Hey, guys, we're gonna get started here in just a minute. A couple of minutes behind tonight, but we're uh, we're rolling and going, so thanks for joining and here we go. Okay. I started the stream a little bit late. I usually start two or three minutes before the top of the hour, so I started right at the top of the hour. We're tinkering around with the ID fifty two plus anniversary edition, So thanks for joining tonight. I appreciate everyone being here.
It is Sunday night in Texas. I hope it's Sunday out where you are too, although if Hayden's in the chat is probably already Monday morning by now. So appreciate everyone being here. I uh special shout out to the YouTube channel members who are in the chat tonight. I saw Wayne in there earlier W five wn R Wayne and also Wayne DOSSI thank you to both of you
guys for being there. W B seven O U T is in there, Phil, I see you in there, and don k C five QQ that's kind of a neat Cole sign KC five QQ, W five FBC traveling Ham Randall see you guys in there. And Izzo was in there a minute ago, he said, smoke signals r F. He's like, every time an Icon product is featured, I buy it. So the best kind of customer there you go, thanks for being here, don So we're gonna hop right
into it here because why not. Well, I got one thing, one thing I want to say real quick before we before we bring ray on, let me go here. I did. I did because I talked about this the other day. So I called the other day and I booked us a spot at Lake Ray Roberts for October whatever. That third Saturday is nineteenth, October, Yeah, nineteenth, So ports your parks weekend October nineteenth. It's at a different branch this time, the i'll du Bois branch, which is the one we've
been to for the last two or three times. That one was booked. There was no pavilions available, but they had a pavilion available at the Johnson, Yeah, the Johnson branch. So Lake Ray Roberts State Park, Johnson Branch, pavilion number one, October nineteenth. We'll go out there, set up that morning, probably set up my hex beam, do some poda all day long. Everybody's welcome to come out and join us.
So we're going to do that on that Saturday, So anybody who's interested, I'll talk about it a lot between now and then. That's probably about three weeks away, so make sure you're on my email list. I'll send an email about it in a week or so, and uh, we'll talk about it on a few different live streams between now and then. So just wanted to throw that out there. So thanks for that, because it is going to be a fun time again. That's that's just a fun that's a fun time every time we do that.
So all right, let's bring Ray and Frank. I saw you join in there. I don't know who you were talking to a minute ago, Frank.
But I was just ending the live stream of Charlie. We're just doing some small backtag. I just wanted to make sure I got in here right on time, because we got it, specially guests. Ray Man, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, Well I'm the reason is late, So.
That's all right.
I mean, you never get a sales guy to help do icon technical support, all right.
That's that's that's that's a fair point. Yeah, that's a fair point.
But also Tank was going a little bit nuts. I was showing him I hit a water burger.
Nice. I love it.
He's in Mississippi. He's got waterburger.
I just got the usual Rudy's cup with some water stay hydra. Right through these two hours and a half streams I do with you, man, Well, I do an hour beforehand every other week.
Yeah, mine's not gonna be.
We do the yours street man. It's it's great. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Cool well good.
I wanted to.
I'm already young, and I got an early early flight in the morning, so I'm doing early am airport Cardio.
Where are you going?
I'm going to Tampa, Tampa.
Oh, are you going up there for some sort of aries something relief effort. They just got hit by the hurricane. Yeah, there or storm surgeons, I should say. I think they got rain and winds and stuff right right now.
Yeah, they got they got rain and wind and everything. From what we're hearing is at least for the convention center is okay. It's not like what hit them a couple of years ago that really devastated quite a few marinas, and there's no plans to build some of them back. But no, I'm headed down there for the IBEX convention, which is for the boat builders. It's a it's an industry conference, so you'll have anybody that has to do with building boats there.
Cool. Yeah, good, Yeah, Icon Marine Industry. I'm still here. My camera is still freaking out on me. I can't figure out what's wrong with it, so I'm just gonna I'm probably going to replace it. But yeah, so where'd you go?
Frank?
How did you get there?
You got speaker?
Just I got speak Oh you were talking? Okay, okay, my bad okay? Oh good? So IBEX convention, good deal. Ray that that should be a should be a good time. Cool.
In fact, there's a there's a hand that's already sent me information. He works for one of the distributors for like Polk Audio and things like that, so his stuff goes on the much larger boats.
But h he'd let me know that he's on his way down there.
He got an Icon radio for his boat, and then drooling over the different Icon radios that we show there.
Cool. Good, Well, if it's anything like that Icon booth that was at IWCE a few years back, I went to Vegas for that and I com had a really motorola had a huge booth there, but Icon had a really good showing at that that event as well, so I imagine it's it's a big to do out there.
Yeah, they've really downsized a lot. Last year, iw C was in Orlando. Should be back in Vegas this year or this next year, so it'll be interesting.
Yeah, for sure. Cool. Well, tell us about how was that. There's a there's a small number of these Gray Anniversary radios that were well, there was a small number produced, I think, and there was an even smaller number that were sent to the United States, is what I was told. And when I when I heard that, that's when I went out. But I picked mine up from Richard at Main Trading Company. He actually had him in stock, and the other people I talked to didn't have them in
stock at the time. They're like, yeah, Gigabarts kept telling me I think we have some, but I'm not sure. But Richard had him on his website, so I just went and grabbed one one day. I was like, oh, let's talk about this radio, so why not?
But that's the anniversary was announced at Huntsville, if I'm correct, we showed.
The radio itself there.
We announced it in at the Daytonham Benson with the Bits and Pieces Radio, and I would love to join you for your PoTA event on the nineteenth, but I'll be flying out to Kirkland for a week of training and meetings on the twentieth and just getting back on the fourteenth from the sixtieth anniversary celebration in Osaka, Soto. Where is a heavy travel month.
Sounds like it. Well, have a be safe out there, for sure. I've always wanted to go to Japan, and I was talking to Josh about after he did that live stream with you. He mentioned wanting to go to the Tokyo Hamfair last year, and I'm like, dude, I have been wanting to go that for like three years. So if we go, if you go out there, let me know, maybe we you know, get a hotel room or something. I don't know, go with somebody I know instead of cooling but myself.
Well, airfare shouldn't be too bad. I fly into Dallas Fort Worth and then directly to Tokyo.
Really from DMW Okay, that's good to know.
Have a twelve hour flight.
Yeah yeah, yeah. What airline are you on?
American? Okay?
Perfect?
Nice?
Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
I love being in Dallas love being in Dallas, no doubt.
In fact, Ham is it Ham Prep Paul, Yes.
Prep Prep Ham Paul.
Yeah, there we go. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, he's based out of Dallasport work and flies on American. So there's two airports in Tokyo, Narita and oh gosh, hn D is its designation? Okay, but I cannot for the life of me remember I always fly into Narita, but he flies mainly into Anita.
There we go, Okay, Okay, he's in the chat right now. By the way, he says, Ray, I'll see you on the fourth.
Oh okay.
So yeah, yeah, I fly back on Thursday and then Friday, my wife and I fly to Japan.
On the fourth.
Oh nice.
Okay, so it's it's a busy week.
That sounds like wow, flying to Japan.
That's awesome.
