Youth On the Air, Camp Denver 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
That's a lot better.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah, we got this, we got this.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
He we go.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh what is going on, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Frank
Cage G five HJ. And there is a new soundbar
that is not where it's supposed to be. And I
got the right mic. Now, thank you for noticing that.
I got a new camera right here, not there, this
this one. We'll see how it goes. And I'm on

(00:31):
the fence about it. And it's giving us a wider
field of views. So I got more crap on the ground.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I gotta move. Oh, man, tell me about half hour ago.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Man, Yeah, we got Neil in the background. And let's
go ahead and start as always by.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Play that onesome intro video. A quick shout out to

(01:21):
all my patreots. It makes the show possible.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
You can support me by joining Patreon in the link
below and on to take radio. What is up, y'all?
How is it going? We are back and we are

(01:48):
going to be having some fun. Let me go ahead
and do the pre stream run throughs.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
We'll get to your question in.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
A middn we'll look at the old end new before
here we go. Thank y'all for joining. Thank you to
all my Patreons and make this channel possible. Patreon links
and YouTube memberships are active y'all right now, critically and
crucially keep this channel going. I cannot right now, due

(02:19):
to some life changes, inject any more funds into the channel.
So after this trip to Dayton, I we'll see where
I go. Huntsville is up in the air. We gotta
y'all support is really going to be driving this channel now,
that being said. Over on Jason's shop dot two dot

(02:39):
com is where you find majority of my tank Radio
merch and I do have a awesome brand new shirt
which I gotta go pick up. This is the Tank
Radio Blackout shirt on over there on Jason's shop, and
it is being currently sold.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
It's an awesome new.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Blackout style with all the logos grade and a unique
logo over here. Yeah, get your shirt today and it
might be a little too late to wear it to Dayton,
but we'll see you in Huntsville with it. And finally,
Etsy over there on Etsy, Corky q RP has a

(03:21):
lot of great and amazing stuff over on Etsy for
amateur radio, including my tank Radio mouse pad. I don't
have that cute up right now. Maybe I do where's
in my links? Do us bad? Planned by cork g
q RP, do it?

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Do it? Do it? Why is it not linking?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
And bam link is in my description below? I use
this This weekend, I was out at a park and
if you have me in your hand alerts, you saw
me over at a spousal state park. I was over
there playing with the dinosaurs and having fun and I
got an episode recorded, so that was great. And finally,

(04:06):
my audio podcasts. My audio podcasts are released once a week.
That means there are more audio podcasts than live streams
on YouTube. So if you want to see what's going
on over on my audio podcast, go ahead and search
Take Radio any podcast or app you have, and you'll
find me Take Radio. All right, let's scroll back up.

(04:27):
Don wants to do a compare and contrast. Now, I
changed the angle of the old camera. So that's I
just changed the angle and Neil, I got you unmuted
for a moment if you want to weigh in here too.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Okay, all right, so we have been noticing the auto focus.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, it's trying, it's trying, but I feel like I'm
a judge, Judy blur, And here is the old camera.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
The old Logic Tech camera is a.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
I didn't really get a chance to play with the colors,
but I feel like I pop more over here right
now for some reason. And then we go back to
the new camera. The new camera, I think it has
a bitter dynamic range, so we're seeing some more than blacks.
And also the the screen is the the field of
view is a little bit more. Wayne says the old camera.

(05:28):
Don likes the old camera. The focus is way better.
Paul loves the shirt. The image of the old Logitech
and the light on the other one. Okay, so here
again the old and we're doing this, uh kind of

(05:52):
on the fly, so'm I'm not in studio mode, so
we're living dangerously and the new I think, I I
think it's gonna get sent back just for the judge
Judy focus, like it's not really focusing.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
I'm voting old camera, old camera. It's hard to beat
a nine to twenty. I've got a couple of those things.
They're hard to beat.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I know, I know, but but I'm so tired of
always adjusting the light on the old one and getting
the brightness right. And I was like, screw it, I'm
gonna buy a new one. Maybe I could play with
the zoom and get the right framage I want. But
this one zoom was fixed and I thought you could
play with.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
It, and you can't.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
And this auto focus is slow and all right, I
think I hear the consensus. We're gonna be using the
old camera. You see the bit of the new camera
right there. But let's go ahead, get back in studio mode, Neil.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
How's it going? Let me find the right there it is?
Oh man, I'm upside down now what I'm hanging it
out with? Hayden? This is what I get for messing
with things. You need space?

