Adventures in Ham Radio and Storytelling

This is our weekly show where we discuss ham radio topics in New Hampshire , New England and beyond , and we're thrilled to have you here , whether you're a regular listener or tuning in for the first time , and we appreciate you and thanks for joining us for tonight's episode . So let's get into our show .

I'm your host , Eric call sign N1JR , and I'm with my co-host tonight .

We have had a bunch of guys and gals all pick those up , so they're falling off the shelves very quickly and once they're gone , they're gone . And so if you want to get your uniquely branded whiskey , bourbon and scotch dram there with the Live Free and Ham logos on it , head over to the store and pick one up for yourself .

And we'd always like to thank everybody who's . Every little bit that you guys purchase on the store and you wear proudly that we see at ham fest and and other shows and and everywhere on the internet that , uh , you know you guys are helping us continue to further this along , and so we like thank you guys .

And so this week we actually had a recently Derek P . He picked up one of our whiskey glasses . So good job for you , derek man . I'm hoping you're enjoying it . It's coming your way , and he's also picked up a bunch of our hammies and those that might not know .

You know , if you go to gethammedcom and you check that site out , you can find out more about that . But ultimately quickly it's sort of like the ducks for Jeepers , but way better and way cooler Jeepers , but way better and way cooler .

So if you see a ham that's got antennas on his car or her car , you can now place a little hammy guide there with a little token on the bottom that says you got hammed , with your call sign written on it and it gives them the web address so they can learn a little bit more .

And it's kind of a cool way just to be able to help out and promote the hobby and just say to people hey , I recognize your cool antennas on your vehicle , even though you might have 15 antennas . But hey , who's counting ? And there's love everywhere we go , no matter how many antennas you got on your truck .

So with that we always love feedback and so we've got a couple of ways to contact us . You can always reach out via SMS . There's that link in every one of our show notes that you just click on and you can send us quick text directly from any one of our episodes and tell us how we're doing . Give us a review .

Tell us that our car warranties have expired . We need to pick up better ham radios . That Yezu's better than Team Icom , I don't know . You tell us , you , let us know , share with us and we'll make sure we share it . On the old episode , you can always leave us a voicemail .

This has been something that we're super excited about , and we've decided to open up the lines . You can call us now and share your deepest thoughts , express your devoted love for the show , or remember to remind us that you know RRHF warranties have already expired on all of our radios and we need to go get those cleared up . So that number is 978-233-1142 .

And , as paul says at the bottom , call us for a good time . You know what better . So we're waiting there nobody's standing by , but will . You can leave us a voicemail and we will play that voicemail next episode there . Um , and you know , maybe you're the old type , um , and you'd like to just send us an email .

Well , we still offer that , uh , and you can send us an email at livefreeandham at gmailcom . So what you're waiting for ? Send us your review . Share a little bit about you . Know how great we are or you know how bad we are . I don't care . We all want to know . Paul wants to read them all . I want to listen to them all . I'm looking forward to it .

Well , with that , as every month , we've got a live stream , this is our one extra bonus episode of every month we do a live stream . Sometimes it's a regular episode , sometimes we have a guest on , sometimes we just invite the whole crew on and we just laugh it up and have some fun .

But it's always a surprise to us because we never really know when we're going to do it . So you know , the only way you can be in the loop is to basically become a subscriber of our YouTube channel there . Make sure you also tag that bell . That way you'll get notified when we go live and you can come be part of the action .

Because , I guarantee it , paul , you would admit we always have fun , right . No , part of the action because I , I guarantee it , paul , you would admit we always have fun right . No , it's never a good time . It's like a library , right ? Whatever cool . Well , and you know , you never know .

We always invite all of our guests on because they're honorary members of our club , so you might see kermit again . You know that'd be really cool . So here's our last little secret that we always like to tell folks that if you want to be in the know and you want to be one of the cool kids , you can head over to our Patreon page .

That link is over on livefreeandhamcom . And if you become a subscriber , guess what you get ? You get early access to all of our shows . You get the uncut , unedited version .

So all of our flub ups , all of our F bombs , everything in between , all of our banter that we talk around in the background , you get to hear it all and get to be part of the in crowd . So you know , with that , you , you get that .

And you get a buttload of other stuff , like early releases when we do shirts , uh , new shirt rollouts and sticker packs , and you know , glasses , I mean , the sky's the limit . And so if you come , you come become a member . You won't be disappointed . I guarantee it , and you know we'd love to have you guys be a part of that .

Um , so head on over to our patreon site and you can find that link over at livegreenhamcom . All right , well , with that I think we are going to skip over our mailbag episode tonight because got nothing in the mailbag this time , paul and I think you confirmed that correct , all right , nothing in the mail bag , that's a bummer .

Well , so that that just once again encourages you people sitting in front of your freaking computers and listen on the podcast , to just hit that sms button and send us something . Come on , what are you waiting for ? We , we dare you , come on , bring it on anyway . So double dog dare you . Yeah , totally all right .

So with that we're gonna just dive right into our next one , if I can even get the buttons right , because you know , hey , it's a weird night . Doing good , good , doing good , you do , that's good , you're good , you're good , you're doing good . Absolutely I do good , good , I do it , you do , that's good .

So , whether you're assisting maybe in a disaster , or providing communications for that road race , or doing a POTA meetup , you know , I've been hearing more and more people wanting to do stuff like that . So this is your encouragement to get out and do that and then let us know you've done it .

You know , but we all love to participate in some ham radio type activities . So this week I think we've got one in the bucket . Uh , you know , paul , do we have anything coming from win link ? You know , do we have a special win link ?

And here he writes Dear Paul , eric and Todd , I thought I would write a do-good email to you and see if I could come on the podcast again . I will tell you . This week I did a STEM outreach at the University of New Hampshire for the Granite State Amateur Radio Association . It was the 4-H club's science bonanza and it was a lot of fun .

