actually you don't even need theremote head, you can nice nice
laptop with a nice display, oror you can figure out how to put
a little PC on the TV insidethe trailer and operate a
wireless keyboard and mouse fromthere and you know, yeah, you'd
be golden.
That would be beautiful.

Speaker 5 (01:26:35):
One of the guys in our club has a.
He's very wealthy.
He designed the digital toasterback in the late 80s.
Early 90s Makes digital toastWell.
It was the first device thatyou could actually use a

(01:26:55):
computer to edit video with.
He invented that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
Oh, that toaster Got it, okay I was like what?
Like toast is that popular.
They need something digital forit.

Speaker 5 (01:27:04):
It's an analog thing he has a retired news van.
Oh wow, it's got a 40-inchcurved screen with a flex and
then the telescoping top of ithas a step IR on the top of it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
Oh, you got a.
Have you met, you ever seen,ki1p?
What is it?
Lost Nation Radio?
No, have you ever seen KI1P?
What is it?
Lost Nation Radio?
He's got a TV van and he's gotthe dual mass in the van itself
and he's got a full flex, a step, ir, every band, everything
under the sun, and he's runninga kilowatt in the thing.
It's freaking phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
And an Ameritron amp yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
Dude.
The funny part is I don't knowif your friend got the same way,
but like the news vans, if youknow somebody and know somebody,
you can get them for like adollar.

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
Oh he, he.
He actually jokes about thefact that he got drunk and
played on eBay and next thingyou know, there was a new fan in
his driveway.
Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (01:28:06):
Wow, I'd love to hang out with him here.
Let me go around with yourscreen.
Let's go get drunk now.
Oh, dude, that's cool.
So you don't cut corners, whichis awesome, it's good to hear.
So your POTUS setup is you'reprimarily 891 from the truck, or
?

Speaker 5 (01:28:21):
what's your field?
Radio stuff Well, it wasbecause I have the 891 set up to
where I can take it out of thetruck easily.
Radio stuff well, it wasbecause I have the 891 set up to
where I can take it out of thetruck easily.
It's in a uh, an armor lockcage with, I forget, the tuner,
but I've got a tuner on it, soit's sitting in the truck and
it's three plugs away from beingon a bench.
So that was that was my podasetup until I started playing

(01:28:41):
with qrp stuff.
Um, I got a really good deal ona kx3 and started doing poda.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
Yeah yeah, like I said I, I yep, kx3.
Okay, let's see where yourrabbit hole goes, yeah um so uh,
and started playing with qrpstuff.

Speaker 5 (01:28:59):
But uh no, right now it's the ftX one.
Um I, I screwed up and won it.
Um so wow.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
Sorry to hear that you screwed up and won it.

Speaker 5 (01:29:13):
So GigaParts I don't know if you guys remember
GigaParts took Jason's FTX, oneum, that he did all of his
videos with because he wassupposed to get an Optima and
they didn't have an Optima butthey had a field.
So at Dayton they handed himthe field to play with and
that's what he made all of hisvideos on.
Well, then he gave it back toGigaparts and he got his Optima.
Well, they auctioned off thatFT-X1 with a Gigaparts backpack

(01:29:39):
and the POTA-30 mast.
What, wow?
30 mast, what um and wow.
So you do the math and all ofthat.
I think it ended up being aboutlike two grand, about two grand
worth of stuff, right.
And the auction was windingdown and I'm like, well, let's
see where it's at.
It was at 1590, right, and I'mlike I'll put in a bid for 1600

(01:30:03):
because it's worth every bit of1600, and then nobody outbid me
so I'm like oops, okay, wow,yeah so now I'm playing with the
ftx one, waiting veryimpatiently for the spa1
amplifier for it, so that it'llbe 100 watts, and then that'll

(01:30:25):
be my Pona rig.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
So what's your take on it?
You like it, hate it, hate tolike it.
It's a beautiful radio.

Speaker 5 (01:30:32):
I honestly, as much of a Yaesu fanboy as I am, I am
very annoyed with them becausethey've got this if you look at
all their monitor radios, theyall have big knob, four little
knobs, right.
If you look at the 510, the 500, the ftdx 10, the new ftx one,
it's big knob for the littleknobs.
If you go to any one of thoseradio and turn those knobs, they

(01:30:55):
all do different things ondifferent radios and they will
not do the same thing as all ofthem do.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
Stop smiling grouch, stop enough.

Speaker 5 (01:31:02):
We know because I had , because I have a 510 right
here.
I have my FTD-X10 right here, my510 is right there, the FTX1 is
in its case in the closet.
But I had them all sitting outand I'm like, oh, look at this,
they're all the same.
Well, if I turn the knob on the510, it does this.

(01:31:24):
If I turn that same knob on theFTD, the 510, it does this.
If I turn that same knob on theFTDX10, it does that.
And it does something totallydifferent on the FTX1.
I mean, it is so hard to gofrom radio to radio to radio
even though they look identical.
But beyond that, the FTX1 is anamazing little radio.
It really is.
Wow, does it have ears?

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Not as good as my ftdx10, but pretty close well,
you take out the, the wholeheader drawing side of it, you
know, which is what everyoneloves, is, uh, you know, gonna
be a challenge.
I I don't even know if theycould even build that circuitry
into that fx1 ever for that, butit'd be really cool to see if
they could.
But I don't know.
It's funny because, like Idon't really care that it has an

(01:32:07):
awesome speaker, like for me.
I do not like my 891 is loudenough that I like turn it down
a lot of times when I'm outsideon a bench because I don't want
to piss off everybody else'saround me when you know I've got
somebody off, you knowfrequency or whatever, or
somebody comes in booming, butthat radio is just way too loud
for me, just in general.
Um, but I don't know.
Like I I don't need aprs in it.

Speaker 5 (01:32:29):
I love the, the two meter 440 option, but yeah, and
then I'll never use the fusion,I'll never use the prs, I'll
never use probably, I don't knowbecause it has two antenna
ports.
I may use the two meter part ofit, um, and have a two meter
antenna and for, like, field dayor something maybe.
But, um, yeah, I, I was goingfor what's the next step up from

(01:32:53):
the 891, and that's the ftx one, optima, right, um, and the
fact that it has a built-intuner which, from what I
understand, I haven't gotten toplay with it yet because I don't
have the back end of it yet,the SPA-1.
But it's supposed to be apretty good tuner on it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
Curious to see the results.
I'm waiting for the 1A to comeout.
Maybe Then I'll make the move,but until then, all right, cool.

Speaker 4 (01:33:21):
Or you could just go with the Icom.

Speaker 1 (01:33:24):
What the Mark II.

Speaker 4 (01:33:26):
No the.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
Oh, the 705?
.

Speaker 4 (01:33:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:29):
Yeah, but dude.

Speaker 5 (01:33:31):
I want 100 watts.
All right, the fly's too shortfor QRP.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
Yeah, so the big.
So when it came out, thebiggest thing that they were
looking for was, like forsatellite work, because you can
run.
Yeah, it doesn't do it.
It's supposed to do it.
Not the 1f doesn't.
No, the 1f won't.
It doesn't have the two.
I thought that it does.

Speaker 5 (01:33:52):
But well, I guess no, because I don't think you can
use you can't set up.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
It's not set up like a vhf, uhf, like the 150 or
whatever to be able to do.

Speaker 5 (01:34:02):
You know you can have v and u, but it's still using
the same radio, right?
So it's not true dual receive.
It's dual receive if you're onHF and UHF or VHF, but it's not
dual receive in UHF, vhf.
True dual receive anyways.
So no, it won't do satellite.

Speaker 4 (01:34:21):
What do you use when you're doing satellite?
What radio do you use?

Speaker 1 (01:34:26):
9 what do you use when you're doing satellite?
What radio do you use?
9700.
Yeah, I'd love to use a 9700.
Oh my gosh, that's some cashfor VHF, uhf stuff.
Well.

Speaker 5 (01:34:34):
I started off so I had a TS-2000, kenwood TS-2000.
And originally I got theTS-2000.
My club has a two-metersideband net that we're trying
to get kicked up and I didn'thave a two-meter sideband radio
so I found a good deal on aTS2000.
And those older radios, whenyou get three or four guys with

(01:34:58):
TS2000s trying to talk to eachother, everybody's a little bit
off frequency, everybody soundslike Mickey Mouse and
everybody's tuning the dialtrying to make everybody sound
right.
So you get this cyclical,everybody tuning the dial and it
just never works.
So after about five nets of usdoing that, I'm like what's the

(01:35:18):
next best 100-watt single-sideband two-meter radio out there?
And it was a 9700.
So I bought it for that andthen figured out that it does
satellites really, really welland I bought uh, he was right
next to us at Huntsville the WA4MCM kit satellite.

Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
Oh, yeah, the one that Kyle's done, yep.

Speaker 5 (01:35:43):
Yep.
So I got one of those.
I put it together and I'mworking with Don, the designer
of it.
It's great for 5 watts, but notmore than 5 watts.
It's got a little RF problem,but he's got it fixed and I'm
supposed to be getting the newboard.
So it was something that he wasactually happy I figured out.

(01:36:06):
So, yeah, talking back andforth with him, he was like wow,
this is something I really needto.
This is a design flaw thatwe've got to figure out, and so
he's already got a revised boardand I should be getting it next
week.
And that thing is awesome.
You hook it up and it starts.

(01:36:28):
It starts, yeah, you have touse software, obviously, and uh,
but psr rotator, all of them,it works with all the different
softwares.
And you just tell it hey, I'mgoing to look at so 50, right,
and when so 50 starts gettingclose, you, you hear a little
beep and then the antenna goesand then it will track it all

(01:36:48):
the way across and then, whenit's done, it goes back home,
yep, and you hit the nextsatellite and it over here and
follows it across and then comesback home.

Speaker 2 (01:37:01):
Does it do the Doppler shift, frequency changes
for you too?

Speaker 5 (01:37:06):
The rotator itself is just a rotator, right, but I
bought the SAT box to go with itand the SAT box interfaces with
the 9700 perfectly when on theSAT box software, which is a web
interface, I just type in whatsatellite I want to talk to.
The sat box software, which isweb interface, I just type in

(01:37:27):
what satellite want to talk to.
It changes everything on theradio and points the rotator in
the right area to where I canjust sit there from my camper
with the antenna outside andwork satellites just just short
of you actually asking ai tomake the contact for you, dave,
it really kind of takes all thefun out of it really well, mike
was out there with the Yagitrying to move it.

(01:37:48):
Oh, I've done the Arrow antennaand the HT.
What HT did you use?
It's a Ocean, ocean.

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
Wuxong Wuxong, he's using an Icom radio no.

Speaker 5 (01:38:05):
It's a little Chinese , I don't know Woshan.
He's using an Icom radio, no.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
It's a little Chinese , I don't know.
I just find it like you know.

Speaker 5 (01:38:14):
Because it's a 7-watt true dual receive HT.
So that's what I was using forsatellites.
And I don't know how Robertdoes it, holding that big elk
antenna and working satellites.

Speaker 1 (01:38:32):
Well, dude look at his forearms I mean his forearms
can tell you the story.

Speaker 5 (01:38:35):
That antenna gets heavy quick and you're trying to
do five different things andtrack the satellite and record.
And record and talk to peopleand record, and record and talk
to people, yeah, so why not gothe easiest route possible and
let a computer do it for me?

Speaker 1 (01:38:51):
Well, you know, throw money at it if you can.
I guess that's what it boilsdown to.

Speaker 5 (01:38:56):
I have a job.
I have been very blessed overthe last three years to make a
very comfortable lifestyle whereI can buy a lot of toys.

Speaker 1 (01:39:03):
That's the way to go, sometimes no shame in that.
Nope, like the two 3d printersand yeah, we were going to get
into that in a second because Iwas like is that a P one S back
there?
Is that P two S, two P one,okay, nice, with the full.
You know carousels and to boot.

Speaker 5 (01:39:24):
Each one of them has the regular AMS and an AMS too.

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
Wow, yeah, nice Well.
So yeah, you've got a lot ofstuff going on obviously with
the ham radio side but like, soyou know, you've you kind of
making a scene a little bit withthe whole mesh tastic stuff.
So you know, kind of dive intothat a little bit.
You know, tell us what draggedyou, you know, to building
something like said device.

Speaker 5 (01:39:50):
You didn't build it, okay, okay.
Yeah, this is the, the, the guythat made me so popular.
So with the ham radio club, I'mthe vice president of the
Medina County amateur radiocorporation Corporation and we
do a lot of MCOM and eventsright.
And when Meshtastic came out,we originally me and a buddy, my

(01:40:14):
buddy Patrick, who's kind of mybusiness partner with the Seed
Studios stuff we started seeingthese videos on Meshtastic about
two and a half, three years agoand we're like, hey, this could
be something right.
So we wanted a range test.
So I hand built because thatwas back when you had to buy a
development board, a batteryantenna, you had to build

(01:40:36):
everything right, everythingright.
Yep, we built a couple of solarnodes, put them up about 35
feet and we live about 17 milesaway from each other and we're
actually able to communicateback and forth on Meshtastic and
I'm like, hey, okay.
So then we built another oneand we put it up on the club's
repeater tower.

(01:40:56):
We built another one, put it upon one of our club members'
towers and next thing, you know,we had a majority of the county
covered with Meshtastic.
Wow, did a presentation at theclub and, of course, ham radio
clubs and ham radio.
Guys, when you go to a meetingand show off a new toy,
everybody's got to have one.
Right, and when they're cheap,I mean they're inexpensive

(01:41:20):
devices yeah.
So everybody got them.
And so then we're like, hey,how can we integrate this into
our income, our layers ofcommunication?
Right, because you want to haveas many possible layers as
possible.
And we were going through andeverything had a compromise of
some sort.

(01:41:41):
If it had an antenna, then itwas in a 3D printed box that was
made out of PLA and would meltin the South Texas heat, or you
could buy a more expensive case,but it didn't hold a big enough
battery to operate for a longtime and everything was just
kind of a compromise and nothingwas reliable enough for us to
actually be able to use it untilthis came out and I got on the

(01:42:07):
pre-order list for it.
I was one of the first people toget one in the States and it's
waterproof.
It's about two days worth ofbattery life.
You can clip it on your belt orput it on a lanyard.
It's got a temperature sensor,it's got an accelerometer and a

(01:42:32):
light sensor that don't workwith Meshtastic, but it's just.
I'm like dude, this is thething.
So I started putting it throughits paces Literally in the
middle of summer it was 110outside left it on the dash of
my truck and walked away, cameback about eight hours later and
it still worked.
The temperature sensor in itgoes up to 150 degrees and

(01:42:53):
stopped.
It stopped.
I was like, sorry, check it out, that's its max temperature
that it can read, and I knowthat now.
But it didn't work.
This is actually the samedevice.
This is it Didn't warp, didn'tbreak, didn't crack open, didn't
freak out.
It was still running.
And I'm like, all right, so wegot something.

(01:43:14):
So we bought some more and westarted trying to use Meshtastic
at events.
Right, because the GPS in theseis very accurate and it was
another layer of communication,because the GPS in these is very
accurate and it was anotherlayer of communication.
So first we started testing itout, where we would have a
couple of guys with them andwe'd watch them.
There's a program called MeshSense, made by Affirmatech same

(01:43:37):
guys who make N3FJP, right, andit's free.
Well, that will give youeverything that's going on in
the Meshtastic world, the deviceit is connected to, and, lo and
behold, I could have a PC witha map and be able to see where
my guys were at in real time asthey're walking down the street.
And I'm like, okay, this iscool.

(01:44:02):
So we bought a couple more,bought a couple more, about a
couple more, and then seedstudios put out an email saying
that they're building ahazardous response kit and they
want people to help design it.
And so I was like, what the hell?
Send them an email said, hey,I'm interested in your hazardous
response kit.
By the way, this is what we'redoing with your mesh tastic
devices.

(01:44:22):
I got an email back saying thatthe CEO would like to meet me
and the guy's name is Eric.
And so next thing, you know, Ihave a meeting with Eric, the
CEO of Seed Studios, our countyemergency management coordinator
and one of the guys from TexasDepartment of Emergency
Management, and we sat down, wetalked about what we were doing,

(01:44:44):
and Eric had one of the hascomkits and said here, break it,
tell me what's wrong with it,tell me how to make it work
better.
Well, yeah, so we startedplaying with it and, once again,
I am not.
I need to spend less timeplaying with toys and more time
learning about toys.
Because it uses Node-RED tointerface LoRaWAN sensor

(01:45:07):
networks with Meshtastic.
Oh wow, that's all Greek.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
The good news about Node-RED is that you can pretty
much figure it out by.
You know trial and error andread other people's scripts, so
that's not coding.