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Uh well, I found that you can like auto rotate
cameras and settings and things, so I don't have to
rotate film in each individual scene. I was like, okay, cool,
and I did that and now everything's flipped rotate.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Bam way it always goes there. You go. Yeah, well
gravity is restored.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, this won't be a tank radio episode if something
doesn't go wrong and the sound has miraculously been working
after it's been pointed out. I was on the wrong mic,
but hey, I'm gonna take my wins.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
What's going on, Neil? I haven't had you on the
channel before. So, uh no, we haven't done this. Well,
let's do like the the my some exciting news. So
I was like, hey, let's let's let's do this when
we've got some some news.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
So I'm looking for it, So let's do the like
the the convention greeting and Neil, what's your call sign?

Speaker 1 (08:13):
My call sign is WB nine VPG WP nine b
WB nine.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well that's a tongue twister.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
It's the worst call sign in America.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
I'm telling you what you're you have, Vanity, No, that's
not that sign.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
That is my original call sign. That's why I haven't
got rid of it. I've had it for forty eight years.
The only other call sign I've had was my novice call,
which was w N nine VPG, and then they switched
everything over and gave me the B. And I keep thinking,
I need a shorter call. This is a tongue twister.

(08:53):
I need a new call And every time I look
and I pick one out and I'm like, I can
do this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Well that's that's why KG five h J I want
a new one. I found a couple of cool ones
K five CPP for C plus plus.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Take it down.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
You can't just do K five C because you can't
because C is worse.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Well, you can do K five C for fourteen days, right.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, but you can't get a signed to you,
don says K five s K T was his first
and only call sign, and then C plus plus sucks.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
I love my chat. This is amazing goodness.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
But I see a lot of comments on your sack.
So if you have some time, we're gonna circle back
around and look at your shack. But you're with the
Youth on the Air program, and what is that for
the people who are not familiar with it?

Speaker 1 (09:56):
So YODA started in twenty eleven. It's Youngsters on the
Air to start with. And that's because in Europe, where
it kind of started, well it did start, youth is

(10:16):
usually associated with troubled youth, and so youngster is the
happier sounding name, and so they're youngsters on the air.
So several years after they got started, a couple of

(10:38):
guys from here went over to Austria, one of which
you know quite well, mister sterling Man in zerr SSC
and Sam Rose Casey two LRC, and they went over
to kind of check out this Youngsters on the Air
thing and copy it and bring it over here and

(10:59):
get it started. And there were several attempts to get
it going and it just wasn't working out. And so
we were talking about it on my old show, ham
Talk Live, and at the end of the episode, I said,
you know, this sounds right up my alley. I'm a teacher.

(11:20):
I used to coach. I did basketball camps, I did
church camps, I did all these different camps and everything.
I said, this this falls right into my territory. Maybe
I'll try it for a year. Here we are six
years later, but I've.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Known you at the Youth on the Air booth at
every convention I've been to for the last four years.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah. Yeah, So it's it's the program is a camp program.
But what's really unique about it and why they really
feel like this has worked and it's worked over here,
is that it's a peer led program. So when we

(12:07):
have people come in and talk about APRS or high
altitude ballooning or do the airis contact or whatever it
is that we're doing, the young people are the ones
leading the sessions. I get requests all the time, Hey
can I come teach you know about this or about that?

(12:27):
And my answer is no, you can't, and that's kind
of hard to do sometimes, especially with the caliber of
people that I get that what a volunteer. But the
science even has shown that students are more likely to
ask questions when they don't understand from their peers than

(12:50):
they are their teachers, which as a teacher, that really
sucks' busting. It is a proven fact that students will
interact with peers more than they will with the experts.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
And unless they're so overwhelmed, if they think it's so
complicated that their peers aren't going to get it either,
then they will start asking questions.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
So the YODA program is a very culturally different environment
than what we're used to. We facilitate the young people
doing their stuff. When I recruit volunteers, one of the
first things I tell them is you're not going to
be doing very much with ham radio, if anything. And

(13:42):
that's a shock, it really is. And some people have
been like, okay, never mind, I'm out, and that's okay.
But we've really found that when you put these kids
together and they to each other and we get some
people who know some about that area, but maybe not

(14:05):
the leading expert, they tend to get more involved and
stick with it and ask questions and really dig into it.
So that's really what sets Yoda apart from other programs
is the adults that are there are to maintain security
and do all the logistics to make sure these kids

