Blending Tech with Passion: The Intersection of Linux and Ham Radio

This is our bi-weekly show , during which we discuss ham radio topics in New Hampshire , New England and beyond . So whether you're a regular listener or a first-time guest , we are excited to have you here and appreciate your support and thanks for tuning into our episode tonight . So let's get into the show .

I'm your host , Eric N1JUR , finally back to normal , and I'm with my co-hosts . Hey , it's .

Uh , obviously , our storefront on livefreeandhamcom forward slash shop is over there and you can check out all the merch . And I want to say , and we all want to say thank you , what the heck is my video doing today ? I don't know what is . I got technical difficulties here . Apparently I want to be zoomed in too far it's like I thought paul was doing that .

Oh my gosh , well , hey , why not ? Um , so , uh , you know , I want to thank everybody who's purchased uh from our storefront in the past , appreciate , appreciate you guys supporting the show . We have got some awesome news , although I don't know if it's sort of a blessing in disguise kind of thing , but we are launched for a short , limited time .

When is Paul going to jump ? Sunday shirts . We've got a sweatshirt out . We've got a t-shirt out . It's going to be running for limited time . So this is to show our love and support for Paul , because he hasn't physically skydived yet . He keeps getting bumped damn weather , the plane , you know the list goes on and on .

But so the best thing we could do to cheer Paul up was to come up with a t-shirt in his honor . You know we've got one in the store . You can head over there now check that out . Um , you know , buy one , buy the sweatshirts , show some love to paul , show uh and support him , and eventually , you know , we will live stream it .

I promise we will be live streaming his jump . When that is ? Hopefully it will be this year , I don't know , paul , you got any better news ?

You know , because , in essence , that that'll only be around for a short time until he actually jumps . After that it's all gone .

So you know , we obviously want to give you guys an opportunity to say hello , to let us know how we're doing , tell us that we need to improve the toilet paper in the men's room , I don't know . You just send us a nice review , say hello and if you're the texting type , you now can use the SMS link that's in our description notes below .

That will let you leave a quick review and when we get them , we'll make sure Todd reads them on our next episodes . And , as always , our last thing here , housekeeping wise , is that we always have a live stream once a month coming up .

So make sure that you stay tuned to our YouTube and home website at livefreeandhamcom for those links and if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel , make sure you subscribe to that as well . Uh , and make sure you hit the notification bell so you get alerted to when we go live stream . And now . So we obviously gonna dive into doing good .

There's a lot of , you know , people that complain and moan and groan how ham radio is dying . Well , we want to do something good , we want to promote and show people that , yeah , ham radio is alive and well and doing , uh , some awesome stuff . But once again we have a check of the inbox , fellas , and what have we turned up ? Exactly ? Nil , zero .

What goes on ? My friends , everybody , nobody , has a do-good story . Once again , we have to throw down the response again of like , hey , let us know what's going on , share with us , get out there , get the message out , promote your club , promote the groups you're hanging out . If you're doing a photo event , we want to tell everybody about it .

Support the hobby , get out there , do some awesome stuff and then let us know about it and we'll share it with everybody .

And , like we've always said , every episode and we send it to me because my Winlink's still broken , send it to Paul and we will personally invite you on our next live stream to come share that story with us and we'll make sure we do good on that side .

So send your messages that way , send those emails , and if you don't want to be you know as proactive sending Winlink emails just text it to us . Mail whatever , carry a pigeon , it doesn't matter . If you can do it in Morse code , we'll find someone to translate it for us , because none of us speak Morse code .

Well , none of the podcasters here speak Morse code , but so anyway , with that , this actually goes out on like a current time .

And we're just going to keep plowing through this pretty quickly here . And now for something a little extra , with Todd W1STJ . You have heard it here . This is where we help our friend , our fellow compadre , todd study for his extra class license .

In each episode we pick three questions from that extra class question pool to test his knowledge , hoping he gets his upgrade . And he's doing well . So far he's been 85 or better so far .

So if you'd like to follow along , you can always head over to hamstudyorg , which is a great resource to help prepare for your test , and it's recommended by three out of four voluntary examiners . Because the ARL was unavailable for comment and we'll leave it at that , and so , without further delay , let's bring on our VE Quizmaster . Take it away , paul .

