E1692: Operating SIMPLEX in Ham Radio: Community Discussions

Hey guys, good evening, Thank you for joining tonight. We're gonna get started here in just a minute, looking forward to minute to tonight's life. Thanks for being here early. Okay, I show seven o'clock in Texas. Good evening to all. And yeah, let's turn this up in a bit, turn that up a touch. Hello audio boy.

Here we go.

Okay, Hey, good evening guys. Thank you for joining us tonight Sunday night again. And I love this Ham radio business. To steal a line from Richard Lenore, here we go. First of all, shout out. I want to give a shout out to the YouTube channel members. But more importantly than that, right now, where'd this go? Gary Graham sixty eight passed his technician tech yesterday, So congratulations Gary. Let us know when you get a call sign. Really excited to see you out there and excited to hear you

Right.

Let's see there he is right there. I can't complain with that. I can't with that. So I didn't think you'd get it there, Frank quite frankly, So, uh you know it's uh, I'm I'm co hosting. Yeah, you're knocking out of the park, buddy. All right, let's bring everybody on. What's up, guys, how's there doing?

Hey?

Everybody happy Sunday?

Yeah? So next week is winter Field Day weekend. Yeah, and the weather says it's supposed to rain all day on Saturday in Galveston.

Of course it is.

So did y'all get the cabin or did y'all get doing it at the pavilion?

Pavilion is the plan as of right now. But I think I might try to call in that cabin Moral and see if this time last year was under renovation, which is what they're doing to the Dangerfield cabin this year, because I called on that one about a month or two ago. So I might try to call and see what the status of the cabin is. Tomorrow called to Moral, see what the status of the cabin is, and if if we can get that, we might try to get that for like one night. I don't know. We'll see, but.

Y'all are gonna have some fun. I'm gonna I'm jealous. I'm not gonna be there. Also, Welcome back, Jason. You missed a Cowtown Handfest, a staple of the DFW area.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you didn't get the tie Mikes.

I'm sorry.

Paul's jerky.

Across the conventions. That's a smell that lingers that stays with We.

Got to watch the videos to figure out what happened.

Mine's dropping tomorrow.

All right, Well, somebody shared a picture with I think it was in five SKT. He had shared some pictures in discord of you guys at then Hamfest on Saturday.

So yeah, that was my face is the little reaction of smelling that jerkey.

Okay, okay, okay, good to know, good to know. Well, uh, somebody has some Japanese whiskey for me. I'm not going to call anybody out or anything like that, Rob, but uh, you know I do.

I have a couple of extra bottles, and you know someone's not going to be there.

So still I say, I say we drink that one first. Yeah, I say we drink that one first. That's that's a fantastic idea.

You know in Tank wouldn't mind if you drink his. I mean, he's he like I like.

To share, but I have to be there to share.

Well, you were invited, Frank, Who's whose fault is it that you're not going to be there?

There you go, Frank.

You can't say no to mom, That's true.

You can just not it. Yeah, she doesn't like it.

Let let's say when she puts together a cruise and flips the majority of the bill. You say, yes, ma'am, I will be there.

Well, yeah, that's that's a good way to think about it.

Yeah.

Sure, But so who all is doing winterfield Day next weekend?

I'm sending your bulletin from Alabama?

Nice? Okay? Good?

Yeah, depending on the weather here. Yeah, we've got to We've got a minor plant.

You know, if nothing else, we can operate from the beach house. We won't be in a PoTA spot. But winterfield Day can be done from anywhere. So we could always go sit out and run the coax inside and sit at the dining room table and be in the the nice shelter and uh, you know, we could do it that way. And then if it's clear weather on Sunday, we can go out and do park activation on Sunday or something. I don't know, Guys.

When I was activating this morning.

I saw your I saw your post on Facebook about that. I think you said twelve degrees.

Right, It was twelve when I got out, But yeah, okay, okay.

On the air, I saw the dedication, man, totally, it's dedication. So well, did you do any FM simplex, Tim not Fmplex because because it just so happens that tonight's topic is FM Simplex, So you know, it'd be really cool if you've made an FM simplex contact on Poda this morning. I just, you know, kind of segue into that really nonchalantly as it do.

I've I've I've tried it occasionally. From where I operate in the park, there's not a lot. Every once in a while I will hear a couple of people talking locally on simplex.

But what radios do FM simplex? The only one I know is the Icon. I know this more.

Every HT you've ever, Every HT you've ever.

I'll speaking sideband, I was speaking sidebands. I was thinking sideband. I don't know things sideband popped up into simplex simplex.

Although that would be a good topic for another day. I mean, we're not gonna talk about that today, but two meter sideband was another very popular topic on my thirty days of Ham Radio, so that would be that would be a popular thing to bring up on a on another stream. So but yeah, no, we're tonight we're talking about one FM simplex and more specifically one five to two and how we should be monitoring, especially if

Been good.

Yeah, we gotta we gotta give a shout out to Paul. He brought us the stinky jerky, but he brought me a couple.

I pas fan.

I have no idea what it says other than session, I p and there's a frog that says I'm back.

Okay.

It does not smell like it did on Saturday or yesterday morning.

Is that good? That's good?