(14:29):
have what they need to do their thing. And I
joke around with the staff. I was like, yeah, okay,
we open up on Sunday night at an opening ceremony.
I talk for a couple of hours, and as soon
as I do that, I said, okay, I'm done see
him because the rest of the week you're hardly going

(14:51):
to hear from me. I'm just gonna be running around
making sure people are doing what they're supposed to do.
And it it's an adjustment for me too, it really is,
but it works. And so that's that's that's what Yoda
is all about, is is bringing those young Hams together

(15:11):
and getting some learning communities and some and get some socialization.
We also have a lot of social time that's not
always Ham Radio. We we go play video games, and
we go bowling and and you know, we go to
amusement parks something different every time. You know, this year,

(15:34):
I know we're going to main event where where we're
going bowling and doing some gravity ropes and laser tag.
Oh that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well it's it's stimulating the mind and also going out
and having fun and making new friends.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, and and this is our this is paid off.
I mean, we we've run data, we run surveys before
and after camp and one year later. But also you
know going you know next week when I you know,
go to ham Bench, Well actually it's like three days
for me because yeah, I'm leaving Wednesday, but it's an

(16:11):
hour and a half drive for me. But I joke,
every time I move, I get closer to hand mentioning
on the purpose. But when I go to hand mentioning,
now I see groups of kids hanging out together where
normally it was you know, a kid kind of walking

(16:33):
along with the family and is kind of you know,
you know, kind of bored out of their mind. And
they the one thing that the kids say is they
feel isolated. You know, every kid seems to have one
young person, but it's always one young person. And so

(16:53):
bringing them together and getting them to know each other
so that they interact with each other and you know,
if they want to, you know, start playing with mesh. Hey,
I can call up so and so this person, you know,
it knows a lot about MESH. I can ask this
person about it, you know, and they'll hang out and

(17:15):
they'll walk around in groups. And so you know, hopefully
at ham Bench and you're going to see what I
usually see, which is you're going to see a few
groups of young people hanging out together. And that is
it's worth it. I mean, it's worth all the trouble

(17:37):
to see this community really start to get deep. I agree.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Before we move on to the next topic, here, Don
gifted five memberships. I appreciate that. Don, I thank you
very much for that. And so you said just before
the show here at the Denver camp close.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
So what are these camps? Okay, So there's a region
wide camp, so we cover north central and South America's
let's YODA Region two. It's the same as ITU Region two,
the same as IRU Region two. It's north central South America.
So we have campers from all over. We're trying to

(18:24):
break into more countries all the time. But we have
a week long camp, so we go Sunday through Friday.
Right now. We may adjust that at some point, but typically,
you know, we'll get together for you know, five or
six days and we'll we'll bring everybody together and do

(18:46):
all these peer led activities, like I said, social activities,
all those kinds of things. And that camp is for
fifteen to twenty five year olds, so you have to
be under twenty six, but you have to be at
least fifteen. And so the idea of that is is

(19:07):
not because the younger kids can't do ham radio, so
we're going to talk about that here in a little bit,
But the ideals is the social aspect that you know,
there's just a big social shift there. And then even
when we get them to camp, we group them together
by age, so they're usually within a year or two

(19:28):
of each other in their smaller groups that they do
at camp, so it's more of a you know, a
social thing. But that's kind of the age that the
youngsters on the air group targeted, and so that's what
we adopted. And then later on we're going to talk

(19:49):
about under fifteen. We're starting that this year. So but
that's that's kind of the age range and what we do.
And then as as time goes on, we're going to
have sub regional camps. Now, this this junior camp that
I'm talking about is a sub regional camp. So a

(20:11):
sub regional camp is for one specific country. So this
is going to be a US only camp. And Canada
has been working on getting the Canadian sub Regional Camp
and that's a three day camp. It's kind of like
a feeder program for the region wide camp. So you

(20:32):
go to your country camp and then selected people from
those go to the region wide camp. We're not there yet,
so we're just taking everybody. But these these sub regional
camps are going to be popping up. We've got one
that's almost ready to go, they've been through the training

(20:53):
and everything. We've got another one that's just getting started.
So you're going to see some other countries host their
own like three day version. It's a miniature version and
that takes a lot of the travel expense out of it,
and you know, three days is a whole lot easier
to manage, you know, but we want the big you know,
do everything, you know, top of the heat region wide

(21:19):
camp to involve everybody. So so you're going to see
sub regional camps. I thought we were going to have
them this year, due to some unforeseen circumstances. Uh, the
Canadian project is on hold right now, but they're very,
very interested in making this happen. And uh yeah, and

(21:40):
then we've got a South American country that's going to
be Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Did I see last year's you had a camp in Halifax.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
So yes, the last two years we've been in Canada.
And and that was intentional because it was definitely more
expensive and a whole.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Lot more trouble.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
If you if you heard about all of the logistic
nightmare of shipping stuff, if you heard that story, oh,
I'll have to tell you that story. But we did
that very intentionally because we wanted to make sure that
people know that this is not a US only event.