Kim , ralph and Brian and I set up a nice display of amateur radio items and answered questions and had hands-on experience for the kids and parents who were attending . I set up my learn your name in Morse code station and taught a bunch of kids how to tap their names out on a straight key .

I made them all a name tag and used the time to explain to them what CW was and what fun and beneficial things were all about . It was , and what fun and beneficial things were all about it . Ps , I know Todd is still a general , but so am I . I promise I won't be a bossy pants and I will let Eric be the bossy pants and Paul can make sound effects .

Anyway , I hope you . Let me come on 73 , your biggest fan and most cheering supporter , tim KC1QDK . Well , tim .

But if we can plant the seeds in young minds , they'll learn a little bit about ham radio until probably about their early teens and then they'll take a break away from it and Hopefully , if the seeds were planted well enough , once they're in their late 20s they'll come back to the hobby and we'll gain a bunch of new hams .

I think it's important that we plant those seeds , because you never know , someday those seeds might grow into a fantastic ham .

Tim's a great friend of ours and he's been on our next live stream and come hang out with us , as always . You know , tim , we love Tim . Tim's a great friend of ours and he's been on the show several times , so you know it's always good to have him on . He always makes that ham radio experience that much better .

You know , if you ever want a guy that has done everything in ham radio , he's the only guy that I know on this planet that's done almost just about everything in ham radio and if not , he's working on it right now .

So , okay , well , you know , like I said , with this , um , you know , if you've been , you know , sharing your first ham radio expense experience with a total stranger while you're activating a park , teaching a student , a family member or neighbor about the joys of ham radio , or you got to demonstrate to a new technician the thrills of HF at your club's field day

. You know we want to hear about it . Come on , we want to share the love , keep it coming . So you know there are three easy ways to share with that .

You can always leave us a voicemail at nine , seven , eight , two , three , three dot com forward slash do good , all one word and take our form and fill it all out , uh , and get uh that over to us and we'll be glad to read that .

Or you can be as uh you know , type a , as Tim is , and several others Uh , you can send uh N one OG and a one link email with your whole entire uh description and of the event , um , and we'll , like I said , you know , if you want to come on to our live stream , you can definitely do that .

Otherwise , you know we appreciate you submitted that and look forward to you guys sharing your experiences in the future . So we're sad tonight Todd has not made an appearance . Like I said , he is on remote location at the moment , podoing in Arkansas . He said he might join us so he might make an appearance a little later .

So tonight we are taking a break from his extra studies . I don't know whether that's going to hurt him or whether that's going to help him , but we'll see . I mean , he's so far like I recall Paul , like he's literally been three for three almost every week , right .

So far literally been three for three almost every week right so far , yeah , and we're all the way up to sub element number six , so that means he's only got four left to go so and last time I talked to him after we had richard on from uh signal stuff , he took his advice and started learning some of the pre-questions there and starting , you know , backfilling

and making a change to his study process and he's reported to me saying that he's impressed . The questions he's starting to see more are helping him and he's starting to learn better .

So with that we always say with the HAMS study is that if you're on the journey of studying for your technician general extra class license , in that case hamstudyorg is an awesome resource we you know for getting your ticket and you can learn more . Have I heading over to hamstudyorg , pulling the app down ?

And because you may or may not know , they are also the guys who create the exam tools and signal stuff . Both of those companies , both of those businesses , are a huge support to our ham radio community .

They help a lot of VEs with testing sessions but at the same time you can help support them by heading over to Signal Stuff or Signal Stick and check them out and buy some of their merch there , Because that in turn helps them continue to promote hamstudyorg and continue to keep it free , but it continues to obviously make a great tool that we all appreciate and

use , especially in our studying journey , to get to our extra or get your technician for the first time or maybe you're studying for general .

So , just like paul said , you know , if you're studying for your technician general or your extra class license and you've passed your test , you can send us a quick email over at livefreeandham at gmailcom , and we're going to celebrate with you and we're going to , you know , give you a shout out for all the hard work you've done .

And you know we want to share in the oh my gosh , holy moly . Well , wait a minute , sir . Just perfect timing . We could dive into the testing , do we want to ? He thought he missed it . He thought he missed it . I just got out of dinner .

So , without any further delay , I'll hand it over the VE Quizmaster . Take it away , paul .

Or D the reference level appears at the output .

There you go , there we go .

We appreciate it . We know you're on a remote site there , you know . Uh , you can definitely uh , I'm sure you got some good uh input . Uh , you had uh some good put activity today , but I won't uh let the cat out of the bag . You can share that in a second . But with that , you know , we always get into our ham radio . We catch up .

So , in our usual format , I'm going to ask our guest first . Kermit , you know what's been going on your ham radio week ?

I've got all 50 States , cause , you know , dc is the wild card , but I still waiting on Hawaii , and that's just . We all are a hunter . I keep missing it . I'm just going to Hawaii and hunt it at some point .

But maybe not this week , but recently I did acquire a Jaegu x 6200 uh to up a qrp game and uh , so five watts . I managed to go from dc to buenos aires , but I can't you know , still can't hit it so working .

So a lot of times I would , I would , I would do a late night and then do an early activation to make sure I got doubles . But had a total blast doing that and looking forward to doing it again soon . So we'll see .

And I always laugh when I'm in a park and somebody comes and asks like uh , what are you doing ? and I typically I just look at them and say I'm calling in airstrikes well kilo zulu , fortunately , yeah , so um , but yeah , for the most part it's generated some very nice conversations .

I've managed to meet park rangers and uh , uh , both in Canada and the one park that I've activated there and and in several us parks , and for the most part , I try to be very careful when I do throw it in the in the tree . Uh , and I just explained , I haven't affixed it .