Speaker 5 (01:45:23):
It's all kind of base built right, but they didn't
really give me any sensors thatI could use in a real use case.
I got like motion sensors andstuff like that, nothing that I
could really use because I needtemperature, humidity, wind
speed, you know stuff that wewould use in an event or an
incident.
But we started using thesedevices more and more and one of

(01:45:45):
the reps came up and said hey,we'd love to come see what
you're doing and how you'redoing it with Meshtastic.
And they came out to a coupleof events and at the second
event she approached me and saidDave, we would like you to be
our ham radio guy for Meshtastic.
We want you to help promoteMeshtastic to the ham radio

(01:46:05):
community.
I'm like what's that mean?
You know, is that a paycheckand do I get paid for it?
Yeah, is that a paycheck?
Is that?
What is that?
And she's like well, we willpay for you to go to ham fests
and give you stuff to give away,and then you can also be a
point of sale for our devices.

(01:46:25):
And I'm like okay, so first onewas Hamcation this year and we
went out there and I had alittle gift box of all the
latest devices and I was like Ialready knew Mike because one of
the projects was over in theHuntsville Texas area that I was

(01:46:49):
doing.
So I was back and forth toHuntsville a lot and caught him
at a poda activation and thenhim and I kind of kicked it off
and every time I go toHuntsville I'd hang out.
So he introduced me to the restof the ham radio YouTube guys
right at Hamcation.
You know, uh, youtube guysright at hamcation and sorry,

(01:47:12):
there's pollen and stuff in theair right now.
Yeah, no problem.
Um, but, and so that's when Iwas just I got to tell everybody
about, like this device andthis is the indicator and we
have some other devices thatreally aren't that cool.
And so then Dayton came alongand they sent me out to Dayton

(01:47:35):
and we actually had a booth atDayton and I sold out of devices
within about four and a halfhours on Friday at Dayton and
then had the rest of the hamshow.
Just tell people to go toAmazon because you can get go to
Amazon, cause you can get themon Amazon.
But again got to hang out againwith the ham radio community

(01:47:57):
and became the mesh dealer iskind of the moniker that
everybody's given me is becauseat Huntsville, up at Montesano,
I was literally dealing mesh inthe parking lot out of my truck.

Speaker 1 (01:48:08):
Come on over here, dude.
I got something great for you.

Speaker 5 (01:48:11):
It was.
And what's funny is somebodywould come up and say, hey, I
was told you're the guy with themesh.
And I'm like, yes, I'm the guywith the mesh, Come over to the
truck.
And then I would go over to thetruck and then I would walk
back over to the bill ofpavilion and somebody else would
go hey, man, you got some mesh.
And then I would go to thetruck and go back and forth and
it was kind of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
Like a game of telephone.
Eventually it gets the word hey, you got any hashish man.
I'm really.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
You, you, you were my own still drug dealer.

Speaker 5 (01:48:41):
Blessing and the curse of how great the ham radio
YouTube community is iseverybody was just like talk to
Dave, just go talk to Dave, talkto Dave.
And I've been on several livestreams now and podcasts and
everything else.
So, yeah, now I haven't gottenthe official title, but I've

(01:49:05):
been approved to be what'scalled a goofy name.
I'm a Seed Studio Ranger andtheir Ranger program is I am one
of about 18 people worldwidethat is on their little list of
people, that is, ambassadors forSeed Studios in a specific
field.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
Do you get a beret?

Speaker 5 (01:49:28):
No, I get a check.
I get a check for doing stuff.
So I actually get.
Not only do I get a free rideto go to all the ham fests, but
they actually can now issue me acheck for my time.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
I'll get you a beret, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:49:49):
It's going to be maroon, though, because I was
there, it's going to be maroon,and now I get to promote some of
their new stuff.
This is the L1, which is theirlatest device.
It's the first backtrack alittle bit.

(01:50:09):
All of these devices areLoRaWAN or IoT devices that
happen to have a chipset thatwill work with Meshtastic.
There is nothing specificallydesigned for Meshtastic until
Seed Studios came out with theL1.
It is the first device that wasactually specifically designed
for Meshtastic.
That isn't like.

(01:50:31):
This is the T1000E.
The A, B, C and D are allpurpose-specific, either LoRaWAN
or IoT devices for tracking.
The E is just it's got the meshtastic firmware on it, Um, and
they have any display version ofit.

(01:50:53):
The L one actually comes out indifferent flavors where you can
buy the baseboard, and if Ishare my screen I can go through
a little bit of yeah, God atthe bottom.
Yeah, I'm just trying to makesure it's not on something bad,
okay it won't matter, we'll editit out, blank it out, whatever

(01:51:15):
there we go and let's go, andall right, so.
So, like this is the l1 with thee-ink display, right, and it's
it's kind of backtracking alittle bit to the.
You have to build a case.
They have the l1 pro yep, whichcomes ready to go.

(01:51:39):
It's got the case, the battery,everything.
You just buy it right?
Those are 42 bucks when they'reavailable Then.
But what I like to do is becauseI do like to tinker a little
bit is you can buy the baseboard, which it comes with the
antennas and everything else.

(01:52:00):
But it also helps me highlightthe board itself.
Here we go.
So it has the board itself, thebaseboard.
It has an OLED display port, ithas an E-ink display port, it
has your battery On the otherside of that.
It has a solar port, because itactually has a built-in solar

(01:52:23):
charge controller, and it has agrove port for grove sensors.
Um, it's the first device toactually have a joystick, which
meshastic is now designing aversion of their firmware to
utilize the joystick finally.
Yeah, so it, yeah, and it's gota lot of capabilities in a very

(01:52:47):
discreet small package andthey're $34.
I know that's crazy.
Yeah, then.
So I'll stop sharing and put meback on Cool.
So, and this is the L1 with theOLED display right.
And so there's the joystick,and it has a new.

(01:53:09):
Let's see if I can.

Speaker 1 (01:53:11):
Yeah, I probably won't grab the.
There you go, okay.

Speaker 5 (01:53:15):
Has a new menu system .

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
I got to play with that in Unsell.
That is a super freaking cooldevice.

Speaker 5 (01:53:24):
But one of the cool things is, if you go up or down,
you can all right refocus.
There we go.
It has a little keyboard andyou can free text directly from
the device.
That's crazy using now this is.
I don't have the version, sothe up and down don't work but

(01:53:47):
you'll be able to use thejoystick to go up, down, left,
right and type out your messagedirectly from the device.
So it's getting back to astandalone device if you want it
to be, or you can, of course,tie it to your phone and use it.
I want one of those.
Yeah, I want one, of course,tie it to your phone and use it.
So that's the latest one.
I want one of those.
Yeah, I want one of those too.

(01:54:08):
And I got to make a shamelessplug.
This case was designed by AlleyCat Designs.
Alley is kind of a close friendof mine.
She does wonderful, amazingcases and she actually.
I gave her the specs andeverything and had a case for

(01:54:28):
this before they were released.
Wow, I actually helped herdesign the case and get the
button right and everything else.
Yeah, I got one of those too.

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
Yeah, yeah, like that .

Speaker 5 (01:54:40):
Yeah, and I mean, like she, the G11, which this is
the, this is the bad boy of themesh tastic devices.
Um, this will actually do threewatts.

Speaker 1 (01:54:56):
It's a cb version of mesh what are you?
Talking about um.

Speaker 5 (01:55:01):
Now it takes usb cpd 60 watts and it's not very
portable.
It doesn't have a battery oranything else, but it is the bad
boy of the group.
And I was like, hey, ali,there's no cases for these,
because this just comes withbasically, two PCB boards
sandwiched together and freespace in between.

(01:55:22):
And I'm like, hey, nobody makesa case for this.
And so she made me a case andthen published it on the
internet.
So I've got to put out a reportfor Allie.
She's awesome, but yeah, so Iget to play with Meshtastic and
I guess, going back on thatmoniker where I don't do
anything half-ass, jumped infrom playing with it to now

(01:55:44):
being a representative for it.

Speaker 1 (01:55:47):
Because why not?
It's the next logical step.

Speaker 5 (01:55:50):
But the cool thing about it is I get to go to all
the HamFest for free Travel,accommodations, everything to
pay for.