(22:24):
And so you know, we're trying to get into South America.
That's a little more challenging. We couldn't do Mexico because
of all the licensing that's been put on hold in Mexico.
But but Canada was willing and able. So we we
spent the last two years in Canada. We're back in
the US for the next three and then we'll see

(22:47):
where we go from there. But but yeah, that was intentional.
And what we did was we found a lot of
Canadian youth amateurs up there that they didn't know about
we found them, and so now they have people who
have been to these camps that can jump in and

(23:08):
be future leaders of the camp, and people who they
can have run sessions and then and work on our
special event that we have every December and and things
like that. So by by having this camp, we found
a lot of those people, and so that's going to
help out the Canadian effort quite a bit, and we're

(23:30):
we're having similar results in Argentina.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Nice is a quick question from done. Is Icon helping
y'all support?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yes, Icon supplies all of our radios, so I send
them a wish list and they send me everything. In fact,
a couple of the demo radios at hand Benson that
you'll see next week are going to be coming to camp.
I'm going to pick them up after camp. All the
rest of it is being shipped to camp. But Icon

(24:05):
ships us all the radios, so I know we have
I think five full power HF radios we're going to
be using, including a seventy six to ten and some
seventy three hundreds. We also have found that the seven
O fives are really popular with the kids. They like

(24:26):
the little portable thing. And we're actually doing a soda activation,
so that's going to work out really nice for soda
this year. And then every person gets a handheld to
use for the week, So every single camper gets an
ID fifty two this year. That's the same handheld we've

(24:49):
had for a couple of years now. So and then
the satellite stations, we get a couple of ninety seven
hundreds to do the ARIIS contact and some of the
satellite stuff. So so Icon does that, and they send
us somebody to trouble shoot and and and help us
and answer questions and charge batteries anything else. They have

(25:12):
really been great about jumping in and just helping out
wherever they are needed. Uh, but we try to focus
them in on the shack to kind of help out
with with some of the shock questions.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
It's it's nice having that on site trouble shoe or
I T support that you don't have to scratch your head.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
You go like, here, you're smarter than me, Yeah, how
do you do this? Fix this?

Speaker 2 (25:35):
So I can focus on that. That's that's awesome that
Icon does that for you and provides that support. And
we're coming up at the halfway point. This has been fun.
So we already hinted a couple of the activities that
that y'all y'all do with them. What other is there

(25:57):
any STEM related activities kind of outside or just amateur
radio adjacent you do.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
So let's see. So I'm just thinking through the schedule
for Denver. We have our opening ceremony, we have a
shack orientation. We we have a logging session. We found
it after the first couple of years. Some of these
young people have no idea how to keep a log
They've never logged before, and so we have a logging

(26:26):
session to teach them how to log with software. And
then let's see, Monday morning, we get we get the
radios sent out, we do some d Star stuff. Monday
afternoon we're going to do some kit building and a
high altitude balloon launch. And then Tuesday, let's see, Tuesday,

(26:50):
I believe is scheduled for the airs contact, although we
don't have a time set for that, so that always
changes last minute. We've got some time built in for that.
And then in the afternoon that the ballooning and kit
builders switch, so we have an advanced kit building session

(27:11):
instead of a beginner kit building session. And then we're
all going to do the Peico balloons on Tuesday, so
they'll they'll just swap off so that we keep our
groups a little smaller, and then Wednesday we're taking a
field trip. I'm very excited about this field trip. As

(27:31):
soon as I heard we were going to Denver, that
was the first thing out of my mouth was we're
going to w w V. Uh. So we're gonna take
a bus up to Fort Collins and I've talked to
the chief engineer up there and the president of their
amateur radio club, and they are going to help us,

(27:52):
and we're going to do an activation there. We're gonna
we're going to operate on site while the other half
goes into does the tour, and then we trade off
again so everybody will have a chance to tour w
w V, and then we're going to activate. And then