Well, you just need to breathe a little bit. Was that what it is?

It's no, it's.

More like it breathed a little too much.

It needed this day in Japan. Yeah?

Is that the perfect description? Right? It smells like you left your bait and your tackle box.

Trying to give the sign.

So it's it's, it's it's it's probably sushi that just went bad.

You could call it that.

It was.

It's going to be released Monday. Just swing by. It's it's fun.

Can we encapsulate that into a soap and sniff sticker?

You can? I've never seen Paul, Paul, I've never seen a more perfect name for an I p A. He says that one is called frog piss.

Is it really there?

You have it?

That's what Paul says. I mean, it's in the chat. I mean, you know, and and if you ever had to describe what I p as tastes like, that's an accurate description.

Okay, you will ever have another one of my all day I pas.

Then you know what? That's okay?

And Mike, okay, I can translate the can for you.

I don't care.

I guess I like frog piss.

That's fine.

Is alcohol in it?

I'll drink it?

I would. I would hope there's alcohol in it. So all right, one forty six five two, So yeah, let me, let me uh retouch on the topic real quick. So we've got about one hundred and one hundred and fifty more people watching than when I first started. Thank you for being here tonight. So I want so this is something I had, Uh I kind of semi sort of announced. Is very shoot from the hit, like I do most things, we're gonna be doing probably about once a month, we're

I heard of this.

Yeah, I think it's one forty six eight and they're they used to call it the I think it started out as like the uh white Rock Lake FM simplex frequency. So a lot of people out there in Eastdallas were using it. But but I've I've heard people in Decatur, out towards uh uh Springtown, out in Weatherford, all over Terrant County, and I've heard a lot of people talk on that frequency. So if you're driving around town you're talking,

I think it's six five eight gone cook, it's six as uh that is right?

Five eighty yeah, okay, one five eighty yeah. So so yeah. And there's also an FM simplex net every Friday night at eight pm local time, and I think that's on one forty six five seventy yeah, one five seventy I think is where that is. So five eighties, five eighties, one frequency in five seventies the other frequency, I believe. But you'll hear that simplex net is cool because the last time I listened to it, the net control was that No, No, that's Hurst is another one. We can

You've got Parker County.

Parker County. Yeah, I believe they. I believe they do. They start at Wise County and kind of go in a circle around the area. But it's it's fun too. It's fun to listen to You can't hear everybody. There's a lot of relay stations in there that'll come in and say, Okay, relay for this area, relay for this county, something like that, because I mean, unless you got a really tall antenna, you won't be able to hear everybody.

Where are you?

I said, I'm sitting in a deer stand in Forestburgh And he's like, dude, a man after my own heart, you're sitting in a deer stand and you're talking on five six. I was like, yes, I am, Yes, I am. That's great. So I talked to him. He's like, you know that if you're talking to me, the deer aren't coming. I was like, well, the deer out here are actually

Go, well, I'll jump in real quick.

I actually had someone calling out on two when I was driving into work on Thursday or Friday this week. I heard something that kind of caught me off guard and I ended up working a guy just a couple of times over who was just calling out on on one just.

For the heck of it.

Just time good.

But you know, yeah, ultimately, I think it comes down to you got to be listening. There's gotta be someone there. Yeah, calling out it's one thing, but there's got to be people that are listening. So I always have that on my B band when I'm in the car, and I'll always call out when I'm on road trips, if I'm

Well, good good. Yeah, I heard something like that. I was where was I? I was going somewhere, and well, I was driving. I was driving home from Galveston about a week a couple of weeks ago, and some guy zoomed by me on the highway and he had two big intendas on his truck and I'm like, okay, I'm waiting for it, and like twenty seconds later he goes, hey casey five HBB. I'm like, hey, buddy, what's up. I'm just by me. So we talked road to five or ten minutes. So that was fun. At least he

You know, you know the one that drives me nuts is driving to Belton, right, We've got a decent drivecost thirty five to Belton, yes, And you know you're always seeing other hams drive by right, either by their license plate or by their number of antennas they have, and you know, probably nine times out of ten when you call out, nobody comes back.

Yeah, you know, and it's like these.

Guys are going to a ham fest, right right, they're hand radio operators. I mean, at least turn it on when you're going to a ham fest.

Come on, if you and if you don't have a radio in your car, you're going to a ham fest, go buy a radio for crying out loud. So yes, yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I mean, it's it's kind of it's one of those things where, you know, and I issued a challenge during my thirty Days of ham Radio, which was the September thing. I was like, turn on one forty six five to two. Try to call out

But Mike and I on the way to the Cowtown Hamfest, we were driving down talking on one four six, five two, and Mike was trying to egg people on, trying to get him come on five to two. He's like, come on, we're going to the Hamfest. We're only ten miles out and it's only me and Tank talking here, and he's on a h T and where where's everyone else at? And just silence.

He did something similar to that. We were driving back from Iowa when we went to UH visit the Power of the Powerfilm Factory and we got in some track, some short minor traffic jam or something like that, and we're slowing down on the road and he picks up his mark phone. He's like, how come none of you have a radio one.