Speaker 4 (01:55:58):
So what is the card one?
What makes that one like?
Besides that it doesn't melt.

Speaker 5 (01:56:11):
It's waterproof ip67 rated waterproof.
Okay, it is the size of acredit card about.
If you stacked about fivecredit cards on top of each
other thickness wise, but sizeof a credit card uh.
Extremely portable.
Battery life is better thanmost devices out there.
Uh, it has a really, reallyaccurate gps temperature sensor,
all in a cool little package.

(01:56:32):
Um, this is what if.
If somebody asks me and says,hey, I want to get into mesh
tastic what to get, and I tellthem this, and not because I'm
affiliated with them at all.
I actually got affiliated withthem because I liked the device
so much.

Speaker 4 (01:56:48):
And how's the antenna ?
Is it internally, I'm assuming?

Speaker 5 (01:56:50):
It's got an internal antenna.
There's a little dipole rightacross the top, right here, and
it has got the same range as adevice with a big antenna.
I'm not sure how I've never Ihaven't actually cracked one of
these open and tore it apart butI don't know how they have that
dipole working in there.
But it works.

(01:57:11):
It works really really well.
Even hanging off your belt loopright up against your body, it
works really really well.
And so, yeah, no fuss, no muss.
The only thing that everybodycomplains about is it's got the
pogo pins on the back.
Yeah, they're a charger, butthat's to maintain the
waterproof on it.

(01:57:31):
There is going to be a and Idon't know it's got delayed.
They were supposed to try andrelease it this year, but
probably not now A secondversion of this, a newer version
of it that is Meshtastic,specific.
Like I said, this is repurposedIoT stuff and it is supposed to

(01:57:54):
have a USB-C to make everybodyhappy.

Speaker 1 (01:57:59):
So if that thing was repurposed, what was the
original intent for it?

Speaker 5 (01:58:02):
Tracking, asset tracking of some sort or another
.
Intent for it tracking um assettracking of some sort or
another?
Um because it has bluetoothwi-fi, um gps it it was, I don't
know it.
Track shipments, track packages, track animals, track whatever

(01:58:22):
so if I put that on my dog, yes,people there is.
If you go on Thingiverse orprintable.

Speaker 4 (01:58:29):
I can track my dog Now.
What app does it use to trackthat?

Speaker 5 (01:58:33):
The Meshtastic app, same app as every other device.

Speaker 1 (01:58:39):
But it's only good to you know, obviously, how big
your network is from a saturatedstandpoint, stuff like that.

Speaker 5 (01:58:46):
These devices get about a mile, mile and a half
range on their own.
So if you want to figure outwhere your dog's at there is, on
principles there's actually acase for it.
That'll strap directly to a dogcollar, because people have
thought about that and it works.

Speaker 4 (01:59:05):
And for you.

Speaker 5 (01:59:06):
Paul, there is a Mali case for this where you could
strap it to his.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
Dude, he just needs a small little antenna, one that
he could stick up the top.
It would be like the roboticdog.
That would be cool.

Speaker 2 (01:59:21):
Dude Mali would be awesome, because I could just
put it right on his pouch.
Yeah and then yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:59:32):
You said the battery lasts like five days.

Speaker 5 (01:59:35):
About two days.
Oh, two days, it really depends.
It's a battery-powered radio,so depending on the amount of
traffic, if it's a heavilycongested area, then it's not
going to last as long as itwould if there's no traffic at
all.
Right, Mine lasts about a dayand a half, two days and we have

(01:59:57):
at last count I have there's175, 176 nodes in our area.
Now it was kind of cool when wewere trying to play with
Meshtastic over in Medina County, which is just west of Bexar
County, which is San Antonio, westarted building up this little
network and there wasabsolutely nothing in San

(02:00:19):
Antonio, Because a lot of peopleand that's why I say, when you
build it, they will come.
Because a lot of people, andthat's why I say, when you build
it, they will come.
When I first bought a couple ofHeltec V3s the super cheapest
$20 for a pair or two on Amazonmesh-tastic devices I bought one
and it just sat there because Icouldn't talk to anybody.
So then I bought two so I couldtalk to myself, right, Just to

(02:00:45):
see it work.
But if you have a device andyou leave it on, as we were
building up all these nodes inMedina County and we had about
40 in Medina County.
Well then a guy in San Antonioturned his on and there was
people to talk to, so then hetaught all of his buddies and so
next thing, you know, it wentfrom just west of San Antonio to

(02:01:06):
completely encompassing thenorthern half of San Antonio,
where now on six hops I can go72 miles with Meshtastic.

Speaker 2 (02:01:17):
Yeah, Just hopping through A lot of the guys and
they work at 14,000 feet A lotof the guys that are, and they
work at 14,000 feet.

Speaker 5 (02:01:25):
Yes, they do.

Speaker 1 (02:01:27):
Just saying right, Not that you're mesh-tastic-ing
at 14,000 feet, but whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:01:34):
Absolutely, absolutely.
The nice thing about this is Ican tether this to my belt and
stick it in my front pocket andI can jump out of a plane.
Tether this to my belt andstick it in my front pocket and
I can jump out of a plane andit'll track my altitude, my gps
location, my speed, everythinglike it it is.
It is a phenomenal freakingdevice I agree from the tracking

(02:01:57):
perspective.

Speaker 1 (02:01:58):
I was talking more about like you're texting me
from 14 000 feet in mesh tasticwell, no, but I, I mean, I'll
receive it anyways, you would?
I was at the weight out the way.
What is it?
Five and a half minutes for youto get down to earth so you can
respond back yeah, depending onhow much time I'm under canopy
yeah, true right this is themolly hole.

Speaker 5 (02:02:21):
Oh yeah, that would work great lock and rock.

Speaker 4 (02:02:29):
I like that yeah, that's sweet.

Speaker 1 (02:02:32):
You could probably get Ryan to print that for you,
buddy, if you can get the thing,if you can get the printables,
the STL, the STL file, ryanwould print it I don't know if
it's on printables or not.

Speaker 5 (02:02:45):
Yet I'm part of ali's ali designed it and I'm on her,
her beta group and alpha groupand I can get you the files for
it.
So just remind me, and if yousend me the stuff that I won
during the poda, maybe I'll sendyou one.

Speaker 1 (02:03:07):
That would be me sending out the stuff.
So if I'm the one delaying it,it's me, not Paul.
I have finally unburied myselffrom finally getting everything
dried out and I'm like, okay,now I can start compiling videos
.
And then I'm like, oh crap, Istill have to deal with our log
file problem with N3FJP.
God, I hate that software.
Um, and and two, uh, yeah, allof that whole entire list of all

(02:03:30):
of the stuff that uh grouch, souh, you know, did a smashing
job with controlling and loggingand all that stuff.
I still got to get back to thatand and go on a shipping spree.
So yeah, it's.

Speaker 5 (02:03:44):
Or when you'll be coming to Texas soon, right,
paul, he will.

Speaker 2 (02:03:48):
Yeah, I'll be in Texas, probably April.

Speaker 5 (02:03:51):
Okay, oh, I don't want to wait that long.
All right, dan, send mewhatever address you get stuff,
I'll send you one.

Speaker 2 (02:03:59):
Okay, I should be at Hamcation too, because I'll be
down in Florida for that.

Speaker 5 (02:04:05):
I was thinking about sending you next week, not
waiting till next year.

Speaker 2 (02:04:10):
Even better.
Yeah, I'm good, I have I haveprinters.

Speaker 1 (02:04:19):
Well, you've sent him the STL files, he could go to
Orion.
He's got a P one S that heprints everything for everything
we send them.
He's like, oh you know, liketwo days later we's got a P1S
that he prints everything foreverything we send him.
He's like, two days later we'llget a phone call.
Hey, come pick up your print,kind of thing you want to save
yourself some shipping, whateveryou figure that out.

Speaker 2 (02:04:36):
And then we'll have to videotape Watson going
through the woods with his ownlittle mesh-tastic device.

Speaker 1 (02:04:51):
I want to see that man, that that is a video I'm
definitely wanting to see, socurious.
How does the the 1000 kind ofstack, like I've got a
muzzyworks r1 like kind ofsimilar, you know?
I mean, the r1 is obviouslypretty plain in terms of its
functionality and and not havingthe most of the tracking
capabilities, but, um, you know,have you had much hands-on with
other things like R1 and other?