Is it A the ratio in dB of the noise generated in the receiver to the atmospheric noise . B the ratio of atmospheric noise to phase noise . C the ratio in dB of the noise generated by the receiver to the theoretical minimum noise ? Or is it D the ratio of the noise bandwidth in hertz to the theoretical bandwidth of a resistive network ?

Swr can be directly calculated from S11 by a simple formula . All right .

I hate that song A .

So if you received your license or an upgrade , in any time , any capacity , anywhere , let us know . We want to recognize you on the next episode for your hard work and effort , and you can always email us at livefreeandham at gmailcom and we'll surely make sure to mention you on the next show . All right , all right , breather time . Everybody take a sip .

Okay , so now up to our usual format and we can kind of get back into the discussion here . You know , as we always ask every week , you know how is your hammered a week going , and we'll start with our honored guests first . Cheryl , would you like to do the honors ? How's your hammered a week going ? Doesn't even have to be hammered early .

Oh , no problem there from the rest of us , but oh , no problem there . Well , we like to be uh fair about that stuff and we don't take endorsements or anything like that . So we don't want , you know , we don't want . Like you know , yezu , I'm blazing above my head over here , it's okay , it's totally okay .

Pota is like invigorating , because other than sitting around watching your computer do FT8 , you can actually enjoy and interact with people and sort of have a purpose . So I like its motivational aspect . So I need to get back to that .

Well , I hope it's a good addiction and uh , you know we have lots of people who listen to the show , who , who love POTA , and uh , we , we sort of like self reinforce and and get people out there and work some contests and over the air stations and stuff like that . So try and try and keep everyone motivated Awesome try and keep everyone motivated .

We been focusing mainly on answering emails and questions about the upcoming Jamboree on the Air event for the K2BSA , so I've been quite busy with that . We've got a bunch of stations lined up borrowing the call sign for portable areas and stuff like that , so I have to send out certificates and finish all that up . And then we have the random .

You know how does this work and how do I do this . Where can I find an operator guide and all this stuff ? It's like it's all on the website . Go find it .

Oh yeah , they generally start around 14 290 and then they move around from there , but normally it's like uh 50 of them on 14 290 because they think it's the international joda frequency perfect place for it .

So , uh , you know be just basically all the podas and sodas and modas and jodas and photos so like we're talking like extra portions of the band per se , right ? Yeah , they'll be on the lower side , the lower side of the band .

I'm not a contester , I wouldn't know . Cool , I'm gonna use , I'm gonna use my .

So we have a double header and it's the last weekend , so I can't really miss that . So I miss every support your parks weekend with the club . Every time we have something I have , most of the time it's just a stupid baseball game .

So the plan was we had an early one and I was going to come at the end of it , but now we have an 11 o'clock game and a three 30 game , so it's just not going to work out but I hope creating a t-shirt ? Yeah , I hope to . I hope to get out Sunday . It looks like the weather is going to be good Both days .

I hope to get out Sunday and activate a park . Just to you know , it's a good podo part , it's a good podo day . Maybe I'll get my Alaska or Hawaii if people are out there . So if you're listening from Alaska , hawaii , sunday , right 10 meters , I might be able to hit you . Cut the 20 . Look for him in , yeah , in the general band .

That's where I hang in the 20 in the general band , where all the cool kids hang out , that's what I hear .

Uh , you know , I mean we just got pummeled with solar radiation this week , so I mean , uh , most most of the days , you know , I mean the bands just weren't even there , um , but uh , I , I got on the two meter net uh , last night and tonight , which you know it's a rarity for me , it's seven o'clock , is usually a busy time of the evening , so I don't ,

I don't typically get to make the net , so it was nice uh to get in on the net there and um , yeah , thanks I spent a , I spent a couple of a couple of days uh this week , you know , uh getting the uh the new uh panasonic tough book that I got at near fast oh , yeah , up and running yep . So uh , it's what go ahead .