I even tried to tried to call uh Fort Worth, Lil Dallas to spark some uh oh yeah converstation there, and nobody came back.

I was like, that would drive anyone nuts over here, and nothing, nothing, and not until we got like two miles out we heard other people mm hmm, yeah, no.

I didn't hear anyone till uh we were like two tenths of a mile away from the Yeah.

Right, yeah, yeah, the.

Way go ahead.

One thing I could say, at least in this area, right, there's a lot of repeaters, and I think a lot of people are on the repeaters. I think they're monitoring the repeaters.

They're monitoring the ppeters. No one's on the repeaters.

Well, it depends on the repeater.

Depends on the repeater. Yeah. I can point you to four or five of them that get used pretty regularly. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does depend on the repeater. But but you know, every time I meet someone I shouldn't say every time. Many times when I meet someone on Simplex, they'll be like I'll be like, oh, I've got Simplex on this side of the radio and a repeater and they're like, oh, I don't even talk on repeaters.

I mean, but we still need to make the repeaters active too.

Yeah. We'll talk about that on a on a different live stream, but yeah, yeah for sure.

So well, think about this.

You guys stay on top of Montasao, where six of the major North Alabama Repeater Association repeaters are, and you're on five to two.

You're always on five to two.

Yeah, there's a there's a lot of great activity around Huntsville, Alabama on a regular day, not just on Hamfulls I mean, but tomorrow.

I mean, I'll turn everything well, not that's the old house, but behind me.

You know, I'll have you know, my all Star note.

It will be usually connected to you or I'll connect into East Coast Reflector. But five to two is on one of the radios, and it's always kJ four d WX five to sim.

But yeah, he's on there all the time.

Yeah, Stephen Ford.

If you have not worked Stephen Ford on any given day on five to two, you're not on five two, right, because he's that's all he does while he's driving for FedEx between the depots and every everything around here. He's he is what's keeping five to two alive here because you know, like like Tank said, the repeaters, they're used

There's a repeater that's close to the store. I can't remember the frequency right now. It might be three three, but there's a there's a repeater with an all Star connection up there. And when I when I pull into town, I key it up. I was like, hey, casey five, it should we be anybody monitoring, and usually nobody comes back to me. So I just and connected into my system and I'll monitor that repeater with my system on it while I'm there.

And I think it's the one on the arsenal that I think is moving.

Okay, do you remember the frequency? M Okay, I've got it saved in my radio. I've got it saved in my ID fifty one. The truck as Huntsville. And then I said, but the way I save an all Star repeater in my radio is I'll name the town and then I'll put the five digit all Star node number next to it, five or six digit whatever, so that I know. I was like, oh, that's the that's the all Star number, so I can either key it up. I know it has all Stars, so I can key

So, I mean, I just kind I just learned Friday night that the one four seven, one to eight zero repeater is actually a dual FM P twenty five repeater.

So you go in P twenty five twenty five out.

Huh. That's interesting.

All these years I've lived here and thought, oh, it's just going to be in you know, another repeater.

Oh it's dual mode.

Yeah cool, yeah, yeah, great great. One of the things.

Oh sorry, go ahead, Jason.

No no, no, no, you go ahead, go ahead.

One of the things I was I was just thinking of that I did that. It seemed to generate a lot of interest. Is the last couple of years i've operated, I think it's in April when it's Autism Awareness Month. I've done the special event with the I think it's

So yeah, I'll tell you. So we my wife and I spent the last week in Phoenix. She's got a cousin out there. We went and saw we've never been out there to see them. And Charlie lives out there. Read some of r F in J seven Victor and he's got h And the last time I was out there, which is a couple of years ago, let's see where did his text message go. They've got a simplex frequency that they monitor out there because a lot of them

M Yeah, it really depends on the area. Yeah, Charlie has lives in a great area for FM Simplex. Greg k K six e gg he lives in a great area for Simplex all up and down southern California on the coast there. Mike has a good area up in western New York. Here in Delaware. Nope, nothing, I I I do hear people. I do monitor one four sixty five two every once in a while while I'm here at my at my desk, and i'll i'll i'll see people talking on there. I will listen for a little bit.

Or good elevation. I mean, like, yeah, out here in the flat lands, I mean you're not gonna find I mean you might, you might make a contact or two, but you're not going to get a ten ten ten contact activation on a photo park. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish I but I'd like to see that happen. I would like to see us start to the group of us, and everyone who's listening to me right now, and everyone

Uh.

You know, my part of the woods, Northeastern Oklahoma is not a strong six to five to two presence. Necessarily, I try to I have two mobile radios that are dual band in my truck, and I try to monitor one of those VFOs all the time on six top five to two. A lot of time it's nothing. You get a special event going or something, and you might you might hit somebody on there. But I gained a whole new respect for it. Two years ago when I was going to Huntsville Hamfest for the first time.

M hmm.

I'm on the highway and i'm, you know, probably half an hour forty five minutes from Huntsville, and this car passes me. That's a an SUV or something, and the passenger window is down and the lady driver sticks her hands out the window and goes.

Love, that means what that means? It sounds like she was she was calling you, and you weren't answering. Her friend, husband was. He was in the passenger seat.

He was the ham and he was calling me and I didn't.

