Fundraiser For Youth On the Air, Round 2

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is going on, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Frank Cage
G five as Jay and we're gonna be having some
fun tonight. We're gonna be talking about youth on the air.
We're gonna be talking about the youth camps, and we're
gonna be doing a donation stream. I'm gonna tell you
more than about that here in a minute, but let's
go ahead and start this off as always.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
By play that.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Also in Trump video. A quick shout out to all

(00:46):
my Patreons. It makes it show possible. You can support
me by joiny Patreon in the leak below.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
And on the Take Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
All the buttons are working. I'm unmuted and off the bat.
Thank you Glenn with the fifty dollars super chat. That
is amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. And
we got some great things coming up. But before we
get started, we're gonna start off at the top with
the preamble. Ooh ooh. I should have had to loaded

(01:28):
this up. Over at Grapevine Amateur Radio, there is the
new Boom Boom Boom. We got a Take Radio pint
the tank pint glass is on pre order now, so
if you want, if a take radio pint glass. These
are gonna be pre order only. That means after the

(01:49):
pre order you're not gonna be able to find them.
I know my volume is being windows right now. There
we go. You're not gonna be able to order them again.
This is a pre order only. Go ahead and head
over to Great Fund Amateur Radio or the Lincolns. In
the description for the tank pint it's twenty five dollars
for a tank radio pint glass plus has that cool

(02:10):
tank radio green bottom that is so awesome. Orders yours now.
The only order window is only gonna be up four
one month after that, I'm taking it down. We are
going to ship them, and we're going to order them
and then it's gonna be some time for it to
get printed in things, and and then I'm sending them
out probably about a month and a half after that

(02:31):
pre order window closes. But also thank you to my
Patreon supporters to support me tank Radio over a Patreon
and also YouTube memberships that is awesome. Super chats are active,
but we're gonna be doing something special tonight with them.
And also at the Great fin Amateur Radio you can
get the sticker pack and that is the Tank Radio stickers.

(02:54):
These are amazing stickers. Boom, let's try to sell some
more of these stickers because I order some more stickers.
For ten dollars, you get a whole Take Radio sticker
pack gets you five stickers. It is so amazing. And
over at Gigaparts, if you use tank at checkout, you
get extra bonus points for your Gigabarts rewards using tank

(03:15):
at checkout. And we're gonna be talking about some gigabart
stuff coming up and later this week. Yeah, it is
later this week. And finally, the audio podcast if you
haven't done it already, The audio podcast is by me
Take Radio, and there are four podcasts released each week.
That means minus this month, there's usually two audio podcasts

(03:36):
that are not on YouTube. If you want to hear
what's going on behind the scenes and with all my
takers and tank commanders and all my tank friends here
over in Texas, go ahead of search Take Radio and
you'll find me who that was a lie? All right?
We have some friends wait in the wings. Today we
have here we go, Oh, we have Neil and Drew.

(04:01):
How are y'all doing today? Anderson, I'm I'm sorry sorry,
how are y'all doing today.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Nice, So this is gonna be a special donation stream,
So that means anything that's donated to me on this stream,
or you can use the link above here go to
youth on the dot orgs last donate and donate directly
to them. And what I'm gonna do since we couldn't
figure out the YouTube stuff, we tried. We tried so hard.

(04:33):
Me and Neil thought we got it set it up
last time and then and it came into like a
month afterwards, but we're like, good, we're ready for next time,
and we went in there we couldn't figure it out.
So what I'm gonna do is everything that's donated super chats,
I am gonna make up the YouTube difference up to
two hundred dollars and we're gonna go ahead and get
that money over to Neil. So any super chats during

(04:56):
the stream are gonna be donated over to the youth
on the air. Found day and sweet, sweet sweet, I
got y'all set right. Sorry, the usual tank radio nonsense
did not unmeet you real right at the beginning.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
I've never done that.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
No, yeah, all right, it's corrected. I saw that as
soon as I was talking, Anderson said, he just got
off the golf course this week. He was playing Poda
last week and Neil, thank you for joining y'all. Y'all
are awesome, amazing, and let's kind of just start right

(05:38):
off the bat here. What is the Youth on the
Air organization?

Speaker 4 (05:44):
So?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Youth on the Air is a project that started in
twenty nineteen and it's a program that encourages retention and
ham radio. So we we aren't focused on recruiting. There's
a lot of people focused on recruiting, and we need that,
but what we found was that not too many people

(06:08):
were focused on retention and offering activities and a safe
community of young Hams to learn from each other. And
so that's really what we're all about, is trying to
build up a community of young Hams that can mentor

(06:29):
each other and keep ham radio going for many years
to come. So we focus pretty much on licensed hams
under the age of twenty six.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Nice, Nice, and the can you tell us about these
summer camps that that y'all are doing to put on
to support or talk or encourage these younger Hams to
get into amateur radio and show them all the other
cool amazing things you could do with average radio.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yep, sure can we. Our biggest thing, I guess is
the summer camps. And right now we just have a
region wide camp, so it's for all of the Americas,
and hopefully when we grow we'll start to add in
a US camp. There's already some talk of a Canada
camp and maybe an Argentina camp, but in the US,

(07:32):
all of our resources are going right now to this
region wide camp. But we have a week long opportunity
for young people to come between the ages of fifteen
and twenty five, and we do it somewhere in North
America right now, but we're hoping to add South America in.