I did that , you know , about five or six times and uh just reconditioning the battery and now , uh , I'm getting'm getting about four hours of heavy use . That's not bad For being able to go out and do digital or whatever . This is a game changer for me . Not that I want to do digital a lot in the field , I like having the option .

And the other thing I did was one of my buddies in Flag and Tor torch had sent me these , uh , these 3d printed cases , uh , of a distribution block , and I had , uh , I had just enough power poles to do one case .

So I've got a nice new 3d printed distribution block that , uh , I threw in my bag and I think I think we should be good to go for for support your parks weekend this coming weekend . I'm excited to get get a lot of the scouts in the log too . I always , I always liked Jamboree on the air .

I I didn't get past Weeblos , but you know I have a fond affinity for scouting and everything that it stands for , so I applaud your work there , bill .

We went to , we did all these activities on the weekends , we went on canal boats and it was just really awesome . And then I came home and it was just a bunch of kids smoking butts and it was just terrible and I couldn't find a troop . That was uh , that was good .

You know that I wanted to be at and I , you know , I stuck with it for a couple of years and then it just got to the point where it just wasn't fun anymore . So that was my story . But my grandfather , or my , my great grandfather , he was really big in Missouri .

He was , um , he was pappy and he has he did a lot of stuff with the uh boy Scouts and he's got a whole they do this eagle cloth thing and my cousin was really into it . I don't know if you guys have ever how much you know about it , but yeah , I never got to that far , but I think if I was out there I probably would have stuck with it .

I just had a really bad troop , so it was unfortunate .

Uh , you know , we had some call sign issues . Uh , I was w1 lfh for a little while , um , and lost n1jur , but that's all been sorted . So I'm back to normal , feeling complete um after , uh , you know , worrying that I would never be able to get my call back , but thank god fcc's got some smart rules in place that I can't lose , at least for 90 days .

So that's all good and , yeah , mostly just been kind of playing on 10 meters . Oh , actually we had a very cool fun thing Our club we once have a once a month where the Aries group takes over the repeater to do their training and stuff like that .

So the repeaters , kind of offline , and our nightly nets that the guys have been talking about and sharing they , uh , you know they ceased to exist on that day . So , um , you know , we decided , hey , we're gonna do a six meter net , and so we actually had like 22 .

Well , we I think it was our location , our vantage point we have a club member who literally lives in bible hill in new hampshire and that's like , his house sits on 1300 ASL , you know feet elevation . So he , he could literally put a wire , a random wire on the ground and , you know , hit Uruguay with , you know four Watts , you know , without even trying .

So you know , we ran a six meter net from there , had like 24 check-ins . So it was amazing . It was really really bad weather , good to see six meters alive and people wanting to get out there , which is kind of stirred up a bunch of people and they all want to start doing their own six meter net .

So , um , pretty excited to hear that you know that's happening and people are starting to do stuff like that , so we'll start getting six meters . Uh , you know more activity and and more people start playing around the radio .

So word got out and it was . It was the second one we've done right , like you guys did one a couple months ago , back in august , yeah , yeah , no , we also do a 10 meter . We also do a 10 meter net once a month yeah , that's always a blast too .

I'm sure this is very unnatural to these guys , because I know they do a lot of talking and sharing of awesome information and they talk about all similar same stuff that we talk about , but just on a little different bend there towards , say , the Lennox world and how you can get more involved in ham radio and Lennox together .

And so I've been , we'll say , a newbie listener . I've only been listening since episode four , 99 , but , um , you know it's been a great uh run so far . I love hearing these guys . But , um , let me introduce them . So we've got uh Russ and Bill and Cheryl , and they're all the hosts of uh Lennox and the ham shack .

So if you haven't checked out their podcast , you can check the link in our description in this episode and it'll be in theirs , obviously , because they'll be on their show as well . But they talk everything ham radio and everything ham and Linux and they're the diehards .

I mean , my background is sort of sysadmin , so I've had a lot of Linux in my life , but I've always kind of just been Mac or windows and agnostic in that sense . So I've always wanted to try to take the leap but then , you know , just kind of shy away and go , I'll go back to windows .

So these guys are the hardcore , you know diehards when it comes to that stuff and they do some awesome stuff on their show .