I wouldn't monitor.

And I'm like, oh, I'm I'm a low life.

I'm not going to a ham pass for God's sake.

Oh My looked it over and we chatted all the way to Huntsville, and I'm like, dude, I'm never switching off of that frequency again, right, leave it on all the time.

And I called out on a couple of times.

Today I had to go to the next county and back as I always do on Sundays, and nothing.

Well, we just got to raise that awareness, man.

We got right.

Yeah, we just yeah, we just gotta we have to be more active so that we can ask others to be more active.

So I see a good question here in the chat him, uh ky J five is asking is one more popular than four four six?

Oh? Well again, I think it's going to be very area dependent. I don't know what you're trying to share here, Tim, but I'll let you do it. It's going to be very area dependent. But my experience is that, yes, yeah it is. Right now, I see a Mac and crash desktop with a with a hard drive at the top, right, Tim, what are you? What are you doing here?

But hang on, that's not going there?

Okay, all right, hacking your stream man?

Yeah, they're taking over see I'm oh yeah, okay, yeah, this is your this is your license plate. Yeah yeah, I'm.

Not right there.

If if if you know, you know kind of thing right right? Yes, you see intenn Is on other vehicles, you know their ham radio operators and uh so I've got the small v h f U H up in ten and I and I do have the athos and sometimes I take it off right, but uh, but the small one is on here. Since I don't necessarily stand out, and I'm not a big fan of like a Ham radio, at least the Indiana hamm right operator's license plates. So I did that. Six to five to two is a

What other crazy guy do you know that jumps out of airplanes and does Ham radio? I mean, obviously they were talking about Carlis exactly. So I broke in and I'm like, what is this guy's call sign? And I gave it back to me and I'm like, well, it's Carlos.

So they they they actually relayed for Carlos and I until we got close enough that we could actually nice and then we went and met up and did somepoda, so nicely out of the plan. But yeah, but there you go. There's that's the funny five to two story.

Good, good, excellent, Josh, we have you want to unshare, Tim, Josh, we haven't heard from you yet. What's it like up there in Tennessee.

It's not bad, you'll hear. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a huge monitor of simplex. Although to your point, Jason, I'm going to try to start doing better with that good and last night actually reminded me of why I should be listening. Okay, to five to two. One of my good friends, thankfully he had internet. He was on the Foothills Parkway, which is Coda Park, just adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This was

Mm hmm, yeah, totally.

But as far as far as PoTA goes, I've done quite a few PoTA activations on five to two. It happens, but I would certainly advise to be respectful of that space, right.

I will generally have an HT sitting on the table when I have my HF radio going and uh to listen to six five two, and I made on an

Well, usually these parks are so large that they will cut out you know, like ten ten killer hurts white, you just need to go up another fifteen.

Well no, yeah, that's no. I'm not complaining about that. I'm just saying yeah, but I mean, obviously, if someone's in the same park as you, you should be able to operate six top five to two and I both monitoring as we several times.

Also you're like the guys like, yeah, I'm in the like in the park too somewhere. I'm like, yeah, that's awesome. It's like put each other out.

Hockey Ham Hoki Ham. Hockey Ham says the guy with the dead battery was a dumb ass. Oh wait, that was me.

I wonder what.

I've actually worked France from from the Foothills Parkway on five watts before. That's a that's a good, good elevation.

Nice yeah, well good okay. Uh so okay, so here's a question. Here's something we can tell you. Frank are you looking, are you watching for questions?

Watching for questions?

Okay, if anybody has any questions or comments, it'd be good to hear from everybody. But here's something that and we could talk about. I could talk about this for the next hour, which is primarily what we're talking about not only but primarily for forty six zero applies to this as well. Is the national calling frequency. Typically, typically you don't want to have QoS long q sos, especially

What do you think I invite the complaints.

Complaints?

Yeah, if no one's using it, I mean watch you just meet there and then go off to another frequency. No one's using it, just use it.

It's well, we already have the complaint that the frequencies and the bands are dead right, that complaint is already there, So let's change that. And then I invite the problem I have too many people. I invite the problem there.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think that's an excellent problem to have that I would like to see reactivated. You look at him radio bands.

Even if you have two people just ragtooing, and then a third comes on there just to join, not to complain that. Then now you've got a group of people. Then a fourth person comes like, hey, what's going on? I saw this was active, and he joins the conversation. Then you have a rag too for a good maybe an hour from forty minutes an hour, I don't know,

Well, but that's I mean, that's kind of that. That's the purpose of a calling frequency is a meeting spot and then you go off. You say, hey, you know, go up to five dot two five or yeah, you know what, whatever you want to get. But yeah, exactly if no one's using it. And I saw somebody complaining

I'm gonna I'm gonna just stand on the other side here. If you're doing it at a more regular basis, you're gonna degrade the usefulness of that band this minus you know, just the the RAG two as we're driving down the road.

That boils down to Ham's actually using etiquette. Yeah, and unlike on d m R, where everyone is just keying up so fast you can't even disconnect from the talk group. You gotta leave space every now and again, let's pause, anybody else need to check in just right.