(07:53):
But what we do is we bring in all these
people for a week and they teach each other. So
we we really don't do many lectures or presentations on things.
We do a lot of hands on activity. So we
have young people like Anderson here who does a lot

(08:17):
of portable ops, and we have we have Ruth that
comes into the satellite and excuse me, airiss stuff. We
have kit builds, we have all kinds of things and
it's never the same. So Anderson, why don't you you're

(08:37):
you're a former camper and now a member of the
working group. Won don't you tell people a little bit
about what you do.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
On which side on the camp on the campus side. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah,
it's a camper side. It's the first couple of years.
Of course, you come in as a campus you're experiencing
the camp firsthand with doing all the activities, and if
you come back in any subsequent years, you're teaching a group.
So I do portball operations a lot, So I do
the parks on the air stuff when we did in

(09:06):
the last two years in Halifax and actually did in
Ottawa and this past year in Denver as a camper,
and then of course as a camper you still get
to do all the other cool stuff we do. So
like so this last year in Denver we did WWV Tour.
I think that was the highlight of the week for
most people, the WWV tour, and then we of course
Bloon launches throughout the week. We did a direct areas contact,

(09:30):
which is a first, well is it a first?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think it's the first direct direct wow, so, which
was really neat.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
So getting to see how the station was set up
and all that was really neat because you don't get
hands on experience with that in most places, and so
you just get all those experiences that you can take
back and learn from. And that's the big thing with
camp is just taking it and learning from it.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
I love everything about that. Do you have pictures on
the website of y'all doing that contact?

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
If you go to the photo camps and camp photos,
you should see twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, I've gotten.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Some photos there. But yeah, Ruth kind of organizes everything.
But this year, as he said, we did a direct contact,
which means we're not just zooming in on telebridge to
someone else and they're operating the ground station. We actually
built our own ground station. One of our campers, Lyle,

(10:34):
that lives in Denver, he was one of the hosts.
He built his own custom ground station specifically just for
the camp, and so he brought all of his gear,
so it was entirely done by campers, as most of
our activities are. But his ground station tracked everything worked

(10:56):
perfectly and got us through to the ISS with no problem.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
So that's awesome. That's awesome. What let's go back here
a part of us all this? Also, I hear that
y'all have like giveaways and other things. Is not just
specifically amateur radio. There's other activities, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
We do. We do some giveaways at the end. So
we do have a few prizes that that we we
have just depending on who is able to provide those
for us. But then we have some social activities Henderson,
you tell them about all.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
This, yeah, which, of course, the social aspect of camp
is probably bigger than the radio aspect of camp in
some ways, just to be honest to me, which is
a good thing. You know, with young people, there's not
a lot of young people. I mean, I live in
Kentucky and there's not any young hamps around me. So
getting to know the people that are also interested in
radio that are young is also a big major factor.
So in most camps you have we go out one

(12:00):
night and do David Busters, I think was what we
did for the first couple of years, and then we've
done main event the last few and then in Canada
we got to explore the town and get to learn
the history of Halifax and Ottawa. And it's a big
thing with camp is a social aspect, and I think
that's honestly the major portion to me I think that's
what most people can take from camp more than the
radio is the social aspect is the getting another's other

(12:24):
youth and radio, and that's the big thing for me, Like,
so you do all kinds of stuff and trying to
think this past year if we did anything else, and
of course at night, card games and everything in the
hotel lobby. I mean, we had the hotel lobby full
every night with people sitting around talking and learning from
each other and talking about other aspects. You get off
of the topic of radio and you start moving on

(12:45):
to other topics and it just kind of eventually towards
the end of the week, the radio kind of fades
out and it's all social and which is good.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's always a good thing.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
I love that. I love board games. I love playing
card games. It'll be down before that, man, that'll be fun.
That's that's awesome. And the youth on the air. Camp itself,
for the participants, is there any cost to them?

Speaker 4 (13:13):
One time cost? It's one hundred dollars to come to camp.
That's the only cost that we charge our campers.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Oh wow. And the rest of it's fund raised through
activities like this and other efforts. Y'all do.

Speaker 5 (13:27):
Yep, sweet, are y'all still doing the a giveaway or
or a what was it last time you were doing?

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Neil, I'm sorry, I forgot. There was a special something
on your donation page last time auction on the watch.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, the watch auction. Yeah, Garman donated a smart watch.
And one of your viewers because I saw he yeses
to comment here rancher, he want you want the smart watch?
But yeah, wow. Garman employs one of our staff members,
Tony Katie eight RTT, and so he approached them and

(14:09):
they said, yeah, we'll give you a watch that you
can raffle off. So we uh, we did an online
auction and and he won that. So that's that's passed.
But the Garman also gave us a bunch of materials
and gave Tony some extra bto to come to camp.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Oh that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
So on the site, I see here you have a
setup that you can give directly as a one time
or you can set up as a monthly prescription and
continue to donate and help support the cause. That is amazing.
Also that it's only one hundred dollars commitment for each
camp or everything else is covered once they got get there,