I've been very careful , although , uh , I could tell you a horror story I , one where the the bag went over the throw and then it came over and then wrapped around the branch underneath it and it's like 40 feet in the air .

And uh , I was actually I was in um , seattle , and so I'm sitting there like and I'm like I don't want to be that ham guy Like right , I mean like not that guy and so I literally found a stick and I'm sitting there the bag was just barely hanging over the edge of the branch and I'm sitting there with a stick and I threw the stick into the air probably

for 12 minutes and finally it hit the bag and it actually flipped over twice and I got it down . And then I look across the way and there's like 30 people in their RVs sitting across the field , like looking at me . They all started clapping and I was like you guys could have helped , but you know , but yeah , are you not ?

entertained , I managed to not be that guy that was . Uh , that was like that made my year , in all honesty , for ram radio well , they have a name for that , that's called scout 75 .

So now I've got one hotspot that is specific for DMR and then the new one is specific for Fusion , so it doesn't matter which radio I have , I can still get on all the reflectors that I want .

So friday though friday I was I was trying to come up with the $20 antenna challenge ideas right , and I'm like wracking my brain because it's like , all right , I know , you know , uh , for us the deadline is , I believe , january , yep , and I didn't realize that . Well , toads was doing it .

Their deadline was , uh , december 16th , and I was like , uh , well , I guess I only got a couple of days to figure this out . So , figure this out .

So , um , long story short , I uh , I went to harbor freight and I picked up two 33 foot tape measures and , uh , I removed the ends of the tapes and I soldered a wire across and I put some strain , relief and um , and I stretched them out so that they made the legs of the dipole .

And well , it is , uh , it is definitely far from ideal and far from being resident on any of the bands . It's been an experiment and it's been a little bit of fun a little bit . It was really cold this weekend so I was battling cold and fading daylight there . I left it up in the tree so it's still strung across my yard the two tape measures .

And you know , over the next couple of days I think I'm just going to run coax into the house and I'll just sit in the shack and try and figure it out .

We're kind of doing something a little separate which we haven't released yet out to the public , but uh , we're kind of testing it out and want to make it a little bit bigger . Uh , you know , kind of multi-level , like multi-category experience .

I mean , obviously the weather was a little , uh , you know , cold these couple of days , but no snow . So you know there's that benefit . But all right , man . Well , since uh he's sitting in his vehicle right now , uh wondering whether or not he's going to get jumped and carjacked , uh , how's it going , tom ? How's your ham radio week ?

He lived here before , moved to Texas and then came back . So I was down here . I said , well , let's get together , let's go grab a bite to eat and catch up . So I did that . But prior to that , I activated a park first time in a long time and , uh , it was awesome .

It was , for starters , as I was leaving , uh , this morning , to get at three o'clock in the morning , or three 30 , it was like spitting snow and it was just nasty and I get that 70 degrees and , um , just awesome . So I , uh , I did what appreciate you rubbing it in . Yeah , I park .

I was gonna try to do two , but I was having too much fun at this one park . Uh , it was park number us 9165 . It's called Cox Creek State Recreational Area and it's basically this , like small lake and beautiful , had a picnic table with a roof over it , like a little shelter and I had my antenna out and I worked 10 meters . I got 44 contacts .

But the best part of it , well , the best part of it was I made some really cool a ton in California , everything . 90% of it was five nine . But I got Asuka , I got Hawaii and I got a Rio de Janeiro down in Brazil all five nine . And I got like Montana . I got like States I never get .

Now I know I'm not in New Hampshire , I'm down here in Arkansas , but it was still pretty cool . And when I talked to the Hawaii guy I'm like dude , please tell me you're out of park . He's like no , not today . And then later on in the activation I get the Hawaii guy from North Pole Alaska and I did find out . I said have I worked here before ?

Because from North Pole Alaska . And I did find out . I said have I worked here before ? Because I always work when I do pole , I always get North Pole Alaska . He says there's like seven of them up there that do ham radio and do parks and unfortunately he wasn't at a park . He said he might be going an hour later or no .

The Hawaii guy said he was going to go . He says no , I put it away , he goes . We only get four hours of sunlight this time of year and it was eight degrees outside , so yeah , it warmed up to eight degrees . So you know , yesterday it was negative 20 . So I might have to wait till the summer , but , uh , pretty cool that I got those guys .

I got a couple of park to parks and , um , I made 44 contacts and all on 10 meters and it was just great . I hadn't been out and doing a park in a long time and it's something I needed . So , uh , I was going to try to get two parks in , but I was having so much fun at this one that I just stayed .

And then I had to drive 60 miles to get to where this restaurant is and I got to drive another half an hour back down back to little rock to the airport where my hotel is .

I mean you've been carrying your gear around more than someone should physically need to .

So I had to explain that , like I do normally when I come down south is why I'm at w1 Call sign with uh , you know being down in the south and Mississippi and stuff . But it was all good , a lot of good guys and uh , like I said , I was uh , the bra was .

I got a couple of British Columbia in Canada , but Brazil was the only other country , nothing in Europe . But when you get Hawaii and Alaska , that's a , that's a , that's a win-win for me .

I'm like yeah , it's a ham radio battery , it's my whole ham radio gears in this bag . So they open it up , they pull the battery out . Now my battery's been pretty bad beaten up . It's all peeling , like it needs to be re-shrink , wrapped , and even the even the label on it starting to get scratched . I mean you can still read how big it is .

But yeah , I was probably there for 15 minutes of them . I didn't think it was going to go through . I was ready to throw my bag back in the car and just be done with it . But , like I said , the the potent gods were with me and uh , sorry for the inconvenience , sir , have a great trip . Packed it all up and off , I went .

I mean it's got wires hanging out of it . That was the thing that they were like what are all these wires for ? And I'm like , well , that one's for charging it and this one's to plug it to the radio .