I see what you're saying, Frank, And I think that would be more of a problem if the frequency actually got used. But it's I mean, I I can't remember ever hearing someone say I don't listen to six top five too, there's too many people talking. I don't. I don't think that's I don't think that's been a thing in like two decades except for L Well, yeah, I

Well.

It also seems that when there's noise, other people join in.

Yes, right, yeah, But.

When everyone's sitting there silent, everybody sits they're silent.

Right nobody. Yeah, So yeah, I think it's.

Perfectly fine to use it. And I think, you know, if somebody asks you to move. I think you should. I mean, there's nothing wrong with either of those things.

Yeah, no, I agree, I was, I was.

I don't hear a lot of five to two activity at all in Houston.

A few weeks and probably about three weeks.

Ago, I went down to visit ABR and on my way back I heard I heard a couple guys talking I think they were talking about fishing or something on five to two. So I chimed in and we ended up having We ended up having a nice qso for a while until I got to around the I forty five area, coming from like six from ten to six, ten to forty five, yeah, yeah, and then we kind of just started getting One of the guys had to drop out, and then me and the other guy were

On five to two.

And hardly hear anything.

I called c Q.

Just just on Friday up in Dallas or I was a little bit west of Dallas. Then I was on whatever it was three or whatever. Oh, nobody came back.

So it doesn't get used a lot up here, but you will find i'd say probably once a week, I probably hear somebody out there talking on it. And usually it's like usually you're hearing like half a conversation. You hear the one guy, but you can't hear who he's talking to. And usually I won't jump into that because I'm like, well, I can't hear this guy anyway, but if I hear him sign with each other, maybe I will.

Well, I mean I pretty much always have it on. Doesn't mean doesn't mean I'm listening or may have the volume turned down. Well yeah, yeah with the weather.

Yeah.

Well, drive by Mike's place, just leave a sticker or two randomly.

I'm sure he likes her.

Yeah, or in his mailbox.

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure he loves that, as long as there's a cigar with it. Yeah. But yeah, I don't hear you know, I want to. I want to try to get more activity on the Galveston Island for six top five two as well, because I don't hear much down there. But but if you manage your one forty five up five too, you'll hear some activity. I hear I talk to those guys pretty much every time I go down there. But it's it's KB five U t y. Dave says he has it on with the

On, I was gonna ask Josh up there. I mean, I know you're not far far away from Knoxville, are you?

Or are you ten minutes?

Okay?

So I mean all the.

Times I go to Pigeon FORWARGE, for weekend trips, W four DXCC stuff, meeting up with that the Severeville Club, do they even use five two or are they? They love their repeater network up there so much.

Definitely, We're fortunate to have a couple at least two large repeater networks owned by one guy, and they take great care of them. So yes, they are heavily heavily relied on. But when I do have my five to two on, I hear traffic I don't know if it's coming from Severevil or not. Most of it, it's usually somebody in Knoxville. I can hear Noxville no problem. But yeah, uh, it's simplex is used up here a lot of times. I know in my club. Our club will default to

They do the same thing in Chattanooga too.

Whose frequency will go farther two meters four to forty forty.

In theory, two meters will go farther, But it really depends on your terrain and what's between you and the other station building.

I thought four forty would penetrates the buildings better.

It does. It does penetrate. But if you're on a mountaintop talking to another mountaintop, two meters is is better? Interesting and two meters is well? I mean, okay, Robert, here's a question. Okay, so satellites are uplink down link? Is there a different can you tell a difference? Does this performance better? If if if a ground station is transmitting on two meters as to a ground station transmitting on for forty is there a better Is there one that works better than the other.

Uh, I mean you always want more gain on four forty, right, I mean, so two meters does get your does get your? Okay, that two meter signal is usually stronger.

So if you're listening to a satellite transmitting on two meters and then you're transmitting back to them on four forty, that the signal stronger from the satellite coming down on two meters.

No, So what I'm saying is, so if you're listening to a satellite that has four forty down, uh huh, that's not going to be as strong as a satellite that has two meters down. Okay, So if you're on a ninety one, Yeah, if you're on a ninety one that has two meters two meters down, it's usually a stronger signal than the ISS. That's well, ISS isn't a good example, better than so fifty that has four forty.

Down Okay, okay, yeah, for forty and especially nine hundred megerts are great for penetrating through buildings and shoot I was I mean, uh, when we flew to Phoenix, I had the meshtastic going both to and from and when you were over the airport at DFW, it just and then when you're landing in Phoenix lit up the whole time, and you might get you might get some signals if it was on for forty or two meters, but I don't think as much, just because it's it's penetrating a

So I got some general questions.

Okay, go ahead, Frank.

From the chat. How do you know what the calling frequencies are? Where they listed?

ABORL has stuff, QRZ has stuff. I would, honestly, I just google it to say Ham radio calling frequencies. You know, I can tell you what they are. I can tell you what a lot of them are, not all of them, just from memorization from being doing this for so long, but just just google it. I mean, someone's got a link. We can share it here. But a double L is where I would look again.

A RL's got a good list and it'll list the FM, the CW, THEB calling frequencies and a whole bunch for.