Prep m Paul says, let's go next year him Radio two point one. Yeah, he's including you in that. Franks, you get your get your airline ticket now, saving your pennies.
I I wish I could be like Paul Man who just you know, I'm gonna work and just take the time off and somehow magically arrived there.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's it's everybody's got their own kind of kind of uh gimmick, I guess, but yeah, that's.
That's what it is.
I do want to go.
I do want to go. The tickets weren't too bad.
That's good, that's good. I don't uh, I I looked at tickets like a year ago for that when it happened. But when I when I asked Josh about it, he's like, well, they everyone announced a new radio this year, so probably next year there won't be anything happening at all. Like, well, that's a good point. I don't. Yeah, I don't know how popular that is.
But uh, maybe we can get Icon to sponsor US.
Sponsor. I come when even sponsored rate that often?
So yeah, they put me to work, so right, it's not there's no such thing as a free airflight air flight to uh Tokyo.
No, I don't doubt that at all. Okay, so we've got this. Let's say I'm gonna switch over right here, and this is the radio. Ray tell us about this radio? What obviously, the USB C charging is different than the original ID fifty two, But what else was what else was upgraded in this radio? In the Plus model?
The two big things one was what you pointed out the USBC. So you can do programming, charging, offloading, or loading data to the micro SD card.
Okay.
So one of the things that you can do natively on the fifty two series is see c photos that are transmitted back and forth.
Oh okay, so you.
Can use the you can use the app to do that, or you can natively do it with the radio itself. But the other thing is an upgrade on the Bluetooth chipset. So there are additional things that you can do with the radio. Now you no longer need to be tethered to your smart device that's connected to the internet. Okay, so you can wirelessly be in access point mode or terminal mode on the radio.
Now explain the difference between access point and terminal mode if you don't mind. I know you didn't want to go through that part of the menu, but but I saw those two I saw those two options in the app that we're going to look at here in a minute, and I didn't understand what the difference was.
So terminal mode is where just imagine the handheld being your your Bluetooth speaker microphone. Okay, so you can control what reflector you go to and things like that, and the radio itself is then is your speaker mic.
Okay.
Access point mode is where you use the radio, but then you use another radio to talk to it. So you could have it set up inside the house and then being outside with another radio make that communication through through the radio itself.
So in theory, I could set up like an access point radio here in the shack on an external antenna and then take the ID fifty two inside the house and talk in through the access point radio here in the shack. Yes, okay, gotcha, Okay, that makes sense. Okay, okay, good, So this.
Is this is the first one. Let me think I might be misspeaking. The seven oh five might also be able to do it wirelessly, but that's the only two radios that you can wirelessly have terminal mode or access point mode. The rest of them need to be tethered to a computer or some type of smart device connected to the internet.
Gotcha, okay, okay, good okay. I turned the screen back to you guys. Saw that as my background on my screen was dark. I changed it that way on purpose because I like that better. But I think it's easier to see this in the camera so I change it back to the white background. You can do either or on this radio.
Nice.
It came this way, and I changed it to the dark background because again I prefer that, but definitely easier to see it in the camera now, I think.
Now there is also a setting where you can turn the timer off on the back light. Yeah, and the radio will stay on all the time.
I'm not look at that here in a second. So this application is called rs MS one A and it connected to I'm connected via Bluetooth right now, and it connected right up the first time I pulled it up and it I turned Bluetooth on on the radio and searched for it on the phone. They found each other. They paired no problem. I had a I had an error on the app when I tried to connect. They paired together, the phone and the radio paired together. And then I had an error when I opened the app
and tried to connect the app to the radio. But that was easily resolved when I changed the CIV address inside of the app and just just had to look it up in the menu system on the radio and go into the app and change it and boom, it's right there. So now they see each other every time I connect it. Now they see each other just fine.
So that's it.
And you got to give our technical sport guy that helped you out a shout out because he is a fan of your show.
Oh okay, yeah, yeah. His email said that he had I had met him at Dayton last year, which I'm sure he's right. I apologize for not remembering that I met several people at the icon booth, so I will have to remember that the next time I see him at a show. But yeah, Shane was a Shane. I explained to him what I was doing. He was like, oh, yeah, just go here, change this. He knew exactly what it was, so he was very helpful in that regard.
And it is interesting because when you take a look at it and you say you want to connect to the ID fifty two, there's three different versions. Now, yeah, there's the fifty two, the fifty two plus sixtieth anniversary, and then there will be the fifty two non anniversary model, right, the fifty two plus non anniversary model.
And does the That's one thing I didn't ever get a chance to ask Shane. The programming software itself, does that work on the plus model? Or is that going to be a new version.
It should already be up on the website. If it's not on the ICO America, go to the global site, which is Icomjapan dot com. Okay, go to the ID fifty two and under the support download section will be the software.
I went to the Icomamerica site and drilled down to the ID fifty two plus page and went to the down the software downloads, and that software was called ID fifty two. It didn't say anything about plus, so I was not sure if the had been updated yet, and I didn't try to connect to it or anything. But that's probably something I'll do in a future video. But I'd like to go through some programming steps and see
what we can do with that. But it is. But it's a lot of the times some of these radios are reviewed, especially the Chinese radios that have USB C charging. Many times that usbcport is on the battery, so you're just charging with it. And one question I get really often is can you program the radio with USBC, Which you already said that Ray, So this radio here is
programmable with USBC, not only just chargeable with USBC. So that's a that's a that's a. That's a plus in my book because you can both program and charge it via the USBC port.
So that's I'll send a note to the team on the ICOM America website. I'm looking at the ICOM Japan site and do I have share privileges on here?
I can give them to you. Okay, Okay, you're good now.
And find the right page here.
So Vic is asking, No, not Vic some but he asked that it. Oh they're Jamison, there we go, he asked, yeah, there you go.
So there's a CS fifty two plus programming software. It was uploaded on the ICOM Japan site in July twelve.
Okay, I did not look on the Japanese side. I looked on the ICAM America side. Okay, good deal. Good, I will go grab that probably after the stream ends.
Good, so I will definitely email and let the guys know. Perfect. Yeah.
Jamison in the chat is asking, isn't there a ninety fifty two A? If so, what's the difference?
That?
Correct me if I'm wrong, Ray, The A model is the America's model, the North America model, and the E model is the European model. Guess sir, And is there a different one for the for the Asian or Japanese model.
It's either going to be the A or the E. Well, I take it back for in country. For the JDM, they will have their Japanese site and the software will be on there for them.
Okay, okay, but yeah, the A is the one that we're going to see in North America generally speaking. So okay, so this, uh, this software here, I'm gonna you pointed out a minute ago that I was unlocking my phone on camera, so I'm not gonna do that again. So this software here will do a lot of things. And this is the This is kind of the menu that
I was when I went through that. When I opened up this menu and just kind of read through it, I was like, you know what, I think I need to get ray on and have him kind of go through all this. So if you don't mind, this is kind of the menu that I'd like to go through. I'm sorry you can't see that. I forgot I thought I switched that.
When I was sharing my screen. Sorry about that.