So you know , russ , since you're kind of the head leader of this a little bit , we'll say you know , tell us a little bit about the show . What's going on . You know what I've got . You know how did , how did you get dragged into this , or how did you want to get dragged into this ? Is this one way to stay connected ?

You know , there's always an interesting story there . So so I'll leave it to you . Rush , you start us off , and I'm sure we'll pop questions along the way fantastic .

But , um , so yeah , we , we just celebrated our 16th anniversary , um , in October of this year , which is , we used to have sound effects once upon a time anyway . Um , so I , I always , I , in the 16 years of being asked this question , like you know , tell us about the show .

I I've not come up with an answer , so , um , but what I do always start with is , um , that I didn't start the show . Um , I had , I was on it from episode one and I have been on every episode except , I think , one . I think there were some one episode I didn't show up on for some reason .

Um , but , um , I always have to give props to , uh , richard KB , five JBV . He's the one who had the idea and he was looking for a cohost and and I was like me , me , me , you know , pick me , pick me . And apparently , since I , so apparently , since I was running unopposed , I got the job . Uh , that's how it works . Yeah , pretty much .

Uh , so he had the idea of Linux in the ham shack . He based his podcast on an earlier podcast by chess grip and called I can't remember what it was called it's it's been 16 years , 16 years ago , right , it was a podcast about oh , look my camera's freaking out again . Anything we can do to derail this podcast , we will do it .

If anybody wants to go back and listen to the first hundred episodes that have Richard in them , you will find that show has very little to do with the show of today .

I mean , we always talked about Linux , we talked about technology , computers , amateur radio , Everything about that is consistent all the way through and it's just . You know , presentation , of course , has changed , but presentation doesn't really matter .

And if somebody wants to go back and listen to the full catalog because we are , I don't know what episode of yours this is , but of ours it's 557 . So we have done a few and they do change with time and if you want to have a different flavor , go back and check them out . But I mean , you're still going to get the same idea .

We look at Linux applications . We look at how you can do things without Windows if you want to . We do try and slip that stuff in too , because , like , for example , Cheryl , who's on my right I don't know how she's arranged for the rest of you , but she's recording on Windows . I'm recording on macOS . Bill might be using Linux , I don't know .

We try and push it where possible , but we understand that there are certainly reasons where you can't use it , wouldn't use it , don't necessarily have to use it , and in those cases what we talk about is all the applications that are out there that are open source and available across platforms , and things like that .

So there's always something for everybody and that's what we try to be , try to try to be . Science , technology , ham , radio , linux and open source , you know , for for every user , regardless of where you come from , where you want to get to and like what paradigms you're part of . So so that's what the show is .

You know what the latest whiskey you are , you know , and your knowledge of whiskey is like way beyond my you know , comprehension and understanding . I'm sure you're probably a little toe-to-toe with Paul , you know he's got a lot more knowledge in that sense .

But yeah , when you get into that , you know I just go , wow , oh , I'm in the presence of you know , fill the blank .

And I would like to point out that when we finally developed the Weekender version of the show , we specifically split that out because we knew the content may not be of interest to everyone .

So if that's not your thing , if you don't want to hear about the , the hedonism and the food and the music and the , the booze and all that kind of stuff they're , they're clearly labeled you can go and skip them . However , the first part of the show we always actually do topical content .

We do Linux , we do computers , but what they are is like random off-the-cuff topics . We literally go to the website pickerwheelcom , throw in 20 topics , hit the randomizer button and whatever comes up we talk about , whether we know anything about it or not . So it's always fun .

We try to make it entertaining and at least a little bit informative one way or the other . So I wouldn't necessarily skip the first 15 or 20 minutes of those episodes . Um , but you know , beyond that , go ahead and skip it and move on to the next thing and we'll we'll talk about some sort of computer ham topic at the next one .

But you know , we try to be a little bit of everything and you know , honestly , if you have the choice to talk about whiskey or ham radio , I think we all know which one we pick , right ?