(14:52):
Is that right? They just have to get there.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, all I got to do is get to the city.
And once you get to the city, even if you
fly in, we'll get at the airport. Well. Actually, for
insurance reasons, we have a bus go pick you up
at the airport. But we make sure that all that's arranged.
We have people at the airport waiting for you to
make sure you know where you're going, and we pay

(15:19):
for everything except souvenirs throughout the week, and then at
the end of the week, we send you back to
the airport and we make sure you get to your gate,
so we're with you the entire time. And yeah, just
one hundred dollars. The average cost is running in the
neighborhood of two thousand dollars at Camper. So with all

(15:43):
of our sponsorships and grants and donors, that's how we
make this affordable. And even if you can't pay the
hundred dollars, you know, sometimes we have some that can't
pay one hundred dollars, we have scholarships available for that.
And the main reason for the one hundred dollars is
really to pay for you know, it's a two thousand

(16:04):
dollars thing. So the one hundred dollars is just to
make sure that you're going to show up, because if
we have to spend all this money on supplies and
reservations and everything ahead of time, then we want to
make sure that we're spending it as efficiently as possible
because we don't have anything to spare, so we're trying

(16:27):
to squeeze every penny that we possibly can. So we
want to make sure you're going to show up. So
if you can't do the one hundred dollars, we'll figure
out some way to make sure that there's somebody that
you're accountable to, uh to actually show up, so we
can even we can even get lower than that if

(16:47):
we have to.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
That is awesome. I love everything about that. Just kind
of remind you, because I remind the audience here, we're
kind of at the first third. Here we are doing
a donation stream for the youth on the air camp.
You can donate directly with the penned link I already
have up in the chat, or if you give to

(17:10):
this super chat during the live stream, I will match
the YouTube, or I will cover the YouTube costs up
to two hundred dollars. That being said, we had ed
donate two dollars for the utes. Thank you very much, Ed,
I did see that, and let's go ahead and see
if we can help them raise some money to get

(17:31):
some more campers there.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
So Frank you might you might scroll up to the
top there there's a link there for Amazon wish list. Now,
Amazon used to have a charity wish list to where
we also got a cut of the sale, but we
don't have that anymore, but we do still have the
wish list, and on that wish list we put things

(17:54):
that we know that we're going to need. And that
kind of got wiped out over the summer because we
you know, bought everything you know a couple of weeks
out that wasn't purchased off of the list. But I'm
starting to build it back up. So yeah, there's some
tool pouches and another toolkit. Anderson knows why I have

(18:14):
another toolkit on there. We couldn't find the toolkit in Denver.
But some small things, but there are things that that
we're going to need. And so if if you'd rather
you know, pick out something than send cash, that's an
option to you can add it to your card. And
it will automatically send it to us with your Amazon membership.

(18:39):
So that's another way that you can donate.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
That's awesome that I think. I do remember you talking
about that. I blinked on that this go around. There's
only a couple of things a whole. So what happened
with the tool set? That sounds like there's a story there.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, he kept telling me it's in this spot.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
It's not there. He's like, it's in a black box. Say, okay,
black box. If I pulled the black box out of there,
and it's a coax cramping kit. And what ended up
happening was Harbor Freight. Their kit looks exactly like DX
Engineerings co actual cramper kit. And so when we pulled
the we pulled it out. Sure enough, we didn't have
the toolkit. We had the coax kits we could have

(19:18):
fixed coax that we couldn't use the screwdrivers and the
hammers that we needed.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Oh man, oops, oops.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Now luckily my toolbox was in the car. But but yeah,
we kept looking for the for the toolbox. So we've
solved the problem. They've got these really cool stickers, in fact,
may have well it's here somewhere, but I won't take

(19:47):
the time to find it. But there's a sticker that
you get at WWV. It says I set my clocks
to WWV. So the toolkit now has stickers all over it,
including the W the big WWV sticker, but it's got
all the Yoda stickers and all this stuff. So yeah,
so we won't mix it up again.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Did y'all do a a podac event was while y'all
out there last summer camp? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (20:19):
We did.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Yeah, so we Actually it was kind of a combination
Poda and soda. Half the people went up the summit,
half people went onto the park.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
I can't remember.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
I think the park was two ponds. I can't remember
what the number was.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
It was.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
It was two ponds right outside of Denver, but I
can't remember what the PODA identifier was. But we did that,
and actually we did really good, which we happened to.
I mean, we didn't plan it this way, but it
was during the massive solar storm all week. JF propagation
was awful and we ended up making like two hundred
some contacts in the park, which was really good.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Thanks.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
What we ended up with was two hundred something using
a dipole an icon bipole. It was the best antenna.
If we didn't that should have put it up earlier
in the week.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
But it was a great antenna.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
It worked out great that the dipole did, and we
made two in or some contacts, and I think that
the soda went well, really well, because of course we
went in Colorado got to go up a mountain.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
So was it a hike or a drive up summit
half half?

Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think I think the hike d was a quarter
mile or so. It wasn't far. You park at the
bottom of the hill and go up.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Nice. I've done peaks in the Colorado that would drive
up all the way and that was fun. And some
of the peaks where you had a white hike up
a part of it, and I enjoyed the driving up
the most.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
I said, this one was like drive up and then
you had to go hike maybe half a mile there
and half a mile back or something. It wasn't far
at all, and then once they got up on top
and it's kind of neat which two meter up there?
Of course it's great since if mass Denver evidently, come
to find out, had a great two meter simplex scene.
Oh yeah, everybody in Denver. I think they said they

(21:58):
worked great two meter because it was just that's big
thing out there was two meters simplex.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
It depends on your area, but there's usually a soda
frequency on two meters that simplex. Or you just jump
on five to two and they'll definitely help you out.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Over on Hoping.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, absolutely, and of course on top of the mountain.
I mean you get out forever. I want to say,
from the from the summit to two Ponds was I
don't know, wasn't that far, but it was a forty
minute drive. I think between both of them are thirty
minute drive or something like that. And hearing in Clear's
day on an HT at the park, which was great.
I don't know, I've never had any experience with that.
So it's kind of a neat, neat, little experience for

(22:36):
two meters to go that far.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
That's that's awesome. And it's also a practical application like
a demonstration of HF and the propagation bands and looking
up seeing which bands are open, and that's this is
a great activity. I love it. What camps you have
coming up next?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
So that would be Huntsville. Huntsville, so Huntsville is going
to be our space themed Yoda Camp. It's a special
edition this year, so this one's going to be a
little different from what we've done in the past because
every activity will have a connection to space. So we

(23:21):
actually took a tour of the school that we're going
to be using during the Huntsville Hamfest, and we can
look out the auditorium window and see the big rocket
in Huntsville. So it's going to be really really cool.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's awesome. I'm so jealous. So where are you all
going to be staying there? The auditorium is just the workspace,
or you get to stay inside the space.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Camp area now, so oh, let me go. Okay, it's
actually right outside. It's not far. We're a mouth from it.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
But it's that a technology college, not a college, a
high school. It's a boarding high school in Huntsville that
we're going to be at. And they have the auditorium
and they built it in the way. They said they
had some trees cut down so that way they could
view the rocket from the auditorium.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
Oh that's awesome. That's going to be so much fun.
I wish I could come out and help with that,
because I forgot to transition back because I would love
to help out, and probably Robert digital Rancher too. He
does all the satellite contacts for us, and I need
to get my radio fixed so I could do that again.

(24:40):
Is there any other kind of like special activities you're
going to be doing in that area because it's Huntsville
or you're still kind of kind of playing it out.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
We're having a hard time narrowing it down. We have
so many ideas. Everybody's like, oh, let's go do this,
let's do this, let's do that, And I'm like, we
only have week, folks, so we're kind of narrowing it down.
Of course, we will visit Space and Rocket Center, That's
that's kind of a must do. And I'm sure we'll

(25:11):
visit the amateur radio station at Marshall Space Flight Center
and and those kinds of things, but we don't we
don't have everything nailed down yet, but boy do we
have a long long list.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
A new museum that just opened up broadcasting.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, t O and a couple others went down there
to check it out this year. I wasn't able to attend,
but I'm jealous, but I really wanted to see that
it's probably gonna be on my list for next year.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah, that's on that's on our That's high on our
list as well. We'll probably we'll probably go there. We
we're just you know, trying to try not to be
gone all the time. We want to we want to
make sure that we're we're working on our projects there
at the school, it's the Alabama School for Cyber Technology

(26:06):
and Engineering. It's a magnet school. Oh and they have
they have their own dorm in the building next door,
and their own cafeteria in the building next door. And
one of the engineering teachers is a ham and he
already has a couple of intennas up on the roof.
So we were asking, you know, well, you know, do

(26:31):
we have permission to put antennas up and everything, because
that's one of the usual problems when we have when
we go to a school. You know, it's nice because
the dormitories are usually a little cheaper to stay in,
but then we also have a lot of other things
that kind of interfere, and these guys are saying, oh, no,
you can, you can bring in you know whatever. So

(26:53):
going to be really good.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
He even told us we could run coax down if
a thank you correct directly into his room and somebody
was like, how hard is it to access days? Like
they just run a snake up, we can run it
right back down into the room.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Oh nice, that's awesome. So another idea for the box.
Monticento State Park is at the top of the mountain
and depending what area there's a part of that park
is also a soda that you can get to. I
think it's an easily drive up and there's a planet
arium over there, so if you want, I know we're

(27:30):
looking at for next year for us, but they might
do a private show. There's a way to get a
private show and you can do it for the whole kids.
So you drive up, do the poda and go to
the planet Areum. And Mike has got me saying that
the planet Arrium. We drive by there and it's like
an hour of us going planet arium for the areum,

(27:53):
but anyway, it's the Planetarrium and have a private show.
So just another idea to do that because when we're
up there for Huntsville Hampfst, we stay at that part
for almost a solid week. It's so much fun.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah, that's on the list too. We've been advised of
that one, and that it's a soda an apoda and yeah,
the museum and stuff at Marshall you know, Space and
Rocket Center. Yeah, my brain's already fried, trying to uh
to nail nail down exactly what we are going to

(28:33):
do and what we aren't. We have so many possibilities
and we try not to get you know, leave campus
more than once out of the week or twice at most,
you know, because we do have a lot of activities
that we're you know, that we need to do there. Yeah,
So so yeah, we're we're we're going to be looking

(28:55):
at those and figuring out which ones. But I think
we're going to have an unlimited supply of ideal activities
in Huntsville.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
I'm sure you know, if you contact Gigaparts, that'd be like, hey,
come over here.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
Oh, yes, we got all.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
We've already talked about that. So yeah, that's that's on
the list as well.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
And there's also a hidden tartis to find over in
that shop area. So if you go out there, see
if you can find the tartis and if you if
you are in the age range and what was that
age range again for that.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Camp, it's fifteen to twenty five, fifteen through and including
twenty five, so less than twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
How if you're in that age range, how do you apply?