Speaker 5 (02:05:07):
Oh, yeah, I have.
I am an equal opportunitymashtastic guy.
I buy them all, even Heltec,because when I started I wasn't
associated with Seed Studios.
Seed Studios has got cool stuff, but I started on everybody
else's equipment.
So the Muzzyworks is a Helltechdevice.

(02:05:31):
On the inside, muzzyworks isjust a case builder, so it's a
Helltech V3, which is a greatlittle device.
It is underutilized for what itcan do.
It's got a great ESP32 chip init with a lot of GPIO headers on
it.
That'll do a lot of neat thingsthat nobody uses.
So, yeah, it's great.

(02:05:52):
This is.
I'll get into a little bit ofthe technology of the devices.
You have two basic types ofdevices.
You have the ESP32 devices andyou have the NRF5280 devices.
Right?
Esp32 is very power-hungry.
Nrf chips are not at allpower-hungry.

(02:06:13):
This has an NRF chip in it.
This has an NRF chip in it.
The Muzzy Works has an ESP32,which this is the exact same
thing as your muzzy works.
It's an.
It's right, it's just.
It's the exact same thing justin a different case, right?
So they're, they're great.

(02:06:35):
I mean, they've got greatreceivers, they got great
transmitters in them.
They all do about the samething, right?
They're all quarter watt to ahalf watt radios, maybe three
quarters of a watt on a good daywith a good antenna.
They all get about the sameamount of range.
The only thing, like I said,the only one that really stands
out is the G3 or G2.

(02:06:57):
Sorry, the G2.
That's the only one that reallystands out as anything better,
but that was it.
This is a radio and everythingelse is an ESP32 device.
So, yeah, I don't fault anybodyfor anything.
They're all great.
As long as you're playing onMeshtastic, I don't care what
you use.
Just this.

(02:07:19):
You can't beat it for the priceand the package that you get,
which is why I suggest it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:25):
Here's a question I'm getting once again trying to
outfit my truck with.
I mean, I've also got my HF inthere, I've got VHF, uhf, I've
got my All-Star set up in there,I've got the battery backups,
I've got a lot of the buckconverters and stuff like that
to be able to power these lowerpower devices or at least step
them down.
What would like these lowerpower devices, or at least step

(02:07:48):
them down?
What would you recommend forsomething that you want
full-time mobile like I?
I obviously want to put anexternal antenna on the truck
for it, because I don't wantsomething internal.
Um, would, it's like the, theg2, the better way to go?

Speaker 5 (02:07:57):
that's the way I would go if I was going to build
a, a vehicle specific node.
Um, because of the, the, I mean, I carry this and this around
with me all the time, right?
Yeah, this I put in my phonemount on my truck.
This is actually printed inPCTG so it doesn't melt, um, and
I just take a phone clip andjust clip it in and it sits

(02:08:20):
right up on my dash and it worksgreat.
Um, the problem with putting anexternal antenna is you play the
gain game, right, you're goingto have to have a high gain
antenna to make up for the cableloss, because you've got, you
know, a half watt radio that'sgoing to go through 10 feet of

(02:08:43):
very small coax and you're goingto get a lot of loss on that
itty bitty signal to begin with.
So you play the gain game oftrying to make it back up with a
higher gain antenna, right?
Um, I, I, the couple of peoplethat I know that actually have
external antennas, are notpicking up any more than I am

(02:09:03):
with this sitting on the dash.
So if you want a 900 megahertzantenna on your roof, go for it
and go with the G2 at that point, because this is putting out
more power.

Speaker 1 (02:09:16):
Well, that was kind of my thing was the more power
option.
But the fact that where it'sgoing to be stored and
permanently mounted is going tobe behind the back seats in the
truck and it's going to be outof sight and mind mind.
So the distance from where Iwould mount the high gain
antenna to where it is is lessthan three and a half feet of
coax total.
So I mean, yeah, there's someloss there, but it's not like a

(02:09:37):
10 foot or 15 foot piece of coaxand I'm running all the way.

Speaker 5 (02:09:40):
Natively it transmits 100 watts.
Uh, you actually have to go into the mesh tastic code, um, and
tell it and tweak it a littlebit to 100 watts.
Oh okay, the three watts thatit'll send.
Um, three watts is nice, andespecially if you're talking
about something with a betterantenna.
There's a lot of noise on the900 megahertz spectrum.

(02:10:01):
Uh, these guys have a hard timewith noise.
This actually has filtering anduh, yeah, if you want to build
the supernode right, andespecially in a truck, this is
the way to go.

Speaker 1 (02:10:14):
The g2 is just amazing now, would you use a g2,
like on a mountaintop tomountaintop kind of scenario
where they're permanent setupswith solar or no?

Speaker 5 (02:10:22):
yeah, it it's.

Speaker 1 (02:10:23):
It's hard to do, but if I mountaintop to mountaintop,
I may have to share my screenagain, because we do have
another really cool toy well,we've got um a couple of people
in our club that you knowobviously are 1300 asl on
average and you know there'swithin the new hampshire mesh
kind of crew.

(02:10:43):
They've been um expanding andtrying to, you know pivot.
You know a lot of these extramountaintop kind of scenarios
where you know we're puttingthey're not putting a permanent
nodes and making a killing.
Let me bring you in, there wego Okay.

Speaker 5 (02:11:00):
This is, this is the route for that.
It is our solar.
It is second device ever madespecifically for mesh tastic um,
and that's complete.
That's complete.
It's got a five watt solarpanel.
It holds four 18 650 batteries.
I have one on the roof of myhouse that's been up there since
dayton and it's never gottenbelow 95 battery life.

(02:11:22):
Uh, it's got an nrf chip in it.
It's got an l76k gps in it, um,and you can buy an upgraded
antenna for it, um, where youcan put a three, eight or three,
five or eight db gain antennaon that mount with an.
What's the?

Speaker 1 (02:11:41):
the uh.
What's what I'm looking for?
Okay, I was looking for the uhenvironment settings negative 40
.
Okay, I was looking for theenvironment settings negative 40
.
Okay, because I'm thinking likethere's two locations that you
know, a lot of these guys havebeen trying to put in like high
nodes, and the biggest thing islike okay, well, you know, being
up at 1300 ASL, winters arehorrible up here, you know, and
especially with ice and waterand freezing and stuff like that

(02:12:04):
.
So, you know, just curious tosee how far it would go down
with the batteries.

Speaker 5 (02:12:08):
Yeah, Um, trying to get it.
It's all, here we go.
So I mean it's got your USBport, weatherproof USB port, all
of your LEDs, all your functionfeature buttons and function
buttons right there All on thebottom end of it.
So never get wet anyways,because it's protected by the

(02:12:35):
solar panel?

Speaker 1 (02:12:35):
um, and it's a completely encased device.
Yeah, has, um, I've been out ofthe mesh tastic stuff for a
little bit.
Have they finally solved theremote um flash firmware flash
problem?
Uh, being able to remotewithout having to take these
things down to flash them orupgrade them?

Speaker 5 (02:12:47):
It depends on the device.
Some of the NRF devices, likethe rack devices, are supposed
to be able to do over the eraupdates now, but it's still
buggy and you still have to usea separate piece of software to
enter it into DFU mode.
They have not.
They have not made it easy.

(02:13:09):
Um, it's still very difficult.
But yeah, this guy, I mean itcomes with all stainless steel
hardware, everything ready to go.
Um, it's not a bad price 90bucks.
You can't build it cheaper yeah, you can't.

Speaker 1 (02:13:23):
I've seen a lot of the videos and I'm like they're
150, 200 after you get all partsand building.

Speaker 5 (02:13:28):
I'm like, oh my god, this is crazy for a solar node
yeah, so I mean it, it's, andthey have some in the california
warehouse right now well, now,these are the ones without the
gps.
On the battery, which you won'tneed, yeah, you don't, and you
need the batteries, you justdon't need it.
But it takes your standardbutton-top 18650 batteries.
So go to any vape shop and youcan get high-quality 18650

(02:13:53):
batteries.
But yeah, that guy is what Iwould suggest for remote nodes.
Nice, I've had mine.
As a matter of fact, I reallydo need to update it because I
haven't since Dayton, but I gotit in Dayton.
It was the first display, itwas the first one in North
America, and they're like okay,go play with it and tell us what

(02:14:14):
you think.
And it's been running eversince like a champ.
I've forgotten about it.
It's up there.
Yeah, it just works.
I have all of my nodes in thehouse on client mute and let the
solar node take care of all thetraffic, right, and it just
sits there and works.
So, yeah, and the price?