(28:12):
on the way home, we are stopping at BUCkies. And
I hope I'm still I've been working on this for
months BUCkies on the air. I hope. We're trying to
get permission to go through corporate.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
All so you're gonna try set up. You're just not
gonna sit in a van and flip on the radio.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
So we're taking all the gear, you know, to do
the w w V activation, So we'll have all the gear.
So I'm still hoping, uh for BUCkies on the air.
We may have to reschedule that, but that's the plan.
And then let's say Thursday. A Thursday is satellites and

(29:04):
then either soda or poda. So if you want to hike,
you do the soda, if you don't, you do the Poda.
And then Friday we have our closing ceremony and everybody
goes home, nice, nice, So that's what we're doing. And
then the evenings we have social time, so you can
play games, you can get on the radio, you can

(29:25):
go to the hotel pool, you can have fun, you know,
have fun. And then like I said, one night, we're
gonna go to Main Event and do some bowling and stuff.
The first time we did that, we went to Main
Event I think it was two years ago up here
in Cincinnati, and they have the computer ized scoring and

(29:46):
they have the screens up on the wall and it
was absolutely hilarious some of the names they put in
and all signs, and so you look up and you know,
here you are in a bowling alley and you're you know,
you're expecting, like Sam, Jeff Ruth, you know, Amy, you know,

(30:06):
you know, you know, Jane whatever, and you see you know,
seventy three QRM call signs. You know it was. It
was great your z Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
So we hinted that the Denver camp is closed right now.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, yeah, Denver. The registration closed me first because as
soon as I get back from Dayton, I'm packing for Denver.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Uh yeah, busy like me sometimes, trip after a trip,
after a trip.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, so we're in Denver. Well, the camp is June
fifteenth through twenty if I'm there from like twelve or
eleventh or something like that. But June fifth teenth to
twentieth will be Whiskey zero Yankee. That'll be our special
event call. So listen for Whiskey zero Yankee that week

(31:08):
June fifteenth through twentieth, and we will be on the air,
like I said, mostly evenings during the social time, but
then you know, when we're out doing activations and everything,
of course we'll be We'll be on there too, and
you might listen for Whiskey Whiskey zero, Whiskey Whiskey Victor
from WWV. I'm not sure which call sign are both
were using yet we haven't nailed that down quite yet,

(31:31):
but that or whiskey zero Yankees is what you'll be
hearing most of the time.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
So does you said the air organization have their own
call sign.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
No, we do not, because we rotate places all around.
What we try to do is have a Yoda call sign.
So like in Ottawa we had ve three Yoda and
Halifax we had ve one Yoda. So that's that's kind
of what we try to do. But the United States

(32:01):
you can't do four letter call signs. So I've actually
tried to get that legislation changed. Yeah, it's not going anywhere.
I've had the maybe in the future, yeah all right,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
So do you want to tell us about the any
future camps or future ideas.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yes. So here's here's the big news. Let's see, I'm
a radio guy, not a video guy, right, heir, Yoda Junior,
Yoda Junior. This is a subregional camp and it's for
under fifteen year olds. Now, if you know, if you

(32:46):
know my story, I got licensed when I was five
years old. I did I did the code, I did
the novice, I did the whole the whole bed at
five years old. And one of the things that i'd usually,
you know, tell the campers is, you know a lot
of times when I sent age five in morse code,

(33:09):
people just disappeared. They didn't come back to me. They
thought it was a joke, or they thought, you know,
this is some illegal person acting like, you know, a
five year old or whatever. And so one of the
things that I said from the very beginning of doing

(33:30):
Yoda here in the Americas was we need to do
something for these under fifteen year olds because they can
do ham radio. It's it's just like I said, the
social aspect is just totally different. So we are finally
hosting the first Yoda Junior camp for under fifteen year olds,

(33:53):
and that's going to be July twenty fifth to twenty eighth,
and we're going to have that here in Cincinnati to
be up at the Voice of America Museum, and that's
where we had our first two of the region wide camps.
So we will be there for the long weekend, so
it's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. A parent does need to

(34:15):
come along. The parent does not need to be licensed,
but the child does. And so we will take up
to fifteen of those young people. We already have seven
or eight signed up, but we still have more rooms.
So if you know a licensed ham that is under

(34:35):
the age of fifteen, go to Youth on Theair dot org,
go to the YODA Junior link on the camps page
and sign up and you can come for this long weekend.
We're going to do some fox hunting, We're going to
do some kit building, we're going to do some operating,

(34:56):
and again some social time. So it's to miniature version
of the big camp. So we're really looking forward to
doing that at the Voice of American Museum July twenty
fifth to twenty eighth, and the call sign will be
Whiskey eight Yankee for that camp.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
So nice Nice.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
I want to get the word out on that and
get people signed up. All of our camps are one
hundred dollars registration fee, and that's pretty much to make
sure you show up. Wow Nice. The region wide camps
cost us about eighteen hundred to two thousand dollars a person.