I was like this thing and and honestly it's like all I brought was , uh , my ham radio gear . And then I brought like one of those , uh , those throw sacks .

Like you know , like I have an under armor , it's like a it's got the cord , you just tie it up like you throw a towel or something I gotta change your clothes in there and a toothbrush and , uh , that's about it . So , like I could have gotten away with just that , but you know you need to have the ham radio gear and thing weighs a ton .

And then I was like , oh man , I'm playing those little sardine can jets and I'm like they better make me not have to take this down to the bottom , because sometimes they make you go but the backpack will fit in the upper storage and the other thing throws in the bottom . So I was good . So now I have one more chance .

I got to get back home tomorrow , so hopefully I'll get through , uh , arkansas tsa with my battery what kind of radio are do you carry in your pack , todd ? I have a yesu a891 , so and you're worried about the battery . The batteries all that way yeah , and the uh and then the uh .

Then , as I was getting there , I I had watched uh some , I downloaded a movie or two on uh , my ipad . So I'm in the plane and , you know , my battery on my iPad like dropped down to like 30% . So as I was getting near the end , I'm calling last call . I start getting like little pileups going on .

I got three or four people and I'm looking at my my iPad battery , which is I'm doing on my login , it's like seven , six . I'm putting it on like I did seven , six . I'm putting it on like low as I can go , just so I can see it . I'm like five , four , I'm out of battery guys .

You know , you almost forget how much you like it , but I was just having a blast . I mean , I couldn't ask . I could have sat out there all day and all night . I would have still been there . But uh , I was at this place , it was like a little campground and some guy came up to me and goes oh , you're a ham .

He goes my buddy was supposed to the ham radio gods or the poter gods . So as I'm leaving and I'm driving North , all of a sudden I get in . We get into the most severe thunderstorm I think I've ever been in .

I mean bolts coming out of the sky , wind blowing , buckets of rain coming down and I was like it , like waited until I was all packed up and ready to go before these storms came and I had no idea that the storms were even coming .

I was traveling today for work and so , lo and behold , I had gotten out of my appointment earlier and I've got HF in my truck , so all I had to do is carry my 20 amp hour battery with me because I can just plug it in as a secondary power source and not drain the truck .

And man , I was thoroughly impressed with , uh , you know , the park that I was at . It was a nice wildlife place , big parking lot , you know dirt , you know typical kind of like hiking , hunting kind of zone , and it was in mass . And so I was like , oh sure , I'll go activate it .

And I think after about an hour , I mean , qso's were coming hard and fast . I mean I think I was literally , if I looked at my q rate , I was like like like two a minute and I was like , oh wow , this is pretty cool and it was humming along and and having fun .

But at the same time I , where I had parked it was super quiet called , you know , called to see if anybody had the frequency above me or below me and nothing , nothing .

And then some brazilian station came on top , uh , like three killer , it's just shy , three killer , it's up , and was just pounding , pounding , pound , like I mean it was qr , like it was qrm , like I gotta get to a five nine when I'm not getting blasted by qrm .

And that was like literally for 35 contacts straight and like they knew , they must have knew I was there because they would stop just a little bit that I could get the the information .

But then they'd pick back up again and it was like this constant cycle , over and over rinse rather than repeat , and I was just like man , this is frustrating , but you know , at the same time I was like dude , 60 contacts , you know in an hour that that's pretty good for me .

And and I played the game Like I I was , um , I looked at the spotting page Not the spotting page , the park page For the park itself and I was like who's the lowest guy in the list ? How many contacts does he have ? Okay , I just need to be three more than him and I'll put him at the bottom of the list . So I'm like , okay , so it's three more .

And then I look at the next guy . I'm like , okay , I got five more . So I bump two guys down and I'm like , okay , I get to that last guy . He's like 85 . I'm like I'm at like 60 . Do I want to be ? You know , can I get 20 more in ? You know ? Ah , fine , I'll just scrap it there . So you know , I was like , oh , this is kind of fun .

So all in all , I got out of there in an hour . Go back tomorrow go back tomorrow and go up yeah , I'm not driving down to Taunton again just to go activate a park . I'll go local . I'll go finish the rail trail where I've got 700 or 800 Cusos that I've got to get more under my belt .

Right , but in New England , if you have to travel more than a half an hour to get to where you want to get , you're doing it most of the time , like that's too far of a drive , yep , but for the rest of the country , like they'll , they'll drive literally hours two hours , three hours , yep , I mean carmel .

I'm like , dude , you need to come and , uh , you know , do that whole rove again . We'll . We'll have to come actually current , you're going to have to come sometime in the spring if we can coordinate right . Because we can coordinate right , because we're trying to do a two-team effort .

So two teams start at the southern tip of maine , work a couple of parks , and then another team sets at the bottom of like mass and works up one and we meet somewhere in the middle , grab lunch , cross paths and work the rest of the parks all the way down . So there's , like you know , like eight guys or six guys all working .

You know , all these parks , uh , in a , in a massive like 10 , 10 or 12 park row .

But tonight we , like I said , I alluded to a very special guest and so if you , um are just tuning in this episode , it's a first time out . You know we we've got a great guest on . Kermit um has come on . Uh , kermit jones . I should say his full name there , junior . If you're Googling him or looking for him , you might have heard him .

He's an author of some great children's books , like Prepper Pete and Survivalist Sam and Radio Rick All awesome books . You can all Google those and find them . But we're going to talk more about some of the stuff he's done . If you're watching the stream here on our YouTube channel , you'll see that Paul has got some of his books up there .

He has done some really cool stuff . Now , like I think there is a space in the ham radio world that we're all struggling to and we all have heard . You know ham radio is dying . We need to bring in the younger crowd .