(02:14:38):
I mean shit, you can't beat it.
I mean $83 plus shipping.

Speaker 1 (02:14:44):
Yeah, especially in today's market, that's still
pretty good.

Speaker 5 (02:14:50):
And when people ask because there is the P1 Pro that
has the GPS and the battery init and they're like, well, why
wouldn't I want the better one?
And I'm like it's not anybetter, right, and it's an
infrastructure node, you don'tneed a GPS's an infrastructure
node.
You don't need a gps in aninfrastructure node.
Somebody has to have gps fortiming so that everybody's

(02:15:13):
clock's correct, right?
But it doesn't have to be theseguys, because there's plenty of
gps devices out there.
So, yeah, get you somebatteries and leave it without a
GPS.
That way it's not on the map,right?
Because if it's aninfrastructure node and it's
remotely mounted, somewhere likemountaintop, do you really want

(02:15:34):
people to actually be able toknow exactly where it's at?
No, yeah, so you want it to beable to just work in the
background, and so yeah, I tellthem don't get the gps.

Speaker 1 (02:15:50):
Oh man, yeah, it's already in the cart.
You're bad influence, dave,you're bad influence and you can
see.

Speaker 5 (02:15:57):
I sent you those codes.
Yes, I saw that too we will.

Speaker 1 (02:16:03):
We will post those in the discord, not the discord in
the description below.
So if you have felt you need togo over to seed studios to
purchase any of this stuff whichI highly advise because it's,
you know, almost a steal yeah,it's well worth it.
Um and uh, yeah, I put it thisway, Give me a second or two,
I'll finish getting that G2.

Speaker 5 (02:16:28):
Oh yeah, but yeah you get.
With the code you get 10 off ofthe 82.
You'll save another eightdollars and 30 cents.

Speaker 1 (02:16:32):
Yeah, I'll have to uh off the queue.
I'm trying to think who is theman I mean he says call signs
escaping me at the moment.
I gotta figure, I dive backinto.
I gotta figure out who his nameis.
Who's the guy who does all themesh stuff in new hampshire?
Um, he did the our whole wholemesh class.
Why am I getting his name?
Anyway, I'll find it yeah cool.

(02:16:55):
All right, so you got someother stuff you said you wanted
to dive into a little bit oh no,that was it.

Speaker 5 (02:17:00):
That was no Dale one.
Those are our cool devices.
And then, yeah, so I'm the meshdealer.
That's the name that I've beengiven.

Speaker 2 (02:17:14):
Dude, I would almost want to put one of those solar
nodes just mounted to the backrack on my truck.

Speaker 1 (02:17:23):
Yeah, dude, that would be awesome.

Speaker 5 (02:17:25):
Mobile Just set it, forget it right, all right now
one of the things, if you get itand you want to put a different
intent on it, it something todo with with licensing, with the
fcc um.
Stuff out of china now iscoming with rp sma connectors,
which is reverse polarity, right.

(02:17:46):
So so it's not your standardSMA, it's the exact opposite.
I mean, it's like what shouldbe a female is now a male and
vice versa.
Now you can do what I did onmine and I just bought on Amazon
, for I think you get 12 of themfor eight bucks is a waterproof
SMA to IPEX right and justreplaced the SMA on the device.

(02:18:09):
Or you can find an RP SMA to Ncable for it and then mount an
N-type antenna onto that bracketand it's got the hole in it
onto that bracket and it's gotthe hole in it.

(02:18:29):
It's got a hole for an sma anda hole for an in um to where you
can mount it directly to thebracket and I've got a 8db, like
five other projects that I wasworking on.
Now, now that I'm gonna takeback seat to get back into the
project, though, because youjust set it and forget it.

Speaker 1 (02:18:42):
So true, but now you know, I'm already buying the g2.
You know, now I've gotta likeget another, you know the
antennas that I was looking at.
I've gotta recalculate and do afew other things there and then
, uh, yeah, I'm not going to getthis 1000 because, you know,
I'm carrying around the rack onmy keychain and, yeah, it's a
little bulky, you know, and Ilike the belt clip option but

(02:19:02):
I'm like I don't belt clip a lotof stuff, you know, except my
radios to my, you know, beltwhen I'm carrying my radio
around.
But I don't carry a radioaround all the time because I've
got them everywhere.

Speaker 5 (02:19:10):
I, you know, need them on Amazon right now they
have.
This is the actual officialseed studio.
It's actually a leather lanyardwith a really cool.

Speaker 1 (02:19:21):
I like that clip yeah .

Speaker 5 (02:19:23):
Strong metal clip yeah they're cheaper on your
website they're cheaper on thewebsite, but you have to buy
them from china and pay for thetariff and the shipping so there
you go.

Speaker 1 (02:19:35):
You probably pay the same, you pay on amazon and get
in two days so is your codeswork for amazon too.

Speaker 5 (02:19:43):
Nope, it's just directly from seed,
unfortunately, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:19:46):
Yep, yeah, maybe a year ago that would have been
perfect, but yeah, not now Sucks.
Yeah.
All right, cool Dude, that'sawesome stuff.
You know it definitely soundslike, uh, you're doing some
really cool stuff and uh, youknow, it's good to just good to
like.
You know it's very rare to findsomeone who can be like in the
hobby and then have as hobby ashis job.

(02:20:08):
Plus, you know one kind ofthing you know, I, I I've only
run into most of those that areretired and they've got cash
flow from that.
Or you know, like paul, I andtodd, or mostly impulse the
other exception, I mean he's,he's running the rv life and
doing all that.
But todd and I are like one daywe'll retire, kind of thing.
But you know we still havefriends like yourself who are by

(02:20:30):
once car runs, and so yeah, wejust follow the same suit, sadly
.

Speaker 4 (02:20:34):
So does that solar panel thing that comes with the
mesh node in it.
It's built into it, so you justbuy that and mount it and Yep,
buy that some batteries and putit up and it works.

Speaker 1 (02:20:51):
I mean, it's the same thing.

Speaker 5 (02:20:52):
You have to do like any other device.
You'll have to put it, you'llhave to name it, you'll have to
put the region into it.

Speaker 4 (02:20:57):
You have to make it, Program it yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:20:58):
Yeah, the programming of it.
But yeah, it's all built inthere and if you really and it
all, comes from China.
Yeah Well, they're moving a lotof their inventory over to a
California warehouse, like rightnow.

Speaker 4 (02:21:11):
Yeah, there's one.
I'm looking on the website.
One says 633, and the other oneis 643.
The 433 is 69 bucks.
Warehouse available USA.
Which device are you looking at?
The SenseCap Solar Node P1.

Speaker 5 (02:21:30):
Is that what you were looking at, this the sense cap
solar node p1.

Speaker 1 (02:21:32):
Is that what you were looking at?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I was looking at the pro.
The pros only available inchina.

Speaker 5 (02:21:36):
Pros in the drive back ordered, so which means
that they move.
They're moving when you see,that's not one on back order in
china.
That means that they've takeneverything that they've got and
put it on a container and arebringing it over to us Because
they're doing containerizedtariffs as opposed to individual
tariffs.
It saves money and I don't playthe tariff game, but they do.

(02:21:58):
They know how, which is why Ilike the P1 without the GPS and
the battery.
You now see it's at the USwarehouse and import duties
included, which is great becausethese things at one point this
was $98 and the P1 Pro was $105.

(02:22:18):
So they've been playing thetariff game pretty well, where
they're able to bring the priceback down.
Because I told, told himoriginally I was like everything
has to stay under a hundreddollars.
Um, that is the sweet spot withham radio people.
Uh, because if you go to a hamfest, you're looking for a
twelve hundred dollar radio,right?
So if somebody says, hey, I'vegot this really cool device for

(02:22:40):
83 bucks, it's chump change, allright, and a lot of those guys
mind because they're thinking$1,200, $1,800 radio and I can
get this, I can get three ofthese for, you know, 160, 270
bucks.

Speaker 1 (02:22:54):
Hell, yeah, yeah, so, uh, so, yeah, interesting, yeah
, you got it.
So seed does a lot of otherstuff 've only poked into you
know home assistant stuff.
I you know I dabble in a lotjust obviously with you know
kind of just mostly the homeassistant side of stuff.
But yeah, it's interesting tosee some of their uh tie-ins.