All the bands, right. Yeah, So there's an AM calling frequency and an FM calling frequency sideband calling frequency, so it's not just FM ten meters has a DRED their AM calling frequency which I often will monitor when I'm at a park and to see if anybody's out there, which I rarely find, but but it is out there. So yeah, get a get an a double r L band plan and it'll tell you all that information.

Nice. And then another question is using all Star or EchoLink to find repeaters and frequencies? Is that very common?

Depends on how resourceful I think the person is.

I don't understand that question. To find repeaters and frequencies he's.

He says, using all Star EchoLink to get on a get on a repeater, then asking for comment areas or frequencies for other repeaters on the road trip.

I meank dot com.

Yeah, repeater book, Yeah, repeater Book's good for seventy two hundred. Yeah, that's right.

Tuning.

In fact, you know what I dare you to get on seventy two hundred and KEFM do that or AM or AM yeah, or start doing FT eight on that. But uh yeah, repeater book is probably better than that. But I but someone did. Who was it? I was talking to a few weeks ago. You know what it might have been? It might I can't remember it was either it might have been a comment in that thirty Days of Ham Radio video I did. Someone made a

Someone else earlier asked what's the calling frequency for one and a quarter one point twenty five maker? Hurts, and given the band plan that we just shared, I used that and found that it's two two two dot one for I'm sorry, yeah, to to two dot one for sideband and c W Collin frequencies.

Was that correct?

It's two twenty three dot five for FM. But the dot one it sounds right for week signal.

Right, yeah? Yeah, two two two dot one is sideband and two two three dot five is FM.

That's that's correct either. Here it says digital FM simplex. I didn't see it listed as calling.

Yeah, it's two two three dot five is the commonly commonly monitor not so commonly monitored. But I put a short I put a I put a reel up on Instagram,

Then Ben Kilo two Alpha Whiskey Charlie and also Tim's DMR said Frank has a great point. You need to let him talk more. Oh wait that I added that last part, but they both said I made great points earlier.

Yeah, obviously they've had too much to drink tonight. That's all right.

Hey, Jason, did you see the post thing that Jeff threw in the chat?

Yeah? I was about to try and mention.

That and what chat? And oh I did not hold on. Let me see if I can open that without it.

Someone said that to me an email, sitting there trying to get it on the chat on YouTube.

Oh you know what, someone mentioned that up front at the beginning of the stream, and then I kind of forgot about it. So thank you for sharing that. Let me switch over to that real quick.

Okay, I'll go ahead and drop that then right here.

Okay, you can share that in the live chat.

Frank yep, I was hitting.

Yes, winter Heat, and I heard about this last year, and I think I I think I tried a little bit last year, but I don't remember if I actually ever made any contacts. January one to thirty one, so we're halfway through it. Winter Heat is a month long vhf UHS simplex event held every January. Main purpose of the events participants to make as many contacts as possible during the event. Many additional benefits arise blah blah blah. So yeah, so here we go. These are winter Heat frequencies.

Let's may move this up real quick. Make sure I get the whole screen in there. Come on, what is okay? Here we go right there?

All right, So two meters is one forty seven up? Five to seven or one seven five two five seventy fty six seven forty six up four they've got two two six meter frequencies two two three dot four hundred for two meters and nine two seven one hundred for nine hundred, and then they've got a D star couple of D star Well, no, they got d star DMR and fusion frequencies for two meters and for forty right there. So yeah, uh theham active dot com website that Shank

I haven't.

Do you have to make the contacts on those frequencies or they just suggested ones?

I mean, I I don't know.

Read the rules?

I uh yeah, uh general information all right. Participants must be registered blah blah blah with their logging system. All contacts must be made on the disc designated amateur radio frequency see below.

Gotcha.

Okay, so yes, you have to be on those frequencies unfortunately.

Okay, yeah, that's yeah, that's this line right here. Yeah, okay me, he's huh yeah, one five seven and one seven five two five. I could I could totally get on board with that, and I wouldn't mind trying to find some six meter activity out here as well. So yeah, so have you guys done this at all? Has anyone logged any contacts?

I remember hearing about winter heat before, probably last year and this year, maybe because I've ditched the club that I was with last year. Last year, Yeah, it's probably like December twenty twenty four mm when I probably last heard about it, probably due to one of the clubs I was with. But after that I don't remember hearing anything about it. Nothing. Even like this past few months, I have not heard anything, not even on any of the nets that I've normally on that are out of the area too.

I think I heard. I think I saw a post on kure Z about it, and then I was like, oh, I need to do that, and then I forgot about it. So we should totally try to make that.

Who runs that next year?

I have no idea that's the question in the chat. I have no idea. If you go to the website, go down there and find I don't know it's so.

Am Active is the name of the organization. I don't know much about it. But the Winter Heat is their flagship event. It kicks every January, followed by Spring Wire, Summer Thunder and Autumn Breeze. So they do this like every season like support Parks Weekend for OODA.

Is it the same thing?

Is it?

Is it a simplex event every so four months out of the year. Is that?

Is that what you're saying, Well, that's what they listened right on the front page. I'm going to their other one. Spring Wire is single side band and they have a two meter six single sideband frequencies. Summer Thunder is the same as Winter Heat, okay, and Autumn bree Blaze is SSB, So the summer and winter are the same, and the spring and autumn are the same. It seems so they do a simplex and SSB and the alternate between the tail.