No, no, you're fine, it's fine. So this is the this is the once again the audience can see it. Now, this is the application. If you click the little Hamburger menu at the top left. These are the menu items that are in the list here. And this is kind of like like there's a lot of different stuff here
that this will do. And DR. There's a DR mode and a share pictures and a text The text messaging is what I was trying last night when I was trying to connect to the UIs repeater and send a tech I just sent test and I saw it key up the radio and I guess it didn't key the repeater because the RX history was still blank. But that's kind of neat that you can send a text message. So if you don't mind, can we just go through this menura? Is that okay?
Sure?
Okay?
All right?
So the top one is just says DR, which I assume is not digital recorder, but.
No DR is kind of one of those We started using it but then made changes to it. So the DR no longer makes sense because it's supposed to be digital repeater, okay, But in the fifty one A plus series we added the analog repeaters or the FM. So even though it says DR it.
Is all repeaters, it's all repeaters, okay.
And so when you're using the GPS function on the radio in your DR mode you ask, it'll ask you for near repeater. It'll ask you if you want analog digital or both. Now, okay, I've actually that's going.
With the evolution of the product too.
Right, right, I've actually done that with an analog repeater, with an analog FM repeater on my seven O five.
Okay.
We were out at the hunting Lease last year and I was like, I wonder if this works, and I kind of tinkered with it for like five minutes. I'm like, okay, good, it's pulling up my local two meter repeater, So yeah, that works good. And there's there's one of.
The other One of the other cool things about the DR mode is when you are in DR mode and on the radio itself, if you push and hold the direction keypad down, it'll go into DR mode.
Ye. Then hit scan.
And if you've got a GPS lock in it, which that one's not I can see right, it'll scan all the repeaters in the local area there. It could be either analog, digital or both.
Is there some way you have to go in and set and tell it to use the GPS when you're looking at DR mode or does it do that automatically.
Does it automatically? Okay? Okay?
Because I went into dr mode in my seven oh five one time and it was pulling up repeaters in another state. This was a long time ago. I probably didn't have a lock on it. Maybe I don't remember, but I was like, I was wondering if you had to go in there and somehow tell it, hey, this is where I'm at, or if it just the GPS just did all that for you.
Do you have to prepopulate a database with it?
You can, and I do recommend doing that. It comes with a database loaded already into it. Databases are a nightmare to manage and update, and when you get into production, you can't just every month update the list in the radio because that really changes the way.
The production goes.
So we do hear people make comments, yeah, that repeater list is so old that comes in the radio. We do apologize for that. But dstarinfo dot com works with the repeater book and they have a pretty accurate database that you could download your local area. And we were talking earlier about it, Jason and I were talking about how Texas has got over sixteen thousand repeaters. There's not a single radio on the market right now that can hold sixteen thousand repeaters. So what I did is I
looked at a couple of trips that I make. I used to go out to Courtsfest, So from DFW to Courtsfest, I would have a couple of reloads that would do off of the SD card, and then going up to Oshkosh, I would also have a listing of the areas. And I mean even going down to oh Gosh, I can't even think of a Hamfest that I would see you guys, see you at Jason.
Or Belton, Belton, Belton, yea, even.
Just going to Belton. I had to use a different list because there were so many repeaters in Texas.
Yep.
Yeah, that's actually next weekend. So we're going We're going to Belton next weekend. That's a fun shows. It's not very big, but it is a fun show.
And you can have some awesome barbecue there too.
Yes, very true, very true.
Good.
Okay, all right, so that's the dr mode. I got to keep unlocking my phone, but this is good information. Okay. So the next one on the list is share Pictures.
So if you remember a few years back and even actually almost twenty years ago when one of our competitors came out with a video recorder that you could send video. Yes, and then more recently a speaker mic that you had no clue what you were taking a photo of.
Yes, you guys are very very low resolution on that speaker mic too.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well, you can use the resolution of your phone's camera, take a photo, edit it, do whatever you want to. If you need to put a little circle or an arrow pointing to it, you can do that on your phone and then upload the image to anybody on the d.
Star network anywhere around the world.
And with the radios that have the color displays like the ninety seven hundred, the seven oh five, the fifty two, it will display it.
On the radio itself.
Oh nice.
For d Star radios like the older fifty ones or the seventy one hundred, you would have to receive it on your your smart device.
So so you'd have to connect your smart device to the fifty one hundred and it. If I'm not mistaken that one the Bluetooth module that is an add on, it doesn't come with it, that's correct, okay, okay, yeah, And fifty one hundreds was one of the very first d Star rate. Well, I shouldn't say that it was the first d Star radio that I It was the second d Star radio that I owned. But I mean,
the fifty one DRED has been out a while. It's it's it's it's an older radio, but I tell you what it that's the radio I use in the truck every day. I love the display on that radio. Even though it's just black and white monochrome, it's fine, But I mean, I love the the and I like the fact that it's touch screen. I don't really care for touchscreen on an HT so much, but the driving down
the road, that touchscreen is helpful. So I like the fifty Okay, so you can actually send that was my question is, like, how do you get a photo?
Sorry, you need to take.
Your screen, I guess.
So, yeah, you talk about timing out a repeater.
Now we're tea and I like this LA like like, I don't know if you can see it in the screen right now, but it's got the screen saver on the radio too. It's got ID fifty to a plus that flashes around the screen if you leave it on too long and you just you just hit a button and it turns off. But I don't know if you could put a picture on that or not, but that because it's kind of a neat screen saver.
I guess.
So your text messages are going to be from smart device to smart device, okay, and there again, you got your keypad that you can I mean, video game training going on right there with the two thumbs right.
Right, totally. So I can't send a text message just directly to a radio, no, sir, okay, okay, so i'd have to I'd have to get Frank to get one of these and get him to connect his smartphone.
To it, okay or MRG, you could chat with him all you wanted to, because he's got a fifty.
That's that's right, Yeah, that's right. See. I always wanted to think that the ID fifty, which came out after the original fifty two, was basically the like how you guys released the twenty seven thirty after the fifty one hundred, which was almost kind of a little bit the same radio, but you took the D star out of it. That's what I thought the ID fifty was at first when you first released it. But obviously that that's not right.
But the fifty would not be able to receive an image on the screen, like you're fifty two, So if he was to send something to you, you'd be able to see it on.
The radio, gotcha, gotcha? Okay, okay, we'll have to have to do memars with someone else that has a fifty two I guess.
Well, but both of them be able to receive it on the phone Bluetooth paired, right, Yes, so that is the application does it using the phone as a model. But the newer phone, the newer phone, the newer ID fifty two plus has showed on the screen.
Okay, yes, totally, totally, okay, okay, all right, so we've got a map and an all offline map. Obviously the map will show your repeater locations if I'm not mistaken, that is correct. And then I guess you can download that entire thing in the offline map in case you run out of cell service. Yes, okay, pretty explanatory there. And then RX history is the next thing. Is that the same thing as the RX history on the radio that we were just looking at.
Well, you remember how our buddy Carlos jumps out of an airplane. Yes, if he was doing it on d Star the seven oh five, the fifty, the fifty two to fifty one all maintains those call signs that kerchunk the repeater or talk to them. Okay, so you would have the full list of who called, what time it was, and if they're transmitting their GPS locations, all of that data is going to be in your received history.