(35:40):
I don't know exactly what the Junior is going to
come out to be. I know it's a lot less
because it's fewer days, but I think our estimates are
somewhere in the eight hundred dollars range, but we charge
one hundred dollars and that's it, and then your transportation
to and from the city, and we take care of
everything from when you get here to when you leave,

(36:03):
and we have scholarships available for that. Even so if
if you can't afford one hundred dollars, we'll figure out
some way to make sure that you're actually going to
show up. And you know so so thanks to our
sponsors that that's very affordable.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
We're going to talk about how you can we can
contribute in a second here. But what what brought around
like because now you had the regular camps with the
older kids, so what why were you always trying to
figure out a way for the younger kids to come?
Is just makes it harder because of the younger ages
and the parents.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
So you know, they've they've done a couple of these
that they called it Kids on the air over and
over in Europe. It's really just about the social aspect.
It's just you know, it's it's hard to have a
nine year old interacting with twenty five year old. You know,

(37:02):
it doesn't you know, it works, but it doesn't work
at the level that we're really trying to target. So so,
you know, I've always wanted to do it to include
those ages, but it's just a social thing. That's really
all it is is just to to give them people
their own age. Yeah, awesome. Right now our campers are ranged,

(37:30):
you know, just from who's signed up right now, they're
ranged from nine to thirteen.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
For the that's the perfect stemage.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Oh yeah, and that's the perfect perfect age to get
them into Ham radio. That's that's the exact target age
to get young people interested in Ham radio, is you know, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve in that range.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
So yeah, So the question that our chech kind of
wants to know is how can we support you?

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Well, I'm so glad you because we are. We need
some support. I'll just be real honest. We haven't paid
for Denver yet. We're still trying to raise the last
bit of that and so the best way to do
that is to go to youth on thee air dot

(38:26):
org and click on donate and if you look under donate,
there are several ways that you can support us. There's
a link to PayPal, there's a link to venmo, there's
a go fundme. If your work has charitable donations that

(38:48):
you can make. We're registered with Benevity and Schwab Charitable.
You can sign up through there and your workplace will
donate to us. You can also mail us a check.
You can drop a donation in the donation box at
Hanvention next week we're bringing we're bringing that back. And

(39:11):
then just a few minutes before we got on the
air here tonight, we set up a silent auction that's
going to start on Tuesday, I believe it is, and
you can watch it on that page as well as
we'll publish that out more and we'll have a QR
code at hand. Mention. But Garman has donated a GPS

(39:36):
enabled smart watch and we're going to have a silent
auction for that to raise some money. So so if
you are an outdoorsy person and you would like to
have GPS on your wrist, this is a way you
can help out Yoda and and get a watch. So, oh,

(40:02):
I forget which one of the Viva Watch five, Maybe
I can't remember after.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
I can look, So while you look that up, I
went ahead and put that.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Active five Vimo Active five Active five.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
I put that link in the chat and y'all go
out there and help them. Just this is a great organization.
I love talking to y'all every year. I don't don't
get you on camera every year just because it's I
need to keep it a little fresh. But I've always

(40:45):
say all I was and.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Your hope.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
I I forgot to ask this before you got on
stream or we started here.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Where's your partner?

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Where where's the other guy?

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Well we have we have four actually, but yeah, Sterling,
yeah you were going with Yeah, yeah, Sterling has has
become a father. So Sterling has been paying more attention

(41:20):
to Ray than me. So we're looking forward to uh
hosting Ray at YODA camp. Uh in about fourteen years
and uh yeah, so well maybe like nine years, ten years,
get yeah junior, Yeah, in junior camp, you know, in

(41:43):
five or six years. So yeah, so he's a proud
father now. But he and Sam and and Jocelyn Katie
a v r X, we're the four co founders of
Yoda America's.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
So yeah, we we miss him. I know Kyle hangs
out with them all the time.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah he's still around. Yeah, Kyle does, but yeah, sometimes
I have to relay through Kyle.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
But you know, here's a question from John here in
our chat. Does Yoda work with stems and schools for awareness?