You know well what more than to have someone like Kermit , you know already doing stuff like that , already penetrating those markets and building something that we can talk to and share with our kids and share with other kids and have the parents even get involved and learn more about things like prepping and ham radio and poda and antennas and all of the stuff

that we love to talk about . Kermit's already set the stage for that , I mean . So we're going're going to dive in tonight . We're going to obviously let Kermit introduce himself and talk a little bit about him , but we're going to talk about some of his books and share more of that , because I think he's sitting on an awesome opportunity .

That's right for the picking for this year and going forward that if you've got people in your life that are young kids that want to learn more about prepping and learning the right way and not going to the extreme things that we see on YouTube and stuff like that or more so , learn about the hobby that you enjoy and you share but you can't quite connect with

them , this is a perfect example . So , kermit , welcome again to the show tonight . We appreciate you being on and thank you for coming in short order there . Um , but you know .

Hey introduce yourself a little bit , tell us a little about yourself , kind of how you got into your hammer , your career , and then , you know , let's kind of get into some of the cool ideas and books that you , you've created around that .

I had no idea how big it was , and the more I peel back , the more I see . My journey started , though , about a little over a year ago it was actually Veterans Day , weekend of 2023 . And I was in Quantico . Well , I was in DC . I'm in the Navy Reserves , I'm a chapter in the Reserves , and so I was at my billet in Washington DC .

But I was visiting a friend of mine in Quantico , virginia , at breakfast , and he's a ham radio guy and we went to college together a long time ago in a galaxy far , far away , and he's been a fan of Prepper Pete ever since the beginning .

So I started writing Prepper books for kids , preparedness books for kids , prepper books for kids , preparedness books for kids , not in the doomsday Prepper Nat Geo style , but more of a how do you create a launching point for discussion for your kids . And so he would ask me . He'd be like , hey , when are you going to do the radio , the ham radio book ?

And I was like , well , I don't know enough about it , like you know , whatever , and he's a couple of years ago . So finally last year he was like Kermit , when are you going to do it ? And I was like , well , I need to get my license first because I don't want to be a poser . He goes , um , I said , I said how hard is that going to be ?

And he just looked at me and he says , what was your major ? Again , he knows , I'm a poli-sci major like right , and I said , you know , and he just goes , probably a couple of months , as he , as he put a bite into his mouth . Now , that was just , that was just fire on a fuel for me because I'm , he knows , I'm also very competitive .

And so that was literally five , 30 in the morning and on a Friday I went and did a couple of a couple of duties for to serve my country on that Friday and at the conclusion of the day I literally went back to my hotel room and , uh , scheduled a exam for Sunday night . I think was the first one I scheduled and I'm going to do this like right .

And uh , it's 500 or 430 questions how hard can it be Right ? And then I was like you know what , I can do it better than that . So I literally scheduled one for Saturday night too and uh , studied for 24 hours , took the technician and passed . I got a 34 out of 35 . And then I , 24 hours later , I got another 34 out of 35 on the on the general .

And then I was like I'm never going to know this much about ham radio ever again . From a testing perspective , I said so I'll schedule my extra for Tuesday night , have 48 hours to study , because it's a little bit more of a beast .

And uh , monday night I went to text the team for Tuesday night and I was like at , whiskey , whiskey , whiskey , five Yankee , india , or something like that , uh , whiskey , whiskey , yankee , five , india . And I texted him . I'm like , hey , I'm scheduled for tomorrow night . And just wanted to say you know , thank you for texting me .

Whatever he says , I've got you scheduled for 40 minutes from now , or like 20 minutes . And I'm like , oh well , I guess I'm taking my extra exam tonight . And so I actually took the extra exam and barely passed it . I mean , like I think I was like one question above and um , and so I always I always say you know , I , I did not take my life .

My testing is an example of um , uh , of of knowledge , of how much I know of ham radio . But I have taken it very much as a license to learn and so it's been a whirlwind . And so I called Josh the next day just because I was in a mood and I was like , dude , aren't you just a general Like when are you going to get your extra ?

Is that going to take you a couple of months to study ?

So I met him again at like five , 30 in the morning , cause he had he has to go before he goes to work . And we met at a park and I did my first poda activation , my first time on any ham radio warm my heart . Warm my heart yeah , uh , anyway , I think it was a threefer actually , I mean , or twofer oh , even better , right just start at the top .

And so but in the process of doing all that , uh , josh is also the one as both my elmer and and my friend , uh , he kind of sat down and looked at the property . He said well , you know , if you're gonna do a ham radio book , it needs to be something like like fun about what ham radio is about . And I'm like , well , what's ham radio about ?

like right this is still that , still breakfast , like right back in november , and he goes , well , you know , people use it for emergency , there's aries , there's races , there's uh , people do it for fun stuff , for poda parks on the air , uh , people do it for you know , and I'm just like , yeah , he gets done with the list of like 30 things and I'm like my

head's just like smoke's coming out of my ears and , uh , I was like what do they not use ham radio for ? But that , um , that led to a couple of book ideas I've outlined , probably about a dozen so far , and the first one came out in october , which I think paul's got paul , did you have your copy there ? Or radio Radio , rick Relays , relief .

Yeah , eric , I'll make sure you get a copy here soon . Appreciate it , appreciate it . New illustrator though . So then my original Prepper , pete series , but I really had a blast doing it .

And then that led to actually a collaboration with Angry American or Chris Weatherman , who wrote the Going Home series , and this one's based on a true story of when he used a ham radio to contact authorities when cell phones weren't working and um so . So both of those are now out , and then I've got several more books coming , whatever you want to talk about .

On game , uh , I've got some favorites and I've got some some .

They're both called doctor exactly , and so the the minimum number to get your extra is 37 , right , and so it doesn't matter if you get 37 or if you get all 50 , you still get your license yeah , 37 that , and I think the first time I'll be fair , because the testing guys were amazing .