Okay, I'm gonna have to get Carlos to jump with this. He told you the story about his bag falling off of his hip, right, Yes, he did, yeah, yeah, and it had his ID fifty in it. Yes, and it survived. So I told him. I was like, you gotta you gotta talk to Ray about that seriously, because he did.
I think that was that Huntsville he was sharing that story.
It was yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a it was a fun story.
So actually that happened at Huntsville.
Yes, he was jumped, Yeah, he was jumping. I think it was Saturday morning of the Huntsville Hamfast and he lost his bag and or no, yeah, it was it was Saturday morning because we had our forum Sunday morning. He was telling us about it there.
Yeah.
Yeah, he texted me said, my my bag came loose. And the first thing I said was dude, are you.
Okay right right? Totally. Yeah, it was just something that was strapped to him. There was nothing wrong with his shoot or anything.
But so could you just could you just imagine what the people had owned the house was thinking, here they see this wild man with his beard right on. Uh, there's something on your roof that I need to get.
I have a couple of quick questions about the app, since we're talking about the app right now, go ahead, Frank, does the app this comes from ham Radio Tube k A M R d iPhone lover? Does the app work on iOS?
There is an r S are let me remember r S M A one A and an I one for Android one for the iOS.
Yes, there's there's an iOS app for it. Because I was I was looking at that.
The second question is I saw a couple of people point up to it saying they want to know does the app work with a straight I D fifty.
Two A Yes, yeah, m hm.
Correct, yep, that's.
It, gentlemen.
Well, I got others, but we'll do like a rapid fire session.
Sure, okay, no problem, no problem, okay, good, So RX history and then uh, and then there there's a display here thing for my call sign. I'm a little confused why that's there. But is I mean, because I know what my own call sign is. But maybe you can put multiple call signs in there for multiple users. Is that okay? Yes, okay, that makes sense.
Okay, So it's it's if you pass it around, you can just change to the next user, or you might use a different number for a different mode of transportation.
Okay.
So if you're off roading on your ATV, you might do it as a dash five ah okay, because you got to really remember, every time you keep the push to talk, you're sending out your GPS location, right, So if if anywhere around there is an iGATE that is populating this over to the A p R s F I, just like on APRS, you want to define what what you're doing, whether it's walking, horse riding, ATVs you dam it.
Okay, that makes sense? Okay, okay, good? Yeah. And you know if you have multiple radios running d star that that that makes sense that they're all individually unique, so good yep okay. And then repeater list and that's the same thing we were kind of looking at a minute ago. It's got twenty one different sections here, Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, a bunch in Europe, what not, Latin America, Middle East?
It's got whatever. The list is that you update the app.
With okay, okay, so that's updateable then yes, okay, okay, good. And the next one is transceiver settings. Now what can you do? I was I was curious about this can you actually control? And I thought when we when when we interviewed interviewed you at Huntsville, Ray, I misunderstood what you were talking about when you talking about this app. I thought there was an Android and iOS app to program channels into this radio. But that's not what this does.
No, well, no it does not. There's there's not a way to upload or download with it. Okay, okay, but this.
This does allow you to change some of the settings on it, okay, on the radio itself, so if.
You need to go to low power, you can do that.
I don't have I don't have a radio and app with me right now, because I don't think TSA is going to let me on an airplane. Seeing an icon logo on a radio.
Oh well, that took a second to put together.
A second to get that.
Okay, all right?
Oh boy, okay, I certainly. Hope that's now. I went, Now I want to buy a plane ticket and go somewhere to take my icon just to do it. Now, I want to do that.
Oh my god, short hop it'll be a great video.
Josh said he bought one of those off of eBay and he's like, as soon as he got it open up, he's like, this is so fake. You could tell just right off the bat. This is not an icomery.
So yeah, I kinda I kind of made a comment to a reporter that I and I should have learned from watching all the politicians with the open mics. Yeah, I got I got quoted based on something that was a non official quote.
Oh well, okay, moving on, Yes, sir, so transfer settings we've got, in fact, when we read these, we've got output power, DV data, transmit GPS select GPS, transmit mode, DV text message or transit t X message, and then DV fast data.
Yeah.
So the real cool thing that that DV text message, uh huh, because there's voice in data simultaneously transmitted. What a lot of the d star users do is put their email address in there, okay, or they'll state what type of radio they're using. And if you go to any of the reflector the D plus reflectors, they do a last herd. You'll see some of these messages that are out there and people are just saying what particular
radio that they're using. And it's always it's always fun when when I get on the Star and I happen to have a.
New radio, people are like, what is that?
Okay yea, or or you get to hear the people go that don't recognize the call science saying those things aren't out yet.
How do you have one?
I'm special? Okay, cool?
All right.
So the next one down is application settings. There's a lot of stuff in Oh wow, okay.
That's just different things, whether you want you US measurements or European measurements, Canada measurements, gotcha.
Yeah, See, heightened distance units is set to meters and speed unit is set to kilometers per hour. So obviously I haven't updated this, but I mean that's I mean, it's totally fine. But yeah, okay, there's your SSID setting with the dash a and you're, uh the symbol change symbol looks like I'm on a walking symbol right now? Okay, good, there's a lot of stuff this will do now.
Ray thinks this episode should be renamed We got the icon guy and he can. He's helping us read the manual on the app.
We're doing the thing that we all never do.
So yeah, we're hams. We don't read the manual, but we'll watch a video about reading the manual. That's totally cool. That's I mean, I love it. Nothing wrong with that. Let's see, I thought of something. I don't know what it was.
Okay, Braid knows who's pulling the strings behind the scenes here.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, but we don't want to go we don't want to read the yula.
Okay, no, never, No, of course, not that way we can. It's a plausible deniability at that point. Okay, So there's an import and an export on here. If I click on import, it selects the content repeater list, so you can, I guess you can import an export repeaters from your SD card through the app.
Well, that just proved me to be a liar because I just finished saying that and I paused, and I'm like, I thought that was in there, but no, no, no, no, I don't think we had that on that.
Well, there's there's a difference between using the DR mode and actually programming channels into the radio. And I was talking more about actually programming channels into memory. So I see what you're saying.
Yes, and I haven't tried it.
I haven't used it in quite a bit, so it probably could do an import and export on the SD card.
Hmmm, interesting, So I wonder Okay.
Stay tuned for the next episode.
Right, Yeah, that might be something something I tinker with myself. Repeater list download from the icon page right, In fact, it has download from the internet select a ICOM website. Oh, look at that. It's going now, overwrite the current list and add to the current list. Oh, let's let's just let's just go for it. Overrite the current list.
And it was second.
It was that quick. It said completed and now repeater list. There's still twenty one here. I think we're in midwest in Texas. Yeah, okay, so you can update that through the app. That's pretty okay, that's pretty cool. I like that. That's pretty neat. And of course you can export everything, can save it if you want to put it on another radio, or if you lose your radio, want to save your information something like that. Yeah, okay, and then
Bluetooth connection is already connected. It gives you the Mac address there yep, and it does as something else I wanted to point out. It does say icon bt ID fifty two. It does not say fifty two A or fifty two plus. And I asked Shane about that. He's like, yeah, we just haven't updated that yet. I'm like, okay, that's fine, so no problem. I just wanted to make sure I was using the right thing and then exit. And that's that's pretty much it for the application. One thing I
did want to ask you. You sent me a list of all of the different applications and what they were used for Ray and which was very helpful.