(02:23:15):
I haven't seen much of them inthe home assistant market per se
, but it's good to see thatthey're uh seed studios was so
Seed Studios was.

Speaker 5 (02:23:23):
So Eric, the CEO slash owner of the company was
raised on a farm in China, right, and was able to get a higher
education and started SeedStudios and wanted to bring
technology back to the farm.
So if you look at a lot oftheir IoT and stuff, there's a

(02:23:44):
lot of agricultural-based sensornetworks that they build
Meshtastic.
Is this much of what they do?
Because with everything thatthey've done, I mean they have a
contract to track elk inYellowstone, right, so their

(02:24:05):
equipment is being used to trackanimals in Yellowstone, but,
yeah, so it was originallydesigned to bring technology to
the farm and it's just blown upfrom there and now they're in AI
and a whole bunch of other neatstuff.
But I actually asked them theother day Seed Studios with

(02:24:30):
three E's, right, why?
Yeah, I was going to ask that,and so I got their official
answer because I was like, hey,people are asking and I'm like
why?
And so the name Seed embodiesthe company's core purpose,
which is providing makers anddevelopers worldwide with the
tools they need to bring theirinnovations to life, so helping

(02:24:52):
innovators seed their electronicprojects and help them grow.
The additional E stands forelectronics, highlighting their
focus on electronic solutionsthat empower creative minds.
Electronic solutions thatempower creative minds.

Speaker 1 (02:25:14):
So that's the background behind the seed is to
help seed people's passions.
So basically, seed studio wastaken then.

Speaker 2 (02:25:19):
Yeah, Cause I figured it.
Yeah, I figured it had to besomething with his in triple E
like an electric engineeringwhatever Right, and that's what
I thought at first too was itthat it had to.

Speaker 1 (02:25:31):
It was focused towards and seed studio in the
software gaming world is a verypopular platform for gaming and
you know, uh, that type of stuff, so that they're s-e-e-d.
So that's probably the otherreason.
When they got, you know,creating the company, that's, oh
, we gotta add one more e, likeI've seen companies do that all
the time, and then their missiontag statement's like worthy,
you know, fill in the whateveryou need to to make it, you know

(02:25:53):
, work but I mean, they, they doraspberry pies, they sell
raspberry, they, they sell whenyou first, when paul first
started pointing me or you know,to you, and and all this stuff,
I was like what the hell arethey getting into?
I mean my gosh.
I thought you were justMeshtastic only.
But then when I went up there Iwas like holy crap they are,
they got their toe andeverything.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:26:14):
They got robotic arms .
They've got freaking AI-poweredfour-mic array for clear.

Speaker 5 (02:26:24):
Yeah, and I got to see that thing.
It's pretty cool.
So it it's.
It's been done before by a lotof the larger companies.
Um, if you imagine a conferenceroom, uh, microphone right for
conference calls, where themicrophone will it's got
multiple ways and it'll figureout where the person's at yeah
Well, they created a much lessexpensive.

Speaker 4 (02:26:48):
It's 50 bucks.

Speaker 5 (02:26:49):
Yeah, ai powered version of the same thing, so
it's a $50 microphone that iscompeting against a $1,500
microphone.
That's awesome.

Speaker 4 (02:27:00):
Yeah, I'm almost thinking of buying one of those
and bringing it to work when itsucks and be like here plug this
thing in, It'll work.

Speaker 5 (02:27:08):
One of their things, the SenseCap Watcher, is a
really cool little AI device.
It's like $60.
And it's this little roundthing with a camera on it and
you can tell it.
You talk to it and you turn iton and it says, hey, how can I
assist you today?
Talk to it, right.
And you turn it on and it says,hey, how can I assist you today

(02:27:29):
?
And you can tell it to.
I want to know when Joe Blow iswalking down the hallway and
turns left into the secondoffice, right, and it will use
AI to figure out when Joe Blowis walking down the office and
goes into the second doorinstead of the third or the
first door, walking down theoffice and goes into the second
door instead of the third or thefirst door.
You can tell it that I onlywant to be alerted when blonde

(02:27:52):
dogs walk down the street.
Right, and it will watch, andthen it'll let you know when
there's a blonde dog walkingdown the street.
And it's 60 bucks.
What is it called?
It's the senseCap Watcher.

Speaker 1 (02:28:07):
Yep Dude.
Their Raspberry Pi devices arefreaking awesome, their IoT
devices being able to have IOand dry contact capabilities all
built into, oh my.

Speaker 2 (02:28:18):
Dude, look at this.
How much do clothes cost in theMatrix?

Speaker 1 (02:28:24):
We don't wear clothes in the Matrix.
My friend, what are you talkingabout?

Speaker 5 (02:28:26):
I mean, look at this a vision ai camera 24, 90 yep,
like shit dude, they're yeah youcan go down a very, very deep
rabbit hole with these guys and,oh dude, they got be boards.

Speaker 1 (02:28:44):
I didn't know that Low cost.

Speaker 4 (02:28:46):
AI printed.

Speaker 1 (02:28:49):
Oh yeah, wow, Dude.
Yeah, this is dangerous.
I got to close this now.

Speaker 2 (02:28:58):
Just keep adding to your cart, eric, that is
actually what I'm stopping atthe moment.

Speaker 1 (02:29:02):
My friend, I've got to stay focused on one thing,
otherwise I could get thesenon-Amazon boxes showing up the
door.
My wife's like what'd you buy?

Speaker 4 (02:29:11):
No see what it is right.

Speaker 2 (02:29:14):
We need the Live, free and Ham podcast to be the
first podcast sponsored by SeedStudios.

Speaker 5 (02:29:20):
Yeah, I am working on stuff like that.
That's.
One of the things that I'mworking on right now is trying
to get them.
Right now they're just like hey, go see what you can do.

Speaker 4 (02:29:35):
They sell a quadcopter.
My other hobby, flying shit.

Speaker 5 (02:29:39):
Yeah, well, it's a sensor-based quadcopter, yeah,
which there is, eric.
Um, I do have a code that works.
Holy crap, I have a lot morenew codes.
Um, I have, I have a 25 off therobot arm now.

(02:30:03):
There, there we go.

Speaker 2 (02:30:07):
Yeah, I mean I was going to get robot legs, but I
mean robot arms.
That works too.

Speaker 1 (02:30:14):
The only thing when you say robot arms, the only
thing that ever points me backto is the Sheldon episode where
what's-his-name decides to takehis robot arm and teach it one
specific technique episode wherewhat's his name decides to take
his robot arm and teach it onespecific technique you can see
paul doing that with his yeah.
Oh, dude, they got a chargingpuck.

Speaker 5 (02:30:34):
Actually, that's pretty cool I can get you five
percent off the home assistancestuff, um five percent off the
re terminals.
There's's a mini-chordsynthesizer.
Oh dude.

Speaker 1 (02:30:48):
Send me codes please.
This is going to be dangerous.

Speaker 5 (02:30:53):
But yeah, it's a fixed amount but it's $25 off
the Star Robot Arm and it's aviola, violin and cello violin
promotion, so I guess it'll playthe violin there we go.

Speaker 1 (02:31:06):
That's awesome because guess it'll play the
violin.
There we go.

Speaker 2 (02:31:07):
That's awesome, because I can't play the violin.

Speaker 1 (02:31:12):
You've heard it here, guys, just to any of our
listeners.
Obviously, the codes will be inthe damn.
You get me a new camera too.
If you have an AI camera forthat, hopefully it'll do a hell
of a lot better than this Allspots doing today.
Um, come on, bring me back up.
Let's go sometime.

Speaker 4 (02:31:32):
Water cooling kit.
You probably do that in Texas.

Speaker 5 (02:31:35):
Oh my gosh there we go Stay there.

Speaker 1 (02:31:38):
Uh, yeah, so all the codes will be.
You know that Dave's providedto us will be in the description
below.
So if you want to takeadvantage of some of this stuff
over at the seed studios, please, you know, use those codes to,
uh, you know, get yourself some,uh discounts there.
But, uh, yeah, awesome stuff.
Man, this is crazy.
Uh, if you're going to go downthe rabbit hole, this is the

(02:32:00):
place to do it.
At the very least, it'd bereally cool if we could figure
out how to print custom cases.
We could do a live, free andham case, just saying you know,
I might know somebody.