Speaker 3 (29:45):
So you go to youth on theeair dot org. That's
our website, and December first, we will open up the applications. Okay,
so you'll go there and there'll be something right under
where you're at. But also you can go to camps
in the menu there and it'll have a link there

(30:06):
for Huntsville. Right now it's still Denver, but that'll be
changing soon. And like I said, December first, you can
start applying. Our early application process goes into mid January,
and then what we do is we review those and
we accept all of those after our review to make

(30:30):
sure you're within the age range. And again we try
not to have too many returning campers, and if you do,
you're coming back as help. So we try to get
we try to make it two thirds of our campers
our first time campers. So we'll go through that list
and figure out exactly what we're gonna need and figure

(30:55):
all that out and then notify everybody, and then we
will continue app taking applications through. Believe it's May first,
this year, it's usually right around Dayton. Sometimes we can
make it after Daton, but I believe this year we're
back to May first. But but anyway through May you

(31:19):
can also apply, and we just kind of take those
in batches as we go. So the early one, you know,
that just kind of guarantees your spot a little bit
more and it gives us a little more time to
prepare and kind of have an idea of what we're
looking at. But there's not a huge advantage of of

(31:42):
doing that other than you know, you know sooner. But
we would take applications up up through May, and then
that gives us a few weeks to get T shirts
ordered with names on them and all that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
So nice. Yeah, since we talked to last I believe
you had the Youth on the Air Junior camp for
the first time. How did that go?

Speaker 3 (32:06):
We did? It went beautifully. I just I cannot believe
how well that camp went. We had one or two
minor issues that really just you know, in the scheme
of things, not a big deal at all, but a

(32:26):
couple of things that we did learn that we need
to fix. But it just went marvelously. We had twelve
young people under fifteen. I think they're the youngest we
had was nine, but they came with a parent, and

(32:46):
so that made our lives a whole lot easier because
we didn't have to keep track of everybody quite as
much as we normally do. But we had a kind
of a miniature version of the Big camp, and so
we did go out to David Busters one night, but
the rest of the time we were doing stuff at
the Voice of American Museum. We built some kits. We

(33:10):
were on the air quite a bit, probably on the
air a little more actually with the Junior Camp than
our normal camp. Anderson, you were there too, you want
to talk about Junior.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
Yeah, I thought it went good. I didn't have any
complaints overall. I mean it was a fun week I
think for everybody. I think the parents had more fun
than the kids at times. I think it was a
really neat for them too. It was a good experience
for everyby all the way around. And like I said,
I think we did spend a lot more time operating.
I don't know exactly what the contact count was, but
picked up the radio and we were able to work

(33:44):
really well, which of course, the LA Museum had their
own operating station there. Something made radios really nice because
they got the best of the best and really fun,
really fun time.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, that a voice in American Museum is amazing. They
have a radio club that have little radio set up
and all the antennas ready to go, and plus you
got the added bonus of having the museum there. We
should have activated or just played radio there. And when
we went there, we walked through and it was amazing,
amazing walkthrough experience. It was so much fun.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Now Anderson's being a little modest here and put him
on the spot. Anderson saved the day.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
He did saved the day.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Well, I don't know from what I heard. A few
more minutes and uh the hotel would have been on fire, but.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
No more hotel.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
What happened here?

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Well, I had and I.

Speaker 4 (34:43):
Think it was there was a fireworks may have sitting
on fireworks inside.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
In the mill. Not with us, this is somebody else.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
And one of the people that was with us said
that his car was part next to it and a
car was on fire. I was like, okay, this is interesting.
So went outside is a and put out the fire
and my training thing was good and mm hmmm, yeah,
that was that was an adventurous time. So the in
the fire department came police department. It's just a it's

(35:15):
a wild first not of camp. Yeah, go that if
you want to go that far.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
That that makes for the great stories hit does.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Anderson grabbed a fire extinguisher and jumped into action. And
so the next morning, uh, we gave him the Jump
into Action Award and gave him always got there. We
gave him the fire extinguisher, so he has one now.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
That is so awesome. I love it. I love this,
I love this.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
It's always fun. It's always a good time for everybody.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Let me just scroll up here a little bit. We
had Mike said that he donated directly to y'all's PayPal.
Thank you very much, Mike, you are amazing. We also
saw Vic Miller also donated directly to y'all, Thank you
very much. I'm gonna accept their word. I know both

(36:13):
of those are good guys, so I don't doubt it
either way. So it so it sounds like you the
on the air juniors with success, are you going to
be looking to bring that back next year?