If you click on event info on the left hand menu over here, you'll you can find information for about for all four of those events. Good Summer Thunder is a month long in July, okay, and then spring wire April fifteenth through thirtieth, so like the last half of April, okay.

And the autumn one is August, I mean October.

October okay, yeah, that month sweet, that's cool, Okay. I had never heard of those other ones. I've heard of winter Heat. I think I made like two contacts last year something like that, But I, like I said, I forgot about it this year, so I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to do that. I have to get on that here shortly.

I have another similar event that hockey Ham just happened to text me and remind me of. Okay, like share everybody in the chat. There is a link I just dropped the zoom chat. Tennessee Amateur Radio Association. They've had a kind of a contest type event going on since

The for more contacts.

Okay, all right, are you saying him to get together hockey ham hockey Okay, I couldn't tell if you were saying hockey ham or hiking.

Hm, hockey h O c k e y.

Keep your stick on the ice.

You got to adjust for the Tennessee accent.

But red Green Mike, right, yeah, just your writ yeah there it is.

Yeah, just your writ for those Tennessee guys.

But this is a this is a new organization. I'm just now learning about them, but I think they've got some great ideas, so nice. Excited to see them doing this simp like Saturday, bringing some activity to absolutely frequencies.

Absolutely, yeah, you know, that's a lot like this. DFW simplex net we have on Friday nights out here, which I rarely get to check into, but I have a couple of times, and it's quite fun. It's quite fun to do that and to see what you and the coolest thing about it, in my opinion, is you get to see how well your station works because you get to see, oh I can hear that guy over there in this county, in this county, but I can't. But they're talking now. The net control is talking to someone

So I'm like, what mesh Dave heard in the chat? He says he heard cocky cocky?

HM could be I don't know. I don't know the guy, so I'm not going to say that.

Well.

In addition to those two events that the winner he and and the Simplex Saturday, the VHF contest was this weekend.

I just got back.

I activated two parks on six meters up for the contest today.

And sir, was that, I said, did you go ahead?

Yeah, yep, and uh it's they do it January, June and September, and those are always good time. I'm sure you know, half the contacts for people that regionally are big into contesting, but the other half were just people listening on five to two or or whatnot. And you know, you don't have to contest to participate and just make a quick contact here there. It's a good way. And for newer hands, if you're attack, you can participate easily on all the bands.

But uh, if.

You want to test out your station or something, just see what you can do.

Maybe you've got a new.

Mobile in the car or something that.

You know, those weekends with the VHF contest is a good chance. They're a good opportunity.

Yeah, totally absolutely, yeah, and those are fun too. So I participated in that September contest last year. I was down there at that superstation now in I forget the name of the town down there, somewhere south of Dallas. But that was fun. That was fun. Those guys have Killawot amplifiers on two meters twenty four and one point two gear hurts and they got a big dish to do moon bounce with one point two gig and six they got six meters also and that was that was freaking fun.

That's cool.

It's a cool station down there, but very very fun setup. Well. The uh yeah, so the the theme is turn on one too. Here's your challenge this week this month, uh especially especially this week leading up to winterfield Day and during winterfield Day. Okay, turn on one. If you're driving to winterfield Day, if you're participating winterfield Day, if you're just gonna be at home listening to winterfield Day, turn

Can I add to that?

Yep? Go ahead, So as.

I don't guess this bunch will meet again before hand Casion next month, we should actually will Oh well, that's good. We should still light up the southeast on five to two as we're all traveling.

Yes, yes, agreed, Yeah, so.

So we could do that if Bill flies me.

Bill should come like fly and pick us all up.

Right just land land land his airplane in front of all our houses. You mean you got.

Df W right next to you.

There's a small little airport right here in Huntsville.

I'm sure Bill would I think.

We need to go fundme for a private jet for I don't know twenty of us.

You would think for the week for the weekend.

A person bill statue, they were just lett him borrow the plane for the weekend. Yeah, you would think, so yeah, that kind of grip.

We gotta have a plane just hitting around doing nothing.

Everyone chipping for fuel.

They gotta fly, I mean they gotta worthy, right, so.

You know we can put the plane in the video. It's just like a sponsor and.

Yeah, a video sponsored video. Man, that's good.

I'm thinking the movie Soul Plane.

There's a there's an there's a little airport on guy Liston Island right next to Moody Garden, so totally.

Running and a wire out of the plane. Try to tune up the futil odys.

Wow, I bring my ninety that's right.

A bulldozer out here. I think I could make a runway.

It's all coming together.

Bill.

Yeah, someone needs to cut this and send it to Bill.

I think Bill signed off and I know to go, but I.

Wish he was still here running by now.

I invited. I'm hoping Bill comes to winterfield Day. And I sent him a text the other day and invited him.

So he already flies those smaller planes anyway, So yeahs did.

He say it was coming when I talked to him a couple of days ago. He said, thanks for the invite out. I'm gonna try to make it.

But oh oh, and we got a flight.

Paul says whiskey.