I did, oh yeah, yeah, oh.
Yeah, because I was asked because when I went to look for this app, there was another This is called the MS one a A for Android. There's also one called an MS three A and I'm like, is that a later version in the one A or what is that?
So?
And I downloaded the three and the menus were all different. I didn't really figure out what it was for. Your email told me what it was for, but I don't remember now. But there's a there's more apps than just this one.
Right, the three A is what allows you to do your terminal mode and access point mode.
Ah, so that's your that's your host software or you're talking.
Okay, okay, that makes sense. Good okay.
Now one thing with the with the image sharing, it's very interesting. It looks just like slow scan TV. It will do a pixel at a time and just go across.
That's pretty cool. Actually, I think that's a neat to I think that's a neat feature. Honestly.
How long will it take to stand a average let's say, twelve megapixel pixer.
I don't I don't remember the actual actual pixelation that it does, but the largest, most highest resolution takes about a minute and a half.
That's not It doesn't the image.
No, it does not.
You either you either get the pixel or you don't. So you might get a green dot. It's almost like you lose a pixel on a screen, it'll be a green square.
Yeah.
And it's just going in one direction. It's not asking for an acknowledgment. It's just transmitting each each pixel.
Gotcha, Okay, Okay, Frank, I think there's been interesting discussions about a people of challenge, whether it's legal or not.
You're not id but in the data header for the d Star the digital protocol, it's sending your call sign throughout the whole time.
Mm hmm. Okay, that's a common question. Why we're talking about Arden as well, but similar, similar answer to that. Okay, yeah, I accept that.
Yeah, because if you are receiving that, it might not be presented. But if you're if the encode of standard is well known and published then and it's just in the header. Yes, that makes complete sense, and I think it satisfies the legal requirement for transmitting.
Yeah.
And it depends on what you're looking at. And this will open up a can of worms and you'll probably have added discussion about it. D STAR does two is completely a digital stream, but in it you have voice packets and data packets. The data packets even if they're empty, and in fast DV mode, they're repurposed to be.
To move I'm sorry the other way around.
In fast DV mode, if you're not embedding voice packets, it will repurpose those for data so the image will go faster. Ah okay, and it will transmit the call sign of the radio in that data header. Where the controversy comes in are the analog to digital gateways that are out there where you have an analog signal come in and the person verbally IDs he's iding in that particular mode. But then it goes over in a d star. The data packets no longer have the header of the
originating station. They have whatever call sign is programmed in for the entry point, not the original AID, not the originating RF station. So there is that gray area if somebody is just receiving data only, and people like who would want to receive data only? Well, if you're doing a text message or you're doing a picture, there are no voice packets utilized there, right, So that's data only.
So that does get to be a very interesting subject to when, especially when you start talking to the protocol junkies and protocol purists, and trust me, they do exist.
Oh yes, oh I have no doubt about that at all.
I deal with a lot of protocols in my day to day job.
Yeah, I bet. Okay, all right, Frank, I think you had some questions.
Yes, yes, right off the bat, let's do this one. Charging. Is there a charging base or cradle for the new UH plus anniversary.
It's an option.
We do include a USB A to USB C cable, but you'd have to supply your own block. I just plug it into my into my multiport and it just charges off of that.
Okay, Yeah, it's got it's got these four contacts on the back of the battery. And also correct me if I'm wrong here, ray this battery. You guys have have kept this same battery. This is the same battery that's on the original fifty two, of course, and the seven oh five.
The original fifty one, the okay, the.
Seven o five, Yeah, the seven oh five.
You can use the seven oh five, any of the fifty series, Okay.
It is a BP two seventy two, and I think comes with it for the two seventy three, and the three oh seven will work with it.
This is a BP two seventy two, Okay. This is what I got with mine, eighteen hundred millionamp hours. So, and there is a thicker model, a thicker version than that. And don Izzo in the chat he sent me a thicker version for my seven oh five. Don that eventually died. It It took like two or three years, but that battery eventually died. But but yeah, that same form factor of battery for all, which is really cool. I like it when the companies do that. Okay, good, I like this.
Why gray Manpota, is there a Bluetooth option for hearing impaired capabilities?
We do have the VS three, that is the wireless earbud type device. I use one in my RV when I'm driving, so I did change out the earbuds that come with it, a couple of them over the ears. That way I can still hear. But there's two different types. Well, there's three different types of push to talk on it. One is the push to talk, released to listen, the single tap to key up, single tap to un key, and then.
The vice the VOX mode. But would not recommend using VOX mode while driving in Dallas.
No, No for sure.
Yeah yeah you lived here man, Yeah, I agree. This is from Paul. Will the app work with the I D fifty one a anniversary with Bluetooth?
Yes, I believe that.
Yeah, yeah, all the Bluetooth d Star radios it'll work.
With right right, nice nice With the next firmware update, blah blah. Let me try that again. This is talking about terminal Moto Bluetooth. With the next firmware update, will you be giving us the capability to terminal Moto Bluetooth with the regular ID fifty two.
No, that's a chip set, that's a hardware difference.
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, so the newer models would do terminal mode, but not the older models.
M hmm. I think we answered this one, but I think it's a good question. Is the radio programmable via the computer or is it only app controlled radio?
You can program it with a computer using the CS fifty two plus software. You could directly download from a resource like dstar, infod dot com onto an SD card, plug it in the radio, and then import the repeater list from there.
Yeah. That the DR mode. Yeah, that's that's part of the DR mode we were talking about at the beginning of the stream, which includes digital repeaters and analog repeaters these days. That's that doesn't put it in. I think it's important too, because this is what confused me at first. That doesn't actually write it to memory. This almost like
a separate, whole, separate memory bank. Like you've got your DR mode and you've got your complete repeater list and your DR mode analog and digital analog and d Star, and it uses the GPS to find the repeater closest to you. Works very well. I've used it on my seven or five a few times. I've never used it
on this yet, but I will. And then when you write stuff to memory, that's what the CS fifty two plus he was just mentioning is four and apparently that's on ICOM Japan's website, and Ray's going to work to get it on the ICM America website. But I'm going to go down that and download that in tinker.
I've already sent the email, by the way.
Okay, good. And this is an easy radio to program. I think I did a video with my fifty two when I first got it. This is an easy radio to program. From the front panel. It's easy to just kind of tap in there, go into the whatever band you're on, the offset sets for you set your CTCSS tone, say write to channel memory one, two, three, four, whatever, and go from there. So it's very I mean, obviously it's going to be faster with the computer, but it
is not difficult. There's been many times I've put an extra repeater in this radio or my fifty two, or accurately, when I'm in the field, I'm like, I want to save that, and then I've got just add to the list already have so that if I don't want to use the DR mode.
I see a popular question from Lawrence Keile bravo five.
Zool zoo bravo.
Okay, Can I use the terminal mode to connect to a D plus repeater No? Or dplus reflector No. Unfortunately the developer refuses to write the code to work with the terminal mode. The developers of the I R c DDB software have worked with it. It will work with the oh I can't remember the designation of their reflectors, but it will work with the I R c D I R CDDB reflectors.