Speaker 3 (36:24):
So not sure about next year, but definitely by the
following year. The idea for this is that we're going
to basically make it a camp in a box. So
what you'll a club can do is order all the materials,
so we'll get the T shirts and the books and

(36:47):
you know, all the activities and everything, and we'll ship
a box and you work with one person who is
involved with YODA, because we're scattered all over you know,
North and South America, so you find somebody that's close
by to work with to kind of make sure that

(37:11):
everything's going the way it should go. But that it's
kind of a you know, a camp in a box
kind of thing to where we're not having to haul
everything everywhere, kind of cut down on a lot of
the expenses and that kind of thing. So so we're
going to take some time to kind of write all
that up and and get this old box planned out

(37:34):
as to what that's going to entail. So I'm not
sure if we're going to do one this coming summer,
but I definitely don't want to go more than more
than two years without doing another one because it it
went wonderfully.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
I like that idea, the camp in the box, so
it'd be more of a local area thing or reach
a subregional thing, bring kids together and they don't have
to probably travel across the nation to get there. That's awesome.
I like that idea. I hope that that is you
can make that happen.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Man, that's the plan.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yeah, So we're at the second third here, So I'm
just going to do a quick recap. We're doing Youth
on the Air fundraising for NEO and the Youth on
thee air dot org summer camp. You can donate directly
to the Youth on the Air website with the link
pinning the description or pending. The chat is also in

(38:35):
the description, and then you can donate directly to them
through PayPal, Vimeo, and they have a web pay two
you can do an also a monthly description for this
live stream. I am also going to be covering YouTube's costs.
If it's just easier to do to for you through
a super chat, go ahead and do that and I'll

(38:55):
cover YouTube's fee up to two hundred dollars and we'll
get that money onto them. Y'all just been amazing so
far with this whole thing. If you have any questions,
please go ahead and ask in the chat. We'll go
ahead and get them Red on the air. Is there

(39:17):
an international camp happening soon, because I remember us talking
about that.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
So there, the Region one, Yoda, which is where all
this started, just had their camp in France a couple
of weeks ago. Actually they had a great camp over there.
They did an arist contact, they got to tour Paris
and did a lot of operating and some kept building

(39:44):
and those kinds of things. And actually one of our
campers was in charge of that one. So yeah, so
and you know, they were all all of them were
working on it, but one of them was the local
coordinator for it. And we had we had one from
the US, one from Mexico, and two from Argentina go

(40:11):
over I believe, I think I've got that account right.
So we did send a handful of Region Yoda Region
two campers over to Yoda Region one and they had
a great time. So I'm looking forward to hearing more
more from them. I've just seen pictures go far.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
But did you have any ideas over in France activities
they did over there in France?

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, I know they did the kit building, I know
the toured Paris, I know they were on the air
a lot that and and in the Aris contact they
did a direct as contact as well. So those are
the things that I know.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
I think they also launched rockets.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Oh, yes, rockets. I remember seeing that actually, so instead
of they did rockets.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yes, there's another one for the list over in Huntsville
model rockets. Yeah. I wonder if you can, you know,
put a a p R S mini micro transmitter and
then you have to go find it all right? Three?
Two want turn away and lunch, go find it.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
Von Braun would be proud.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
He would be. That will be so much fun. Fox
hunting man, that's fox hunting is another fun activity to
do with the kids. Yep, we're talking about that rocket tree,
the the international thing. That's that's awesome. I love that
y'all are opening that up. And y'all did it in France. Wow,

(41:54):
I that blows my mind. It literally does.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah. And then and Yoda Region three, they did do
a camp which I haven't heard a whole lot about,
but they did do one in Thailand, and so they're
kind of getting started, but they're they're kind of doing
the opposite approach. They're kind of starting with the countries
and then trying to put everything together. Where in Yoda

(42:22):
Region one and Yoda Region two, it kind of started
regionally and now we're kind of trying to narrow down
into countries, so they're they're kind of taking a different approach,
so it's a little harder to get information. But but
I do know that they have successfully hosted a.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Camp now, so I think I just found the pictures
for the Philippines. The Philippines, Yeah, Region three.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
But yeah, France, you probably yeah, yeah, there you go.
That's that would be France.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yep, yep, that's so cool. I I hope we can
help you get some more kids into camp. I kind
of running out of the questions I had for y'all
marked down here. Anything else you kind of want to
talk about both of y'all.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about December y
Oda month, because that's coming up soon. All month long
in December, we have a special event that is international,
so we are not actually the ones that run it.
We just organize the participation in the America's region. But

(43:36):
but we have special event call signs. Most of them
end in Y, O, T, A H, and we can't
do that in the US. So we have four call signs,
one ending in Y, another in O, another in T,
and another in a so you can collect all four
just like but yeah, but anyway, we have these special

(44:01):
event calls and there's an awards program just like thirteen
Colonies or you know, any of those kinds of things
that you can work all these yoga stations around the
world and you get a certain number of points for
those and then you can download.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Your award from.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
The youngsters on the air website for our main points
you get. And so they check all the logs. We
we upload logs every day and then you know, they
have all the the awards stuff, and then they also
have plaques for the youth that are operating in it

(44:43):
for different different categories and different you know, different levels
and that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
So let me go ahead and drop that link into
the chat about that. And again that's the month of
just December, you said.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, entire month of December, and then on December thirtieth,
it's also the last day of the Yoda Contest. So
the Yoda Contest is three times a year and that'll
be the last one. It coincides with Yoda Month, and