I mean you're like , hey , man , I'm a beer drinker . I'm like , no , I keep telling my son , who's 22 , you're not a beer drinker , you have to really understand craft beers and all of that . So , so you know he's getting into that whole process and it's a whole new eye-opening experience for him .

Like you know , I think it's a big deal , but he had one of the guys who reps for flex in australia bring me at him mentioned this past year a , an australian whiskey which can't even get in this country . So that was like super nice of him .

I thanked him a thousand times before , but it was such an incredible thoughtful thing to do , um , and the fact that I have a totally different kind of flex , yeah , yeah . That was quite the flex actually . Yeah , but that was fantastic and I want to make sure he gets acknowledgement again . Cool .

I mean I love your call sign . I mean I have to say it's second to obviously Bill's , because Bill just takes the cake . I love that call sign altogether . But tell me what's up with the call sign , how you got into Ham Radio a little bit and where along the line did you get coerced or pushed into ?

Uh , so that's where the w5 mo came in , um , as for the reason behind getting the call sign , I threw up the white flag because russ has harassed me from the day we met basically , which has been 25 years ago , to get my call sign .

Then bill tanked up with him and so they were both harassing me to get it and finally , a couple years before , coveted um , there I I tried to to test the hand invention itself , um , and because of it was still a hair arena at that time and they were testing upstairs and I was in ahead on car x over years ago , so I'm dependent upon a wheelchair now .

So I was like that's not gonna work and they're like , well , we don't know what to tell you . So we mentioned that on one of our podcasts , one of the earlier podcasts , and a group of gentlemen v's out of new jersey , I believe said hey , we're coming to hamvention , we'll test you while we're there , like , okay , awesome .

So yeah , that was , that was a trip . You know , the the nine-ish hours of driving from our house to dayton was , uh , cramming for the test , basically , um , and then , and then the next year . They're like do you want to go and do your general ? And I was like , no , no , I'm , I need a break . They're like do you want to go and do your general ?

And I was like no , no , I need a break . And they're like , okay . So the next year we worked it out a long time before I even mentioned that , by the way , you're going to test because we're coming back to test you again . I was like , okay , so we tested . It just happened that their hotel was across the street from ours .

So we like jogged across the street , russ and Bill sat there and smoked a cigar or whatever while I was testing , and then the VEs were on my butt about going ahead and working on getting my extra that night . They're like we'll give you an hour to study . I'm like , no , no , no , no , no , I can't do this again .

So , and of course , russ and Bill at that point were like , yeah , you don't really need the extra If you want to do something extra . Russ is an extra , he can sit there and babysit you . I'm like , okay , great , fine , whatever . So so that's that's the story on that .

As for the length of time that I've been with the podcast , I've basically been here since day one , but I was always behind the scenes .

So . I did several years pre-licensed um , just doing my recipes and sharing stories or whatever you know , reading stories basically . And then , you know , after I was licensed to , just stayed the same , basically . But yeah , so , and that's that's how it's been .

So now I go to Hamvention to babysit the booth , basically , so for us and Bill can go out and get a little bit of exercise , and you know , other than that , that's my job . So , yeah , whatever , I see Russ making little signs over there in his window .

You know lennox and all their stuff , so it's good to have you on and I appreciate you you know that , oh go ahead .

And we do have people come to our booth at Hamvention that will say oh I sorry , our dogs are barking in the background , I don't want to talk to you , I want to talk to a guy that knows what they're doing . Wow , that's essentially what they say and I'm like well , russ or Bill will be back later I don't know when to tell you , but come back .

And there's been a couple of times when they've actually come up and asked a question , you know , and there's been a couple of times when they've actually come up and asked a question . I've told Russ or Bill . This gentleman came out , they wanted information , blah , blah . Why didn't you tell them ? Because I have that information in my head .

I'm like they didn't want to listen to me . So when the person would come back , I'd be like that's the guy .

So , uh , if anyone wants to have a to hear an interesting and maybe partially controversial take on women in ham radio and the politics of ham radio and the makeup of the ham radio community , you might check that out Episode 518 , 518 .

She surprised me with her ticket first and foremost , but the second part of it was she would come out and do podo with me and I'd be like , every time we had field day she would come and she would get in front of the microphone and you'd be like everybody , every guy would be like , yeah , no problem , she'll be , you know , racking in like the contacts .