No problem.
Nice. I had a question here, where did it go? What is the name that we're talking about? We said it a couple of times, but what is the app name?
It's it's ours for Radio Software m S one I for for the iOS, or the m S one A or the Android.
Right.
Can we find it by just simply searching ICOM in the app stores or we have to search it by those names?
And there's several there's several different ICM apps for our marine radios. We allow you to use your and it's unfortunately it's just iPhone only or no I'm.
Sorry they did fix that.
It's both iOS as well as Android where you could use your smart phone to be a remote command mite for our radios.
H I searched icon in the Google Play Store, and the first two apps to come up with that M S one A and the m S three A, which is what we just talked about a minute ago, is the one you can use to turn it into an access point, terminal mode or access point. So I didn't know the difference between the two and and and so I send email to Ray and he told me what it was. But yeah, I was. It was very easy
to find for me. And there are a lot of there's a there's a there's two or three apps out there that are specific to the seven O five actually, but there's a lot of icom apps in the Google Play Store. But the m S one A, because I have an Android device, was fairly easy to find for me. I didn't have any problems with it.
Nice cool cool. Uh this is from Mike. He wants to learn more about the text message thing. His words, is it simply is it a simplex thing or do we have to use the same reflector.
You can do simplex.
You can use a reflector, you can do call sign routing, which means, if it's using the ICOM Gateway software, I could send a text message to Tank without even knowing what repeater he's on. I just put tanks call sign in the you are call sign field and it will route it to him.
That's pretty cool.
And that's using the reflector system. But if we're just using.
The repeater system, the reflectors. The reflectors are eight reflectors on it are a third party software layer.
Okay, so think think of a reflector frank like a talk group in DMR. So got You've got your repeater which is which is whatever frequency, and then you've got multiple talk groups you can connect to through that repeater. That's what a reflector is. Reflectors actually out did they were actually pre date talk groups. There was there was reflectors long before there was talk groups. But but yeah, that's what because so you can connect to and and
D star. Reflectors are like one Alpha, two, Bravo, three, Charlie and all these kinds of numbers. They're they're numbered instead of named, which is which is fine. But yeah, so if I'm sitting on a repeater at two B and you're sitting on another repeater at one alpha and he does call sign and you're you've I think you have to chunk the repeater right to let them repeter know you're no.
No, well, okay, if.
Tanks operating and communicating through a repeater, it will automatically.
Route to it because it updates.
The central database that tank is talking on a repeater down in Houston.
Yeah. But if I just if I get on a plane tonight and fly somewhere and get to my hotel tonight and turn my radio on and just monitor a repeater without ker chunking the repeater and letting it know I'm there, then find me.
Yeah.
So I got to somehow let it know I ker chunk the repeater.
That's all good information, Yeah, because I was just wondering the how does that work? And hell, let everyone know how it works like that. So they don't expect this to be like the ultimate off grid radio. And they're like, you could do all that, I'm off grid. No they can't, they can't.
But it will work, simplex.
Yeah, it was about will work simplex, and and the reason why it will not is amateur radio does not allow you to do automatic handshaking on amateur repeaters, So you physically have to key per chunk the repeater to let you know that, to let the network know you're there.
Is that a FCC regulation?
Yes, automated stations.
Okay, So like a motorola automatically associates with the with the system it's connected to or something like that. That's what you're talking about.
Interesting, Okay, that's a new thing. I didn't think about.
These Star has been a these Star has been a huge learning curve on I mean so many different uh legal things. So you're bound by the most restrictive country. Yeah, and when you're talking about global communications, and it was very interesting when d star first came out.
Well we can do this, we can do that.
Well, the protocol was written in Japan by the JAARL, not in the United States by the AWRL.
Interesting.
Now, one of the other cool things tank when we're talking about kurchunking the repeater. You know, when you're traveling, you go to another area, you go to the repeater directory, you program in an analog repeater, but you cannot access the repeater because you do not.
Know the tone.
Been there, done that.
D Star is somewhat the same way. You cannot access the repeater if you do not know the repeaters call sign. But the cool thing about d Star is as soon as you ker chunk a d Star repeater, it will then reprogram your radio with a proper call sign to access it.
Nice and katuking, I just need a key the frequency, just the and then I don't have to have any of the other digital information in there, just keith and frequency.
Nope.
Nice, I like that feature.
Now there's four call signs in d Star, and it's it's kind of confusing how they call it your call sign meaning the operator's call sign, repeater one, repeater two, and then you are call sign. You are call sign is what we call the destination call sign who you're wanting to talk to.
I couldn't named that a little bit better. But so was that like a translation thing?
I don't, I don't know it was engineers, Well.
It wasn't, Frank. It was probably somebody writ in C plus plus.
Well, I blamed on code.
They like.
They like the two letter abbreviations. You are.
But here's the cool thing about it.
Once you could chunk the repeater, you've got the RPT one call sign program for you. The RPT two tells a repeater what you want to do with it. So if you want to go if you want to go in on VHF and out on UHF, your RPT one in the eighth character will have a letter designation that will equal to VHF, which most of the time people put VHF on C. And then the RPT two you put the same repeater call sign, but you put B
because B is on UHF. So you could then crossband tell a repeater you want to crossband through it, and if it's emergency communications, you can talk to everybody on both bands. But if you want to be able to do things beyond the repeater controller like travel through the gateway or go to reflector RPT two gets the G for gateway and most people will just do that and just say everything goes to the gateway.
And these are settings that you do on the phone. You just tell it what mode and then the the phone or radio will just out change change that out. But this is just the needy, greedy to protocol stuff, which I do enjoy.
Oh man, I can we can go deep into weeds on that one if we want to, But I think most of the audience will go will you too, please shut up?
How many pages? Just out of curiosity? The one I'm working on at work work is over a thousand because it's one of those government ones.
What was the question?
Think how many pages is the protocol? Because the one I'm looking and working at at work is like fifteen thousand, fifteen hundred.
I think there's I think there's something like twenty eight pages. But unfortunately not everything was documented. Robin cutsba.
Oh, the thing. The thing is Robin.
Cutshaw, a A four R C, the developer of D plus. He's a protocol junkie, and he's the one that pointed out not everything was documented, and in his presentations he shows you basically what NEO sees in the matrix, all the ones in zero. I love it, and I mean it was just. The very first thing that came out from the development was the argument of the repeater ID. The repeater doesn't ID unless you kerchunk it. And then that started the debate, Well, the repeater doesn't ID on
its own. The FCC rules do not say you have to ID.
Mm hmm. Now if you don't, if you don't kirk chunk an analog repeater for several days, it never keys up. In IDs by itself, unless unless they programmed it to do.
That depends on how old the repeater is. The early early days of repeaters had a five point fifty five timer and the only thing, the only thing, only requirement was that the the call sign had to be transmitted every ten minutes during the conversation. Right, So with it just being a five point fifty five timer, oh, every time ten minutes, it would I d HM. But the d Star repeaters, when you kirk chunk them, they will send an acknowledged back acknowledgment back.
To the radio.