(45:22):
so there's a whole contest scheme set up to work
participating Yoda stations in the contest so December thirtieth is
always the busiest day of Yoda month, but but all
month long, you'll hear in the US, you'll hear kate

(45:43):
y k O, K T and k E A And
the eight is just because we started off at the
Voa Museum, so those are the ones that we that
we used there, so that's why we have those. And
then you'll hear probably VE one Yoda, V three Yoda,

(46:05):
UH y S one Yoda, l U one Yoda, several
stations and we'll have them all on our website so
you can you can find those and there will be
a little link that will send you to d X Summit,
but it will filter just the Yoda stations. Oh so,

(46:28):
if you go to our website and just click on
the link, and we'll have that on our qure Z
pages as well, you click on that and it will
it will give you the spots for all of the
Yoda stations that are on the air during the month
of December. Nice.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
That's awesome. I got the links for that in the
chat and I also put them into description. As you
were talking multitasking, I need a co host, oh man.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
You know, and our YouTube channel is there you know,
you can go and watch the opening ceremonies from each year.
You can watch the little highlight videos. BRIANB nine QVR
does a great job of taking all the video that
we get and every day he goes back to his
room and edits together a little two minute video highlight

(47:27):
reel of what happened that day and we show it
the next day at camp and then we posted on
the YouTube site. So if you want to get a
real quick idea of what we do, go to the
YouTube channel and we have a playlist for each camp,
so you can find the Denver playlist, you know, if
you want to see what we did in Denver, and

(47:50):
we have all of those there. We have a full
length recording of the Aris contact there as well as
the opening ceremonysing ceremony, and we also had some nice
news coverage there. I'm not sure if we got that
link in there, but there was some nice news coverage.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
That's awesome, and I linked that also into the chat.

Speaker 4 (48:20):
Thanks the news coverages on Facebook.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
I think it's yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yeah, that's awesome. I'm gonna get the floor here to Anderson.
Do you have anything else that you want to bring
up or talk about here.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Not that I can think of.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
I know, Yoda Camp it's kind of a it's a
great learning experience, I think first and foremost, and I
know it's helped me a lot doing in radio because
they said, I'm from Kentucky, a small town in Kentucky,
so it's hard to get out with radio and actually
talk to people and me talk to people on the
radio all day long, but to know the person on
the other side of the radio is always a good thing,

(49:00):
and Yoda Camp's really give me that opportunity.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
I think that's really nice.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
And so if you can't take anything else from it,
Yoda Camp is very very good for people. I mean,
it's really helped me a lot in my radio journey.
And that's the biggest thing I think with Yoda Camp
is that just learning the skills that you wouldn't otherize
learn and meeting the people that you may not have
met otherwise. I think those are the two big takeaways

(49:24):
that I take from camp Awesome.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Well, I do have a question for you, because we
did kind of say at the beginning, you did a
POTO last week. Where was it and what was special
about this activation?

Speaker 4 (49:38):
Mills Springs Battlefield. I think it's seventy. I took note
of it. I can let me look it up real
quick and tell you what the identifier is. But it's
I've never done one there before because it's Labor Day
weekend and it's hard to get into a normally activate
Green River Lake State Park, which is twelve seventy three
or twelve seventy nine. I think it's twelve seventy three,

(50:01):
but it's oh no, it's one two five nine my fault.
I'm backwards. One two five nine is my standard. But
Meal Springs is really neat. It's seventy seven eight US
seventy seven O eight. So it's my first QRP activation
that was successful. I did QRP activation in Colorado it
didn't go as well, but this one was my first
QRP activation that rent that went successfully, and it's pretty

(50:24):
pretty neat.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
And yeah, I really do enjoy Poda.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
It's my funnest thing that that radio has to offer
for me, is is the Koda.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
What is the biggest lesson you learned? Failed activation or
a successful activation that that you learned on a Koda?

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Oh, failed actor, I can do the FAILD activation.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Pretty neat, right, everybody, we got that.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
RP during a solar storm does not work. Oh yeah,
it's bad.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
I it was fun, I mean. But my biggest takeaway
with Poda is the small all are the kit the better? Okay,
I think It's what I've learned over the years. And
so my seven o five has a bag hammer bag.
It's in and I can just pick it up and
take it with me. Now I have my seventy three
hundred kit too, but it's a lot more bulky and
there I've kind of went away from that because it's

(51:15):
a backpack and a Pelican case and all the things.
So I don't want to have to pack all that out.
So one piece of advice I'd give is less bulky
the better.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yep, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
I makes it a lot more fun.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Do you having a bag of adapters? That is a
must have?

Speaker 6 (51:34):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (51:34):
All my kit has that.