Speaker 5 (02:32:12):
I know she's really good.
She's come out with some othernew cases for the L1 line and
she teased me with them and Igot all excited and she's like
well, they're on the list.
I'm like shit Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:32:30):
But I got printer myself.
I can print too.

Speaker 5 (02:32:33):
So, um, and I help her with some of them, um,
because I have she's got anolder printer and I have the two
P ones and I have the two P1sand I have PETG, hf, pctg.
I can play with a lot ofengineering filaments and they
all print differently so theirtolerances are different.

(02:32:55):
If you try and put a PETG backon a PCTG front of her devices
it doesn't fit Because theyshrink differently the plastics.
So she'll send me stuff everynow and then to print out and
test fit.
But I just sent you a bunchmore codes.
It doesn't show the percentsoff but they vary from.

(02:33:18):
Go back to that screen screen.
Anywhere from five percent toten percent, except for the
robot arm is a 25 fixed amountdiscount dude.

Speaker 1 (02:33:36):
This has been an education, but definitely, uh,
you know, a lightning of thewallet um, so eric's mortgages
are going to be paid this month.
Yeah, that's what I'm worriedabout, my friend.
That is totally.
Well, it'll be a little short.

Speaker 5 (02:33:50):
We'll just say this time Now you see why they call
me the mesh dealer.

Speaker 1 (02:33:55):
Yeah, no kidding man.
I feel literally like I amselling my soul.

Speaker 2 (02:34:02):
I can't find my drugs man.

Speaker 5 (02:34:04):
I got the mesh.

Speaker 1 (02:34:06):
Oh yeah, I can't find it.
Nope, that one isn't it.
That one isn't it.
Oh my gosh.
I can't find my little quickclip.
I've been looking for it allnight.
Oh my gosh Anyway.

Speaker 2 (02:34:23):
We got to merge mesh and skydiving.

Speaker 5 (02:34:28):
Well, dude the GPS on .
It is very, very accurate andit does show altitude.
So talk to you and Carlos haveboth taken them up in the air
now.

Speaker 2 (02:34:42):
Yeah, but if there's a way to download, like the gpx
data, that would be superhelpful there is, but I gotta
figure that out.

Speaker 5 (02:34:52):
But once, remind me, send me a message on discord,
because when we get off of thisit's bedtime for me, so, um,
just remind me and I'll figureout how there's.
There is a way to pull the dataout of the device and so you
can actually see the temperature, humidity and GPS data of your

(02:35:13):
jump.

Speaker 2 (02:35:14):
Well, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:35:16):
Yeah, all right, I found it Sir.

Speaker 2 (02:35:24):
And I will pay it, and now.

Speaker 5 (02:35:35):
Eric's gone.
I see a mouse moving around yep, that's all you do.

Speaker 1 (02:35:42):
Obs has been acting up today anyway that watcher
thing is awesome.

Speaker 4 (02:35:48):
It is.
I'm like thinking of likePutting like my kids on house
arrest and like hiding them inthere.
Let me know when Freaking Joseleaves the house.

Speaker 1 (02:36:00):
Sweet, alright.
Well, let's kind of put alittle bow on this, since you
know we are getting close up toOur three hour mark and this is
almost like A Ham RadioWorkbench episode, but still way
better.
Yeah, way better, way better.
Any last kind of partingthoughts you want to throw at
anybody, dave, anything new andup and coming that we should be
aware of?
Or you know, obviously, whereyou're going to be next?

Speaker 5 (02:36:32):
to be next?
Um, well, I'm going to be atthe belton ham fest and the uh
rv radio network.
I'm going to actually camp outwith them and do a meshtastic
presentation for them, um, andthen from there it's the big
three next year.
Um, take a little break.
I am, I have a YouTube channeland it's three videos that are
Meshtastic related, and then youget to see what I was like
about 14 years ago, with mudtrucks and us blowing stuff up

(02:36:54):
with Tenerife.

Speaker 4 (02:36:57):
What's your YouTube channel?
Big Ed Shed.

Speaker 5 (02:36:59):
KB5, uty.
Dave, just look it up, blowingup shit, blowing up shit.
I've recently divorced but theproperty I had had a gravel pit
in it.
I set up a range down there Forbirthdays, or just we used to
call it Sunday gun day back whenammo was cheap.

(02:37:20):
Just come over and somebodyalways brought Tannerite, so
we'd send something to the moonat least one.
And just come over and wesomebody always brought Tanner
right, so we'd send something tothe moon At least one.

Speaker 2 (02:37:32):
Awesome.
So when, when, when I'm inTexas can, can we go shoot
together.

Speaker 5 (02:37:37):
We can.
I just no longer have access tothat property, but I have
plenty of friends with a lot ofproperty.
So Perfect yeah, there you go.
Perfect yeah, video coming soon.
Lot of property Perfect.

Speaker 1 (02:37:48):
There you go.
Video coming soon, I'm sureMaybe.
I don't know We'll see how badit is.

Speaker 5 (02:37:54):
Radio related wise, I think I'm in a rental right now
.
Luckily, they let me put up aDX Commander in the backyard, so
I do have HF, but it's gotgutters that split the house
like this, and so and I have a Ihave a four to one and a nine
to one, so I'm going to try andtune the gutters and I think
I'll try and make a video onthat.

(02:38:15):
That'd be cool, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:38:17):
Bring it on After you tune the gutters.
Why not do a butterfly aroundthe whole roof?

Speaker 5 (02:38:25):
It's a duplex, so I only really have access to half
of the gutter, half the place.

Speaker 1 (02:38:29):
But I thought about that.
Go to work, yeah, hey, what youdoing.
Nothing, I'm good, just don'tmind the wire coming off your
gutter.
Just cleaning the gutters.
That's all I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (02:38:42):
Dave ain't here, man, dave ain't here, right.

Speaker 5 (02:38:47):
Very cool, dave ain't here, man, dave ain't here.
But yeah, I just gotta rememberto videotape stuff when I do
stuff.
That's the hard part takes awhile, man.

Speaker 1 (02:38:53):
It takes a while you get into the rhythm.
Eventually you just be like, ohyeah, it's like leaving your
arm at home, you know, or yourpossible arm, but you know
you'll eventually get there.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, alright.
Well, with that we're gonna puta close to tonight's episode.
So thanks to mike, who's beenin the chat tonight good to see
him.

(02:39:13):
Uh, you, uh, and, and those thatare listening, uh, we
appreciate uh, dave for comingon and educating us and, uh,
stealing money out of ourwallets for some really cool
stuff.
Um, and uh, yeah, and that youknow let's continue the
conversation over in our Liffreyand Ham podcast community
discord.
You know we have a bunch ofpeople already over there and so

(02:39:34):
we just want to keep thisconversation going.
So, if you're maybe intogetting into MeshTastic, yeah,
if you're getting intoMeshTastic, or you've been in
MeshTastic for a little while,you know we want to hear what's
going on.
You know, share yourexperiences.
If you've got a t1000, um, or,sorry, e1000, whatever, yeah,
you get it t1000.
I'm thinking, uh, yeah, that,uh, you know, let us know what

(02:39:57):
you, what we can do, and youknow how we can continue to
maybe expand our littlemeshtastic world here in the
northeast.
So, yeah, outside of that, asalways, you can always head over
to our discord server, like Ijust mentioned before.
The join link is in ourdescription below.
Uh, come be part of theconversation, check out our
youtube channel, catch all theexcellent content and, as always
, hopefully you'll be on thelive stream.
Uh, this past wednesday it'scoming up um and leave us a

(02:40:21):
review.
Uh, or uh use one of our smslinks to uh give us an update.
Let us know what's going on.
If you've got a question maybesomething in this episode
sparked a question for you feelfree to send it to us and we'll
make sure we circle back in ournext show and address it.
Or you can leave us a voicemailat 978-233-1142.
And you can always support theshow, because we love all of the

(02:40:42):
folks that do support uh, livefree and ham and keeps us
running.
Uh, you can join our patron orbuy us a beer links and those
are all at the bottom of ourdescriptions of every episode
and on our website.
And, finally, you can alwayshead over to live free and
hamcom and learn about the show,check out the latest swag, pick
up all of these discount codes.
Uh for all this awesome stufffrom seed studios and from seed

(02:41:06):
studios and, as always, from allof us here.
Uh, thanks again for listening.
Uh, uh, to live free and hamand seven three guys 73, 73, 77.

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