Speaker 1 (42:23):
So no, not in particular. We are a retention program,
not a recruitment program. So while we maintain a lot
of resources online that can be useful, that that's that's
not in our scope. Of course, that's very important, and

(42:47):
you know I do a lot of that stuff myself. Uh,
it's just not in the Yoda scope of things. Uh,
Yoda is is purely a retention program. So we really
focus on giving already licensed people activities to do and

(43:07):
ways to grow and learn and and socialize. And that's
that's really our focus.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, Kyle, you say Kyle name, he popped up. He says,
I'm a good relay.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Yes he is. He Also he also made dinner recommendations.
I haven't told him yet I made the reservations, but
he was in Denver and I saw his post on
on Twitter x or whatever you want to call it,
and uh, yes, I made. I made reservations that the
day that they opened for for camp. So yeah, nice

(43:42):
dinner reservations in Denver thanks to Kyle. But yeah, we
uh you know, and and also you know, I gotta
I gotta talk about my my youth staff, because they
are doing more and more and more of the work.

(44:02):
And you know, I originally said, you know, three years,
I'm out. It didn't go quite that quick. But my
goal is still to phase out because they need to
be the ones running this program, and we are getting
closer and closer to that all the time. We have
people taking care of public relations, we have people taking

(44:25):
care of registration, we have people taking care of the
website and the shack and all these different things. And
so we've got an entire team, and we've got volunteer
parents that come in and even though their kids are
grown and gone, they still come back. So I just

(44:45):
can't say enough about the whole team. You know, we've
got twenty to thirty people who just just show up
and give of themselves for the week of this camp
and often all year long and making the plans for
this and they're all young people. And so my goal

(45:08):
is to put myself out of a job that I'm the.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Advising yourself out of the job. You want to train
your replacement, yes, yes, does he want to keep it going?

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah? So you know, Candy Campbell, Jack Roberts, Abby Kimmi Matziohi,
Ruth Willitts my assistant director, she's doing all kinds of stuff.
Anderson Ray Taylor Lobb Uh. I could go on and on,

(45:43):
and you know, we've got people doing QSLs for us
and just it's amazing. And they're all listed on the website,
so you know, you can you can see an entire
list there. But they just do an amazing job. And
and and yeah, that's the is. They're going to be
running this whole thing here pretty soon.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
So that's that's always the goal. And I didn't know
you were you still needed money. Maybe after Dayton we
can probably set up a live stream donation. It has
to be done while you create the stream, and there's

(46:25):
a way to twigger a donation stream so Google takes
less of a cut and we can all forward the
money along to a charity company which I believe you're
all set up resid for and we can help you
all out there. Let's let's keep in touch. I know
I'll see you next week and well I'll figure out

(46:47):
how to do it and maybe we can get that
done for y'all and we'll push that and we make
a fun stream for that.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
And one other thing I knew there was something I
meant to mentioned when we were talking about donations. There's
one other thing on that page that's been pretty popular.
We have a wish list on Amazon, and so if
if you don't want to donate outright money to us,
you can go to the Camp wish list. There it is,

(47:16):
and these are supplies that we need for Camp. And
so what I do is I put them on the
wish list and then you know, here in another week
or two, I'm going to go buy all those things
that are on the wish list that haven't been fulfilled.
But if you click on ad to cart and and
you know, pay for it, it will ship it straight

(47:39):
to us, and no must, no fuss. You know, you
know what we need, and maybe you know it's a
roll of gaffer tape, and maybe that maybe that's that's
what you can afford, and that's what you want to do.
You know, we've had a rig runner on there and
and some other stuff, and people been very generous with that.

(48:02):
Usually that wish list goes away as soon as I
say something about it. So if you if you'd like
to make some smaller donations, that's another way you can
do it on Amazon and that way you know exactly
what your money. Yeah, so that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
I think you need to definitely keep that Whistless up
and going because direct supplies and people like to you
not sometimes just not folk over cash like oh here
you need some cable of course.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. So we've done
that with with a lot of items, and there's, like
I said, several items there that we still need for Denver.
So yeah, that's another way you can you can donate.
The other thing that you know, there's two other things
that you can do that are just as important, and
number one is refer young people to us. We we

(48:56):
need to know where these youth are and we we
you know, my goal is to have every single kid
in Region two go to Yoda Camp one time. I
would love for that to happen. So refer young people
to us. You know, the junior camp is there now

(49:16):
for under fifteen, and then the fifteen up through twenty
six for the region wide camp. Please refer those people
to us. And on our website we have links to
all kinds of other youth activities. So, like we were
talking about, well ago, you know do we do you know,

(49:37):
school outreach for STEM No, that's that's not our thing.
But there's a link to people who do you know scouting? No,
we don't do scouting, but there's a link to people
who do you know contests? Well, here are the contests
that have youth categories in them. What are some you know,
school like school club roundup. You have a link to that.