Speaker 4 (51:36):
I have adapters in every bag everybody, because yeah, every bag.
It's the first thing I do is put adaptors in
every bag. I have so bn C to S two
thirty nine in the same way I reverse it in
case I ever need it.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
It's all you have to have adapters.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
You never know because I failed it some activations, I
get to the park is my closest park is forty
minutes away, so I have everything. There's no running back.
And I've failed some activations just because I didn't have
that one adapter in my bag, or I had one
adapter and I let it out and I failed to
replace it. Because anytime you give an adapter at field

(52:15):
day or any other event, you're never going to see
it again. It's always gone. And that's fine, that's okay.
But when you lend something out, always go pick up
three more. That's my rule.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Every hand fist, you should make two stops Anderson power
poles and adaptors. Yeah, that's the two must buys. If
you don't buy anything else, that's what you should buy.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I have like kind of sounds like you. I have
kits that are for radio. I have the the Gigabarts
Explore bag, which is the base, and then whichever radio
I'm bringing has a secondary accessory bag with it. So
if I'm going to the G ninety that day, the
Gen ninety goes in with the accessory bag. It has
everything that Gen ninety needs. And I have one through

(52:56):
the azu ftd X ten that goes into the backpack.
I put that into the bag with its own bag,
and I have the bag of accessories. Two pieces of
coax cable because if one's being finicky and too many
times you chunk and get another one because two is
one and one's none. Yep. What else have I learned?

(53:19):
Circle your activation area twice before you leave, yes, because
once once you're ready and all packed up and you're like, okay,
all you're thinking is getting home, getting the drive, how
I'm going to get home, Like you're gonna leave something behind.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
And that goes down to the make sure everything's compacted.
Like the less stuff you have to take out of
your bag, the better, is what I've learned. That's the
biggest thing, The less stuff you have to take it
like I used to. So I use warf river coils
when when I first started, and I really like it.
But I've moved towards more wire antennas because the wire
antenna is really simple m hm. And so I can
throw my mask up in a tree and tie the

(53:59):
antent at the top of it. I only have to
worry about the antenna, the koax and the mask. I
don't have to worry about the tripod legs. And the
tripod stand and the coil itself and the whip and
the radios, and it cuts down a lot. So if
I want to do something quick wire and tennis, if
it'll come, I go.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
To don't be a YouTuber and trying to film something
out there. I have carry like three bags sometimes, so
I have the radio bag that's self contained if I'm
just going to activate the radio bag, but then I
have the camera bag and it's stuff, and depending I
might bring my my every day backpack and that has

(54:32):
the laptop and cigars and other stuff that I enjoy
just on my day to day. And I get all
three of those bags there and I'm just like, ooh hey,
but that's that's how I roll. All right, we're kind
of coming up at the top of the hour. Thank
you to everyone who donated directly to Youth on the Ear.

(54:55):
Thank y'all to who donated to the stream. I will
make make sure that every penny of your donation gets there.
I'm going to match the YouTube cut and that's not
going to happen for the money going to the Youth
on the Air. Again, thank you Ed for coming a
member of the channel through YouTube. Thank you very much.

(55:15):
And also your donation today and Glenn Thompson, thank you
for your super chat. Also, I think that's gonna be
anything else last chance.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Neil or.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Thank you, Thank you for your support. You know, we
talked about this that you know, it's costing about two
thousand a camper to to make this happen, and we
could not do it without support. And you know, we
we we run a pretty tight ship.

Speaker 6 (55:48):
We we we we could we could use uh, we
could use some some wiggle room, but we run a
pretty tight ship.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
And and so we appreciate every every donation that we get.
We really appreciated. I was telling I was telling you
before the show tonight that we had a situation at
one of our camps where the sound equipment was supposed

(56:22):
to be there and it got loaned out and didn't
come back, and so we didn't have any sound equipment,
and so we had to go rent stuff. And so
you know the other day, we've got this place here
that has auctions for Amazon returns, and and I found
a fourteen hundred powered speaker with a microphone and everything

(56:45):
on wheels, and we for fifty eight dollars, we now
have our own sound system. So you know. That's how
we try to do a lot of these things is
we find we find d and so whenever we can
find some kind of a great deal, like you know,
a fifty eight dollars sound system that should have been

(57:08):
a few hundred dollars, you know, we can do that
and make the money go further because we're we're pretty
tight on that. So we appreciate even you know, like
I said, the little things like you know, number stickers
and tool pouches and stuff on Amazon. We we really
appreciate it all. And we thank the Ham community for

(57:30):
coming together to do this because it's just a marvelous thing.
I'm so blessed to lead the group and put it
all together, and I'm looking forward to the day when
they can take one hundred percent ownership of it and

(57:53):
and keep Ham Radio going for years to come. So
thank you.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
I love it. I love it. I love us supporting y'all.
I love talking to you at every hand fest and
stealing some of your chocolate that Anderson, thank you for joining.
I appreciate it and hang it out with us. And sorry,
I keep going to Andrew because that is a nephew

(58:19):
of mine. I see a lot as I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Now, that's all right. That's more common than you would think, Neil.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Thank you again, y'all. Hold on, I'm Frank Cage five HJ.
Thank y'all for joining, Thank you for donating and having fun.
Just just off the bat real fast again. Thank y'all
for supporting me through YouTube memberships and Patreon. Your support

(58:46):
really does make this channel happen. Paul with the late
five gifted memberships. Thank you, sir. I do appreciate that.
Y'all are amazing as always, y'all, go forth and conquer.
Say bye bye, hey guys on there's a link in

(59:08):
the description below, And to all my tankers out there,
go forth and conquer.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
M hm.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Fundraiser For Youth On the Air, Round 2

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

All Episodes

Fundraiser For Youth On the Air, Round 2

Stuff You Should Know