Um , so my , my wife , um , she's a therapist and she kind of follows the podcast a little bit , but she had known that you were going to be on my live stream when I did the big giveaway and that you were giving away the kids' books , and so when I got the books in , she hadn't seen them , and so she knew we were coming on tonight to talk to you again

. And she goes well , on tonight to talk to you again , and she goes , well , I want to see the books . And she went , page by page , through every single one and she was like , oh my gosh , these are amazing , the , the , the illustrations are amazing , the way it's laid out is amazing .

She's like we're gonna be , we're gonna be getting these books to hand out to nieces and nephews , and yeah , so fantastic job , you . You got the approval of my wife , who absolutely hates ham radio , and that's got to say something . Well so great job .

And so we went back and it's uh , basically prepper pete goes to pam and ask her like how do do I do POTA ? And so it becomes a little bit more of an interactive story . Um , my favorite book coming out is Chuck Morris taps into trouble .

This is exactly what you need to be able to just introduce people in a very non-informational , down-the-throat kind of approach . It's like , hey , just here , read this , you can dream about this after we've read it at bedtime . Like informational down the throat kind of approach .

It's like , hey , just like here , read this , and you know , you can dream about this after we've read it at bedtime . And all of a sudden you're planting seeds like way early on . That's awesome .

But I wanted to also make fun of people who don't prepare like . So the first book was sarcasm on both sides , I think is probably the best way to describe it . But when I started designing Radio Rick , I was like , oh , Radio Rick , he's a pig and everybody's like why a pig ? And Radio Rick , he's a pig and everybody's like why a pig ?

And I'm like because he's a ham . Like how is that not obvious people ?

Yeah , and that's actually a good segue because , like I , I was listening to and I haven't gotten a copy of the book , so I haven't had a privy to see all of the great illustrations that that that todd sorry , that paul that's gone through and and done um , but like listening to you on tank radio because you , that's one of the episodes I was just recently ,

recently listening to Um . It was just really cool to see all of the little Easter eggs you've thrown in every like book in some form or fashion and I think that's like totally awesome . I'm like all for that type of stuff .

Yeah , hr2o nice , I loved it .

I have the Explorer sticker that I got from them , so I wanted to throw that one on there . There's the , there's the prepper , pete and friends . Amateur radio club .

like what it means . And so , uh , you know this one I've got you know , you'll see Gort up . You can't really see the resolution on this one . That's Gordon West . Uh , extra club , you got gorilla's guide to bow thing . Uh , my , my favorite Easter egg so far is the ARRL news article of building , which doesn't actually exist as an article yet .

We struggled how do you explain the idea of a frequency to a to a kid , and that was probably one of the hardest , hardest aspects of what we did . I'm trying to figure out the page . I don't have all the page numbers memorized , I apologize , but yeah , page 18 here . So that's the best that I could come up with .

As far as frequencies are in the sky , they're different ones , but it had to be the imagination of the kid and so Pete's trying to point them out , and then on the opposite page they're actually connecting the radios . Yeah , so that that sort of thing and Tank , tank had actually made some good stuff .

I'd mentioned , I think , the word infrastructure in one point , and so we we try to try to work through that . And how does HF work ? That's on , that's on the right page there , versus , you know , shorter wavelength , shorter distances , uhf and HF is the longer wavelengths , longer distances . So there's a lot of layered , layered learning .

It's gonna start to just make a seed plant , like paul was talking way earlier in the show that you know you're just starting them out in that sense and you know kids , it's funny because , like when we have them come to field day in our summer , you know event at our club , like a lot of the stuff that we do , like our go to tent and all that stuff is

very like , simple in the sense of like get on the microphone , talk to somebody , give them a visual of like where we've , like where you're here and they're there and this is how far you've talked , and really just make that come to reality , because we all know kids , they're on their cell phones at a very young age but they don't understand that they could

talk to somebody halfway around the world because their words are so small . So this is just awesome to see that you're able to kind of just boil this down with a very general sense without like getting in the weeds , which is awesome .

You know , be careful to make sure you use the proper bands , because there's different privileges for different levels , and that's something that we've . We've already got storyboarded for the most part . And then it's got like you know , one person gets their technician , one person gets their technician , HF Chuck Morris .

Of course he gets all three in the first sitting , but , um , that's because he does . Yeah , chuck morse can talk on hf without a radio um hf talks . Such dark norse really so I'm trying to , I'm trying to to get that straight , but I get so I get so excited .

I think my illustrator gets a little fed up with me at times because like no , no , we're gonna do this , and then we're gonna add this , and she's like , can we just focus on the book we're working on ?

Okay , like yeah , but I've got , um , uh , seven or eight books planned for 2025 and at least probably three or at least four of them , maybe five , are focused towards amateur radio specifically . I just I found the hobby to be amazing , the people to be amazing . Uh , and there's , there's enough overlap that I can easily do it .

We're going to do one on a solar sun . He gets a charge . It's going to be about solar setups and that kind of stuff . You'll actually see him setting up the uh for radio , ricky setting up the background he's in the background of one of them , I think setting up the power , yeah , right , oh , there's , there's solar sunny in the background .

So , uh , I was gonna try to get you parked in , but I was having so much fun at this one kind of just baby that I just stayed and then I had to drive 60 miles to get to where this restaurant is and I gotta drive another half an hour back down back to little rock , to the airport where my hotel is .

Is there a topic , either the Perkins side or the Ham Radio side that you had it's a little bit more bigger to deal with that you struggled with or something that you kind of put on the shelf for a while ? Any one of those kind of topics that really kind of you're still working on ?

And they were getting , so I had to explain that like I do normally when I come down south is why I'm a W-1 call sign with being down in the south in Mississippi and stuff .

But because the kid has that safety at their forefront , it's really done it . But I wonder I almost did an appendix to gun of a son and I'm probably one called gun of a son .