The early radios would not beep or anything. You just see the S meter bounce over. So Robin Robin started working with it and realized the first thing he wanted to do was to get a voice ID. So you kirk chunk the repeater and it would give you a voice ID. Now, through the development of d Star and what Robin was doing, we ended up coming up with the you AUR call completely blank except for the eighth character with the letter I. The letter I was a
command for D plus for information. So you ker chunk the repeater with IF and you look at the call sign fields when you go to repeater information and it will then the d plus will give you the information back. The IRCd DDB guys did the same thing. It will tell you the call sign, the port as well as the link status of the reflector. At the early days, and when I talk about early days, this was in two thousand and one, two thousand and two.
Okay, when was d star released, wasn't it? Early nineties?
Late nineties?
Nineteen ninety nine there was an article in QEX three different articles that talked about the development of the protocol, utilizing open source vocoders and things like that, and why they ended up going with the DVSI chipset.
Okay, good to know.
Which then opens up another area where d star being an open protocol. No, some of the purists were like, no, it's not open if you're using a DVSI chipset. And my rebuttal to it is you look at today's transmitters. Are you going to mix your own UH silicon and geranium to build your own UH?
I guess ld L D moss.
Now right right right?
I mean, if you really want to get down to it, if you're using somebody's chip set that you're reliant on to generate r F power. Then you're not true open source.
I'm kind of about to call you out on that. But so so it sounds like d STAR is. It's also a hardware chip set, is not just a digital protocol, right.
Right, Well, and that's the same. That's true with DMR Infusion as well. Yeah, they both use d DVS side chip sets.
Yep.
So that's that's that's that's very true. I don't know. I don't think the M seventeen is using the d v d v SI chip set. I don't think, but I can't remember right now.
I don't think they are either. I really haven't looked at a whole lot of it.
No, I mean I've looked at it, but it's that they got an a r DC grant like a year and a half ago, and it's progressed a lot in the last year and a half since that happened. So in fact, I've got I've got ads scheduled to come on and talk about it here soon also. But it's a cool it's a cool it's a cool protocol. But you know, all of the all the digital voice protocols are cool in my opinion. I just I just know the least about d star, So that's my fault more than anything. So cool.
I do have one last question. Go ahead, Frank, this is from TCS. You ready.
No, I don't think I want to hear his question. I'm just kidding. Go ahead.
Will we be seeing a waterproof test tonight?
No, I'm not throwing this seven in the lake. I'm just not gonna do it. So I tell you what TC fits. You send me your radio and I'll go swimming with it. How's that I'll do that?
Well, we'll just wait for Mike to do it, and then he ruin another iPhone.
I think he's done that with his.
Yeah, he did that.
That's the start with this fifty fifty I think, or what was one of his radios he did.
I think it's an ip X seven or a IPX eight rating. Yes, make sure make sure all the rubbers in place.
Right, right?
Most women? Right? Yep?
I should try that, but I'm not gonna.
I don't know.
I don't want to.
I mean, so you can even take the battery off and take a look at how the battery contacts between the battery and the radio. Have a rubber gasket on.
It, yes, yes, they certainly do that. Or you can't see it in that picture right there, but that orange rubber seal right there, that's what that is.
Yeah.
And the thing that you got to be careful of is some of the third party and uh too cheap to be true battery. Do not always seal against that. Do not try to send the radio with the icon battery pack and say it doesn't work. I don't know what happened because the corrosion corrosion and those pins will will tell on itself.
M h.
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, And I.
Think somewhere in the manual on the on the Plus series it talks about it can tell if it's been submersed without the proper seals and gaskets.
Really, Yeah, that's good to know.
I think it has to do with the U the USB seaport.
I think the USB seport, Yeah, Ken, there's ways that built into how that the USB CED's designed. It could take water and then it will shut self start itself off if you take the hole speck and not just I'm gonna get the power through it.
Yeah. We did.
We did have an issue at times with some of the third party speaker mics not I mean when you plug it into the radio, there's a gasket around the eye speaker mics that you have to see.
It in there very well.
That the others looked like it would go in there, but it did not form a seal.
Yeah. Yeah, hmmm, well I showed uh. I showed John at Yazu my uh third party battery on my FT five at him Vintion, and he laughed at me. He's like, he's like, don't send that thing in when that battery breaks the radio. I'm like, I won't. John's good sport though, he's he's he's he's fun to tease, fun to tease him. So but yeah, cool, Well, hey, this is this is we should get together and do a deep de Star
deep dive because I would learn a lot from that myself. Honestly, when I first got my IC seven O five, I was tinkering around with it and I couldn't get I think I I was trying to connect to Bob K six uda. He had a he had a d star reflector up at the time, and I was trying to connect to it and I couldn't figure it out. And so we got on a zoom call and he's like, oh, I didn't put my call sign in the radio, and I'm like, well, shoot, okay, now I don't mean I
don't mean this in a bad way. But when you when you buy a brand new Yazoo and you bit it up the first time, it says what's your call sign? That the icon doesn't do that, so you just.
Have to go in there and put wizard. There's an installation wizard.
Yeah, auto runs, so I hadn't put my so Bob, he and I walked through it. It took less than ten minutes, and I got my call sign put in the IC seven h five, and then we got on the reflector together and we talked to one another. It was easy
to do once I understood it. But he was explaining to me about the whole repeater A and repeater B and the two meters and four forty side and all this, and I'm like, and this was several years ago, I don't really remember much of it, but I'm like, you know that would be I think that's really great information
because that's just not something I'm very you're with. So so maybe we'll get maybe we can try to get Ray back on here in a couple months or so after not in October, because he's got a busy month in October and uh go through like the month already.
I know, yeah, man, I'm I'm only home five days in October.
Oh wow, goodness out. I'm gonna tell my wife that the next time she complains about my traveling. I'm well, raised only home five days this month. So she's probably listening actually right now. But yeah, I think that'd be a fun stream to talk it. Just do like a deep dive into d Star, like a sixty to ninety minute stream, just talk about all the ins and outs of D Star and what.
Would love to We also have the d Star one on one courses recorded that we've done at Dayton, and I say, I say we loosely. I basically tell the guys hey from the d Star Info group Ed and Ed and John, Hey, we got people that want to do it. You guys, go do it. So that's about my level of participation.
Okay, okay, But.
They do a good job.
They will be doing it again at Dayton twenty twenty five at the dury In on Friday morning. It's three hours and they they really don't go into a huge deep dive, but enough to get the d start curious going in the right direction. After talking with Tank here, I think he's going to want to drive me, drag me over to the deep end of the pool.
I get down, nuts and bolts. I'm a programmer. I love going down. That serialization of desirrelation of data is fascinating to me.
Well, go ahead and get started by searching for AA four r c D starr AA four r c D.
Think. Sorry, I'm getting all my acronyms mixed up.
D plus D plus Yeah.
D plus.
There is a decink page that goes with D plus and that's written by another developer out of Southern cal But yeah, Robin actually in one of his slides shows the the ones and zero's tanks and shows you how they're grouped for the data header and this and this and this.
I will definitely look at that for sure.
Yeah, they'd be Yeah, you would enjoy that.
Frank, I think we might do that on my channel.
I just do it on my channel that people can actually watch it there.
Oh, even drinking tonight, man, I've had.