(50:01):
So if you go to our website, you're going to
find everything Ham Radio youth related out there. And so
they need to know where that stuff is. And so
we've got it all right there, but they need to
know where we are, so so spread the word on
that and refer people to us. And then the other
thing is when we're in a week of camp, get

(50:23):
on the air and work us. You know, we can't
practice working through pile ups without pile ups. Amazing how
that works. So we need a lot of people getting
on the air and making calls because that's one of
the things we're going to be working on, is how

(50:45):
to manage a pile up. And so you know, if
you can't or don't want to donate financially, get on
the air and give us a call. That's also very important.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
So again y'all's call signed for the up and coming
Denver Camp is going to be Whiskey zero Yankee and
put that in your Handlert, so we can go ahead
and definitely create that pile up for you. And I'm
going to be out there trying to get into that
pile up.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
It's going to be two ponds Wildlife Reserve. I believe
it is okay for the for the for the poda,
and then the soda is going to be Genesee Mountain.
Is that a drive up? So pretty much? Uh, you

(51:40):
got a hike like the last fifteen minutes or so.
That's not bad, but it's yeah, it's not bad. Nice nice,
So that way, we kind of wanted something with a
little bit of a hike, and we had one scheduled
that was about an hour. The trail is shut down
because condors are nesting in.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Oh, come on the condors.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
So yeah, so we switched to this one. But the
nice thing is, yeah, we can drive most of the
way up, so nice, nice, So that'll make it.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
We did a Grand Canyon trip and we literally drove
up this little plateau and I mean like drove up
that was just dirt road and then we're like coming
in the clearing in the area, and they're like, this
is the soda, Like, what do you mean this is
a soda. Oh, it's registered soda here, So we're gonna
play radio here. They're like, okay, yeah, it's fun.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
So yeah, I'm whiskey zerr yankee. And then in July
it's a whiskey Yankee. Awesome. Well put that into hand.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Alerts, let's create that pile up and if you can
the youth on the air dot org slash donate. The
links are gonna be in the chat and also in
our description afterwards, and if you're listening to us out
on the audio podcast, they're also being your description. Let's

(53:07):
let's make this happen, and definitely let's catch up.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
And I would like to do a.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Stream for y'all to see if we can raise somebody.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Would that would be great? We do you know have
that need? Inflation has hit us, just like everything else.
We don't buy too many eggs, but the hotel prices
have gone considerably up. In fact, last calculation I made
is the same hotel rooms that we're using for Yoda

(53:41):
Junior were the same hotel rooms we used in twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty two for the region wide
and it's forty three percent higher. Ooh yeah, yeah, it's yeah.
So we're struggling to come up with this last little bit.

(54:02):
So you know, we've we've got some amazing support from
ar d C, from Worldwide Radio Operators Foundation, from from ICON,
from Yasmey Foundation and uh DX Engineering and and the
list goes on and on from there. But you know,

(54:23):
without them, we couldn't do this. But we we also
need a little bit more, and so we're we're looking
at some of those STEM grants outside of Hammer Radio too,
but but we're we're really kind of running out of
time for Denver. So so see if we can help
that help and get you pushed over. Well, thank you

(54:45):
Neil for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having and.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Hold up in the back room for a second. I'm
gonna go ahead and close us out, all right. Thank
you all for watching and hanging out with us. We
I had a blast, I learned a lot, and I'm
hoping we can get them pushed over to make Denver
a thing.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
On the air. Dot org slash.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Donate and I put all the links in the description, and.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Yeah, this has been good.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
This has been good. Thank you to my patrons and supporters.
Thank you to Don who donated the ten memberships.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
That is awesome. Thank you sir.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
And if you're listening to this, thank you because you
are supporting me and making everything possible that I do
for this this channel audio podcast and hanging out with y'all.
As always, y'all, go for for conquer.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Say bye bye seven three.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Thank you to all my Patreon supporters. You can support
me on Patreon there's a link in that description below.
And to all my tankers out there, go forth and conquer.

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