I've got a book coming out . It'll probably be in January . Cotopam's going to be early 2025 .

Ned needs to know and not run out of battery , I think if it was a little bit small I think it would be easier , because the one I have I mean .

You know kind of what his purpose . But where'd you create the character and kind of , why did you want to make the book ?

So , as I was , and so you know getting near the end , I'm calling last call . I start getting little pileups going on .

You'll know why your alternate would be like an email address or your address , and then , emergency would be you call , not guys , this is gonna be the last and so it kind of walks through that , trying to explain contingency to a kid though we're gonna , we're gonna work on word definitions .

and then it just goes through some steps , like if you get lost in the woods , you know , sit tight unless it's not safe , and if you move , leave a trail . If you get lost in a theme park , tell someone in charge .

husband or the family but more so you're ingraining in some good hardcore stuff that they're just going to latch on to , or it's like my uh and it's I mean I just put a strip in front of one of them that says that and uh , and use that as marketing .

But really , you know , I started this because when I wrote Prepper Pete Prepares I was , I thought I could write a novel on you know dystopia and you know it , my character , like immediately , he's like he's , he's walking through the swamp with his kids . And because I had kids at the time and I lived in a swamp , you know you write what you know .

Like man , how would you prepare your kids in advance for this ? And like , literally , as I thought that doomsday preppers , nat geo came on and I'm like , no , like , like , like just no , that's not , not like that , not like that . And then I was like I'd go buy a book on amazon .

And so I went looking on amazon and there was literally there was one book at the time on prepping with kids , but there was nothing for kids . And so I , I , I wrote the original book on preparedness for kids and , um , and I haven't written the first ham radio book , but but , man , I sure am .

I probably had more fun than everybody else doing it and I want to write like a chapter book series , like my side of the mountain meets ham radio . That's cool If I can , if I can tie those two together we'll see .

I would like I grew up as a kid with choose your own adventure , and if you can figure out how to kind of rope into that , I just buy the whole series , just because the , the act of , like you know , deciding where I go , is always so much better when I , you know , read those series and those are really the only book series that I think I ever read

outside of military books when I was growing up you ended up on 7.2 with a bunch of sad hands saying get off my frequency . Exactly exactly that . That is gold . That's awesome cool . Paul , you got any questions ?

You and I had the conversation about how , with my kids , I started them out on firearm safety at the age of three , four , five by the age of six . We were at the range . You know , three , four , five by the age of six , we were at the range .

Like by teaching , you eliminate the curiosity and you eliminate all of the desire to show it off and to play with it because they understand and they know it's a tool , it's not a toy and being able to relate with them on their level .

I think is is not always easy to do and you do it very well in your books , so that means a lot , thank you and I you know it's interesting so much of that translates to other aspects of life .

I honestly don't believe that there's a too young an age and you'll see if you , if you see on the website , you'll see under the gun safety portion there's a for grownups section , but it talks about , I mean , teach safety , not fear , is the motto when it comes to guns . For me , if we teach our kids to be responsible , that is the safety .

And I grew up in the era where people had their rifles in the back of their truck , you know , in high school kind of thing , and the principal's coming out looking at the gun and you know whatever Like world's different than what it is today . But we didn't have a lot of the issues because people knew how and what to do and that knowledge is the key .

Obviously listening to this podcast and you you heard this , uh , you know episode and what , what , what , um , uh books would you recommend for parents to kind of start in ?

Is there kind of like a you know flow to it , or is it just , uh , you know , whatever kind of suits your fancy , you know , if they're just generally like they want to get into , either you know teaching the kids about prepping I mean , obviously you mentioned gun safety is a safety is a specific book in nature , but is there like is a better start with the

rick series , or you know kind of you know , what would you recommend ?

Now I will say , for anyone listening , the first four books we the illustrators Christy Brill she's she's the one who helped me bring it to life and the , the most recent two books are a new illustrator , desiree Branya . Two books are a new illustrator , uh , desiree Branya , and so , uh , des , has been amazing to work with too .

Christy Christy's a mom and wife of a Marine , so loved working with her . I'm probably going to go back and redo the original four books , simply because they're they're the digital medium , is easier for me to manipulate and do things , other things with . But if you're , if you're just , you know you want to talk about preparedness and why we should be prepared .

Like , what are the different reasons ? That's where Prepper Pete prepares comes in and survival of Sam . They were actually almost like a part one , part two in that one , the , the 12 days of Prepper , because , uh well , sorry , all over the place . So Prepper Pete prepares talks about you know some . It talks about some people .

Prep repeats an ant , because ants prepare in the spring , in the summer , in the fall , for the winter .

You know , even the government says that everyone should have food and water for three days . So the people who are like , oh , don't be a prepper , even the government says you should be a little bit of a prepper . I'm just saying , and that lets the emergency workers focus on people who have a greater need . That's the whole point .

Survival of Sam Stocks up as the four V's of prepping beans , bullets , bandages and barter . And I'm not saying that , I'm a prophet , eric . I mean you know , maybe as a chaplain a little bit , but in the original Prepper Pete books , you know , some people thought there'd be a big plague and Prepper Pete's running on his treadmill with a mask .

Third day's , three emergency road flares . They all fit in the luggable loo and this is based on a true story my , my wife's , sister and husband , uh , my in-laws although I'm always hesitant to call them in-laws , uh , because the difference between you-laws and outlaws .

I had young kids at the time . I really wanted to introduce them in a safe manner , uh and and so that that became a big one . This is Amazon number one bestseller for almost nine months back in 2015 . So looking forward to re-releasing that . And then the Radio Rick Relays Relief .

I mean , if they're just ham radio people , they just think , hey , it's something like grandpa or dad does or mom or grandma does , and they want to introduce you to the kids . Then the Radio Rick Relays Rel , probably the where I would start . There's no requirement , though you could . You could literally start on either one .