There'll be pileups everywhere left and right . She'd get on the mic and it would be cricket , and this is in the middle of field day , out of all places , like they would hear her voice and nobody would answer and she was like looking at me , like dad , what's wrong ? Like I don't , like I don't understand .

You're telling me this one thing and it's the opposite . And then you know she would go out and do potas with me and you know she would record her voice and then , magically , you know , all of a sudden , you know people would start showing up .

So when the bands were tough , I would leave the recording on my , you know a 91 and you know it would attract get me that 10 I needed . So you know it's only for emergency purposes during break glass .

She goes can I just hang out here and do some like yeah , go ahead , Literally a half an hour . I couldn't get through . She does one one time and I'm like so it's pretty funny , but it's , she's awesome , she .

She comes and she'll play radio and bring a friend and we try to get her to get her general and , uh , move on , but she'll get around to it at some point did she get her general .

So , if you want to come on , we're going to have a whole bunch of other YLs on and it's going to be just the YL show and we want to give you guys every opportunity .

We're going to have a couple of YLs that we have in our club who just got their tickets and they're like , totally like , we love them when they come to hang out because they'll come during winter field days or when they have time off and they just love being part of that whole process . So they're coming on .

So if you want to come on , I'll send you an invite and you know we'll uh , we'll arrange that to have you part of all that sure sounds , sounds good awesome , cool , so all right .

Well , so with that , we we've got to go over to bill , who's been really quiet over here in the corner , but uh , you know not to say that he isn't uh on the show , but uh , you know , dude , that is a call sign that I love .

You know , I would love to get as a vanity call sign if I ever could convince myself I need to switch to another call sign , but that ain't gonna happen . Um , but so yeah so tell us a little about your story . I know you're you're you moved around a little bit . You know you're definitely obviously in the computer field .

How did you hook up with these two ? And you know the podcast .

Pete just , uh , just left and uh , russ and cheryl were like , oh yeah , we gotta look for another co-host and I'm like sure , why not over here ? over here , please so that was uh my first episode was 168 and obviously we've we've done quite a few of them since then how many are we up to ?

We're not good at it , but we try to keep . And yeah , I have a four call . I mean I live in montana but I uh started having a four call back and I got licensed at 94 and kind of been all over the east coast and then I moved up to montana about almost 15 years ago now . So , uh , but I'm keeping my call for life .

You know , skip extra , skip advanced and go straight to extra no code . So I uh I was like , okay , well , I'm doing this and then I'm gonna change my call sign because I'm so sick of this anyway . And then as a joke , I'm like , oh , I'll just put in it for this call because it sounds cool , it's lightweight on cw .

And uh , I was like I probably won't get it whatever . I mean , nobody's applied for it . All the other any any number rds had already been taken at that point for some reason , for wasn't taken . So not many hands in Montana apparently , but I was living in Tampa , I took the , I took my extra at the Tampa amateur radio club . You know , hats off to them .

What a great clubhouse , what a great club . But yeah , yeah , and the rest is history . I've had the call ever since and , uh , yeah , it's definitely , it's definitely a fun one . I've worked almost all of the other any number rd calls at some various point in time in my , uh , my ham radio career .

So it's , uh , it's been a that went quite a fun thing well , it's a great call , though , to hunt for sure .

So like how many hosts have you guys kind of gone through ? What like is you guys ? Um , is it been a large crowd Like , or is it just a you know kind of what's ?

I started 101 on , I think I did two or three by myself , and then I feel like I'm going to forget this now , now that we're talking about it .

I think we're on the show for a while , and then their circumstances changed , of course . And then Bill , who ran on a post for the job , as I did at the start . There were so many others it's pretty much how how it's happened . You know , it's basically like I need a co-host . Does anybody want to co-host me ? Okay , you're in .

You know , that's that's kind of how it goes , so I can share that same sentiment too .

It's listed as dayton , so yeah right , but you asked um like to give you advice about going to him , mentioned I . There's only one thing I can say about it is , if you're a ham , just go , just do it .