A little bit right here. I finally opened that four roses that I got it to Huntsville. Oh, oh nice, So it was good. I mean, of course, for already knew that floor. I opened the four roses last because it was the one that I've already had and I know is good. So the green was it Green Country or whatever we did Bourbon green Label or whatever it was, we did Bourbon that the guy who gave me that bottle. The week after that, we went to Galveston and it's
on my video. I'm working I worked him on PODA and I'm sitting there calling CQ and he comes back to me and he's like, so, how'd you like that weeded bourbon I give you. I'm like, dude, I haven't even opened it yet. But I got home the week later and opened it, and that was really good as well. He's like that one's one that flies under the table. He's like, people don't know about it, but you drink it the first time, you're like, wow, that's really good.
I can't believe I hadn't heard of this. So that was very good as well. So I don't know if that gentleman's watching tonight, but I don't remember his call sign, but it's on my video so I can go back and look at it.
So I this is downstairs. I was just walking into a random a liquor store down to Gallason this weekend and I saw this McKenna McKenna bottle and bonded. I haven't seen this bourbon for four years.
Which which liquor store it was on?
One on the strand it was overpriced?
Yes, yeah, I know what. I know. You're talking yet.
Talking about drink?
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, that's right. Sorry sorry squirrel, Yeah yeah, right, right right. I forgot that, Frank, I totally forgot that you were. You had just got back from Galveston. So, yeah, how was it?
I had a blast. We we It was very relaxful. I did sneak away from my friends and I played a little bit of Poda yesterday and it was we had a blast.
I was getting hammelerts about you at Poda. I'm like, Frank's down there at my park doing Poda.
That's what I was saying on I'm gonna you.
And then and then I was like and then I was talking to Kate Emmerdi yesterday and He's like, who's he down there with? I was like, I don't know who he's I was like, it's not ham Frint. He's like, are you sure he's not down there? With Ham friends. I'm like, if Frank was down there with Ham friends at my house and I wasn't invited, I would be pissed right now. No, he's down there with like his game of threat, game of you know, magic, the gathering
card playing friends or whoever they are. I don't know who this.
Normal normal non radio friends, normal non They're like, where are you going? I'm like, I'm going to the park, okay, nerd.
Well, yep, call it like I see it. It's all right.
Yeah. I filmed a video out there and sat on the beach and played.
Some good It's a great place and the weather right now is perfect out there, so I'm I envy you. I wish I was down there right now.
I was on ten. I finished it up on ten.
I saw that.
Gout Belgium, just like the second contact on ten meters. I'm like, why did I not start here?
The the only time I've ever I worked a park to park on ten meters from Galveston to a guy doing a poda in England. Two guys at two different parks in England the same day I was on ten meters. I was on a vertical chameleon antenna at Sea level and I was on TIM. I was calling CQ and one guy comes back. He goes park to park and I'm like, that guy's got an accent. I was like, okay, yeah, park to park. Come back. He's like, this is golf, make golf one oh five three. I'm like, what the
hell you're You're in a freaking park in England. He's like, I'm in Manchester right now. I'm like, dude, that's freaking. And then like ten minutes later, another guy another park came to me and I'm like, man, that's that's fun.
Yeah.
Ten meters is an awesome band when it's open.
I didn't start on ten meters because when I pulled up the PoTA page it's only said five people were activating, so I was like, oh, that band must be down or something. So I went on and twenty was just ridiculously unpacked and played there. Then they kind of dried up and I was like, let's just do ten. And then I was getting Canada, Mexico. I heard a station at Italy I couldn't make the contact, and then Belgium.
I was like, what, yeah.
You do you guys do know why the Big d Expeditions put their verticals on the salt water right.
The amazing ground. It just pulls them all in and they work a lot of d X that way. I had a sloper and fed nine to one. Intended this go around, I do. I have built the new vertical char antenna. It is not ready to go, and I wanted to tune it for here because I didn't want it to go down to Galveston and cut the wire and tune it and then yeah, up up here then the SWRB off. But I could probably tune it here and then take it down there and just hit the tune
button in the radio and it'll be fine. I just wanted it to be tuned to my ground plane around here.
No, I think that's the right decision for sure.
So play some gray scale and open up on eighty and one sixty.
I do need to do that. No true, my neighbors, I am. We should do a sixty box antenna around all backyards totally just too many.
Al Right, Well, we could talk for a whole another hour about PODA, but we're not gonna do this, So yeah, Ray, thank you for your time tonight. And I know you got an early morning, so I'm gonna let you go, you're in Central time. I guess yes, if you're in Mississippi. But yeah, man, this was great info. I appreciate all the all the knowledge you shared tonight, and I appreciate you taking the time out to come onto the live stream. So really, uh, really interesting information. I really And I
gotta admit I like the great color. I mean, just the great color of this radio is neat. I don't know, I just I just like the gray on it.
It's very eye catching. And then the accent red on it was beautiful.
Yeah.
Yeah, and and was it's only a special select radios also got that leather wriststrap with it.
That's the sixtieth anniversary.
Yeah right, we just we just received the last production for for the US.
Okay, Friday, So is there gonna be a difference between besides the colors and whatnot, is there gonna be a function or performance difference between this and the the regular plus that comes out later?
No? Okay, just cosmetic.
Okay, Okay, I thought so, But I wouldn't wouldn't hundred percent a good question.
I like the clarification.
Yeah, with that later, right, I think they'll end up going back to the brown boxes.
MM.
Hmm.
So I'm sorry that the black Box to me was just it was very cool with the red sixty.
I agree, yeah, yeah, I've got I've got the In fact, I'm probably gonna sell my original fifty two because I'm like, this boxing radio is so much cooler of my original. I don't need to of them. So yeah, no, I think the black Box looked great. And and I said that in the string. I was like, I was like, uh, I did a video about something and I was talking, Oh it was the I think it was an interview that I did with you at Huntsville, and I said, and people were like, well, what's the box up to?
I was like, if you go to sell that radio, the first question you're gonna get asked is do you have the box? No matter what radio it is like, if you have the box, the radio is worth more. It just is so how it works.
But I love it.
Good cool. Well, I'm gonna we're gonna shut this down again. Ray, thank you very much.
There was one good question that I remember seeing sure lash By, and that was when the fifty two plus was going to be available, Okay, and that's looking like it's going to be November November December time.
Right, so possibly before Christmas then yes, okay, good, that's that's good timing.
So I love it, love it perfect.
Well, thank you once again, Ray, thanks for your time. I hope you have a safe flight and a fun month out there traveling around the world. He's going to a note show look for you can't not have you can't not have fun the boat show. Yeah, totally there you go, be true. So good, Well, we're gonna we're gonna shut this down and we will be on. We will have our regularly uploaded programs for your Ham Radio
entertainment all week this week. So I hope you guys would join us on our premieres that happened tomorrow, and I'll have a premier that happens tomorrow.
I got building the new vertical antenna coming out.
Cool. I need to get that one. I don't I don't have that one. Yeah. So next weekend is Belton and mesh Con and then uh two weekends after that is the the Ray Lake Red Roberts poe A meet up on October nineteenth, So you guys put that on your calendar. I hope to see some of you there and we'll we'll catch you guys next time. So you guys wave goodbye bye bye, see uh later. Everyone protect interpation Cotta