He's actually doing a roundhouse kick . Uh , he's , he's warming up , and so I've got , I've got like little things like that that are , that are , that are call outs . But yeah , they're to answer the question .

I guess you sent us a set of books to HRCC and they mentioned you on the podcast and they were going through , flipping through all the pictures and they were laughing and having a blast and they were like these are great books . You gotta go check out his website . And I was just like , oh , cool , all right .

And then you know I hear you're on tank radio show and I was like , oh , this dude , this is like dude , I'm gonna have a blast hanging out with him . Then we're gonna be here over a couple hours talking about everything under the sun .

I mean , I'm a chaplain so we can go there , but we won't , uh , but the reality is that just the , the open arms and the , the willingness to share and share knowledge and just give of time , that that has been amazing to see and something that I'm I I've gone through a lot of hobbies .

My wife , uh , maybe , maybe gets tired of that , uh , but I do think I finally found a hobby that that , first off , there's enough to do , that I'll never get bored , but the , the people are totally amazing , cause I mean , you know , yeah , it's just been amazing and I'm actually I've got on my calendar like hamcation and ham fest looking .

I'm looking forward to both of those . So we'll see .

I know I'm going to be super excited . I'm going to have to buy much more and if you're , you know , maybe this is one of those ways that you're trying to connect your club to the younger generation . If you're looking for those things , this is a perfect outlet for that .

So having like something you can give to a younger , you know family that you know wants to be able to kind of get into it , but they don't know how to describe it . You know Kermit's done an awesome job paving the way to kind of opening those conversations like we've been talking about . So you know , I'm super ecstatic and super psyched to say that .

You know , hey , we're going to keep promoting this because I think you know what you have now and then the additional ideas . It's just you know it's going to keep coming and coming and coming . So it's going to be awesome . So any kind of last bit things you want to share with us that you might have on the horizon , I mean , obviously you led to .

You know , pota Pam there a little bit , but any other kind of ideas that you know you want to release out in the wild , that you know people can be looking forward to coming forward . If not , no , no big deal .

I mean , I appreciate when people buy , you know , multiple copies , don't get me wrong , but leaving reviews is is is probably one of the most difficult things and for which I'm grateful and and I'll be doing some giveaways , so a lot of the money that I make on the books .

Right now I'm well not that I'm making money yet , cause I'm still paying off expenses , but when I get to the point of making money , uh , I'll be probably having some giveaways and raffles and uh , and it may be maybe some , some Balfangs , uv5rs , uh , up up to I don't know some , some other , some other like super cool stuff . I have some ideas .

I may even get a real radio at some point .

And while you're there , you know you got to subscribe to his mail list and , like he said , he won't spam you but he wants to let you know when new stuff comes out . We'll definitely be a part of that and anytime we get any notices , we'll make sure we , you know , carve out some time there to share with our audience .

Because , dude , you've got a great , great idea and it's one of those things that I think can definitely boost and help promote .

Because , you know , we talk about , like , youth on the air and we talk about , you know , the learning center that Good Game's doing but the air , and we talk about , uh , you know the learning center that , uh , good games do , and but they're targeting very much older kids and , in general , like you know , teenagers , stuff like that , but there's nothing really

for the young groups , and so this is a perfect avenue to be able to kind of open up the conversations , like we said , with . You know , those that are in the ham community that can share with their grandkids , and you know family members and and stuff like that , and and start going uh , you know , it's just something really cool .

We'll keep promoting you and we'll add you to our website so folks can learn more about you , and we'll continue to live free and ham and pota , pam on , pam on , totally so kind of to wrap it up , how can folks reach out to you if they want to reach out to you , kermit ?

I know that's an obvious one and I'm at at prepper pete on on x and so that's a that's kind of a new area , but the fastest way to get to me is probably would be , uh , facebook messenger . In all honesty , just because that one will will ping my phone . I know facebook's for old people these days , but that would be the best way .

We will continue to bring on great content like this because , you know , this is just something totally awesome . And , mio , maybe you know your club is looking for ways to kind of connect to your you know communities and kids and younger generation . Then you need to head over and pick up a couple of books for your club .

I mean , it's not a super big expense and I know there are clubs out there , and ours included , that buy the big encyclopedia ARL , like you know books that are $250 . Buy a ton of these books and they will go way farther than you know you could ever imagine , and you're helping a great you know author here . What the heck is my freaking camera doing today ?

I don't care at this point . I'm just going to fight this to the day's end . It seems to want to crawl up here , Anyway . So let me drag this down here . All right , we're going to win this war , all right . So again , thank you again for supporting our show .

We appreciate all of the listeners , all those guys and gals that are part of the community , and you can continue this conversation over in our Discord and that URL is over at livefreeandhamcom . It's in the footer notes . So come be part of the Discord , come be part of this conversation .

We're going to post all of these links and this show in the Discord so we can continue to spread the information that we all have learned here tonight . And , as always , you know you can subscribe to our YouTube channel and catch all of our awesome content there . And , like as always , you can reach out to us via our SMS link located in the show notes .

You can send us a voicemail now at 978-233-1142 . And eventually that number is going to be so popular in a book for future reference that we're going to have to actually , you know , put a spam . You know we'll have to put some receptionist in there to be able to answer all the phone calls .

So , you know , and you can always support our show , like I said , by heading over to our Patreon and hear all of our great content there it gets early released and become part of our Patreon community , because there's some great stuff there and we'll maybe doing some future giveaways of some of these books as released and become part of our patron community ,

because there's some great stuff there and we'll maybe doing some future giveaways of some of these books as well . So if you want to maybe get your hands on there , just check that stuff out and , as always , you can head over to live free and hamcom Check out all of our show information .

Our latest swag and contact info is always over there and , as always , we appreciate you guys and thanks again for listening from all of us at live free and ham . 73 , 73 .