Yeah, Paul served the whiskey to us.

Paul gets playing first, Paul, are you coming down to Galveston for Winterfield Day? Buddy? I sent you a message in I didn't look back at it yet, So well, guys, he said, no, okay, I wouldn't sure what he was doing, but he's welcome there. He's welcome to come down. So uh yeah, So guys, lesson of the day, tune up on two. That's your challenge this month until we meet again next month and talk about a totally different topic. And uh, I appreciate everyone coming on to the stream.

So hey, before before we go, Jason, Yeah, congrats to Ham Radio Crusader for ten.

Oh yes, yes, ten thousand subs on Ham Radio Crusader.

That was great you guys, and thank you all the new subs out there, and be looking for a live stream coming soon. I'm gonna give away one of my homemade I'll start link nodes.

Oh yes, it's pretty cool looking.

For the Thank you guys.

And I'm over forty five hundred.

Okay, it's a couple of way you're how how many is a couple?

Like?

Literally too at least that.

Stream, So you're at forty four eighty eight.

But if we have to forty five hundred or five thousand tonight.

I mean, you know, you know you might. I mean, if you're gonna shoot for the stars, you might as well shoot as high as you can.

Right.

Wait, So.

I mean if I make five thousand subs, man into the stream, Mike will give away last season's by day.

What he loved last last season's by Day? Okay, what's that? Rob? It is seasoned?

Yeah, forty eighth six Rob?

All right, all right, so we're gonna have to get Tim and Rob onto a live stream here in a week or two and get you guys. Got the Hama Hamcash guys coming on next weekend right after Winterfield Day. But we'll have to get you guys on.

See.

If we get five thousand subs for you guys here soon, it'd be fun. I love doing those. But anything else, have anything else, anything cool upcoming on your channels. Everybody doesn't have to go, but if you've got something cool to say, go ahead.

I'd like to find a radio that has three bands on it, not not like like two meter seventy four forty, so I can monitor three different frequents at the same time.

Rad tael RT nine to fifty okay, t y t t H three fifty.

Are they mobile now?

See?

I want to dors UH one six two, but also my all Star node in the truck. Well, I'm driving around so I can do all three.

I don't know. I know of a couple of radios that have like a TRY or quad display. I don't know of any of them that'll do APRS or not not do it well anyway.

Yet that that red tail they're talking like there may be a firmware upgrade coming for that one. It's still in HT though, right Sorry, Yeah, it's still an h T and I don't think it has GPS, and it doesn't.

Yeah, it has GPS does maybe that's why I heard it. Supposedly it'll do kiss T and c a p R S. I've yet to try that. A couple of comments in the chat said, oh, yeah, I've tried that. It doesn't work, and I'm like, it doesn't surprise me. But I want to. I do want to. I do want to try that and see what happens. But yeah, I don't know anything like that. But yeah, just do what I do. Tim, put more than one radio in.

Your car, you know, I mean maybe that the Vero, the mobile version, Yes, because that'll do a PR.

Yeah will yeah, a little radio.

Yeah.

In fact, you can get a tablet and run APR. It's droid with it, so which is easy too. Well, that's true, but there is there an Apple equivalent a PR s F I is that just the website or is that an actual app?

That's an app?

It's an io s app yep, Okay, yeah, I have it.

Okay.

The cool thing about apres droid is it's easy to send received messages. So you're driving on the road and you get an APRS message you click on reply, you click on voice to text and you talk to it and you click send. You're done. You don't have to yaiz you where's the A because it's not a Cody keyboard. Oh there it is, you know, so it's easy to do with APRS droid.

You bleed out before you figure it out there Cordy keyboard.

I'll throw one one final thought out. All right, I'm gonna plug here. I want to see something cool. There's a reason I say you want to see something cool, folks that if you missed out Thursday night, we made Ham radio YouTube history. Oh yeah, with Chris Bowden. If you're not familiar with him, he has a science and engineering channel over one point five million subscribers randomly hinded up on mostery on Hamshak TV.

You don't know how jealous I am. I've been watching him for years and when I saw him pop up, I'm just ah because I was literally trying to formally how to reach out to him because he has said he's looking to get his amateur radio license and incorporating the shack And I was like, do you need help? Where are you? And I wanted to do that after I got back with the cruise and then he popped up on your channel and.

Took his test on the whim and passed it. Not only pasted it, passed it with flying colors. You didn't get a hundred, buy got thirty two out of thirty five.

So he gets scroyed.

Well done, and I think I seriously dropped most F bombs in a conduction of a test.

Myself. Myself, Mike and one of my one of my regular interviewers, e O D. Kaboom, we were the ves that administered the test. And if you go, you can go back and watch the exam and we are just.

Dying laughing all the Oh boy.

But it's over on my channel, y'all go check it out. It's it was quite fun. I have a surprise.

That's awesome. I'm watching all End detailed team replay.

Cool. Well, guys, thanks once again for coming on tonight. This was a fun discussion. I really enjoyed it. I will do this again. Like I said, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to drop me a line, discord or email something like that. We'll get it on the schedule and we're gonna knock it out. So seventy three guys, everyone, have a good week and Winter Field Day next weekend.