Whatever you think you're going to see , whatever you think about the show , whether you you know , um , whatever like preconceived notions you have about the show , it's just you got to do it once . I guarantee you you're going to figure out in that one time whether you want to do it again or not . Um , but I mean , you got to do it .

Basically , we get a lot of foot traffic and everything , and the people who come through from you know paraguay and israel and the philippines and finland and everywhere japan and germany and yeah all these people .

I mean it's absolutely like , you know , near fest is near fest and you know the , the one that goes on there in massachusetts like a couple weeks before and all that . It's like , yeah , these are great ham fest and everything , but I mean nothing is hamvention . You just got to do it right now you guys also do um .

So , um , we may wind up doing hamcation next year because we have other reasons to be in florida , and I mean orlando , and in february is , you know , generally a nice place to be . So we might actually do that . I mean , we've focused on hamvention for our , for our like booths and setups and stuff like that .

But and I've done some local ones here in Missouri , but I would like to do some other ones , and I think Huntsville and Hamcation will be the ones that we , you know , wind up going to .

So we'd love to have you kind of come we actually did a our first year . We did this podcast . Uh , our first two or three episodes we did a live stream right from it . Horrible , you know , video conditions .

But you know we did a live stream and had a blast doing it and it , uh , you know , was very , uh , we'll say , fulfilling , because a lot of people came by . I'm like we don't know who you are , but you need to be around and you know we don't have this stuff up here in new england .

Money goes a long way to getting me to move up in that area .

Now we don't go to bucky's anymore yeah , we're just like whatever it's bucky's yeah , well , that's kind of my experience too .

I'm like , fine , I'll go check it out , thinking it's like a wah-wah or whatever , but it's not you know , you can't touch it with a stick , so yeah , it's like .

Obviously , you touched on a little bit about how it's not so scary , but what would be the compelling thing , at least from a ham radio side of things , if I wanted to start getting into Lennox that I should be looking at ?

Uh , it was much scarier , much more intimidating for the average user and that's why the show sort of blossomed into what it , what it is . Um , because it , because it was actually kind of a fight to get people to switch the paradigm . Windows was everything there was .

Even macOS wasn't really a player at the time and to me , as far as using an operating system in the shack , macos is still not really a player . Very little development in the macOS front Apple's garbage , however . What's ? Very little development in the macOS front Apple's garbage , however . What's that ?

They've created the windows subsystem for linux , which actually runs ubuntu and debian and other variants and stuff like that . So the worlds are colliding , honestly , and so it's made our job a lot easier . It's made it much less intimidating , and if you as a user whether you use Linux or not want to jump into it , the leap is very , very small .

At this point . Everything's going to look familiar to you . Your desktop environment's going to look the same . The only thing that's going to be different , basically , is how you install applications , and so that's really the only hurdle you have to get over .

But , that being said , the biggest thing for me is I'm willing to bet that if you're a Windows user right now , a lot of the applications you're using for ham radio were probably written for Linux .

I mean , if you're , you know , if you're using WSJTX or JTDX or FL Digi or any of these things like that , you'll be like well , I only run Windows and I've got these applications . Well , sorry , those were all written for Linux and then they run on Windows too .

So , like you don't even have to go , you don't even have to make the leap in that point , you're already using the applications . You just have to switch your operating system . So you're talking about a matter of 30 minutes and you know a loss of a little inhibition .

I mean there's , you know , if you listen around to a lot of the Linux podcasts , I mean there's definitely like the chatter , like Windows 12 is basically going to have a Linux kernel in it because Windows is dead .

They're slowly killing themselves much like a Mac OS is doing with locking down the app store and stuff like that and going to start killing off third party apps , which will mean all of these open source apps that don't have development license keys in the Mac OS ecosystem to register their apps and get them certificate signed and stuff like that .

You're going to see that stuff starting to go away and Microsoft's not that far behind . I mean , not many amateurs are using the windows version S of the platform , but that platform is particularly locked to the store . It was meant for , like students and stuff like that , but it did come on some boxes .

So it's sort of a a smaller subset of of windows in in a different license format for a cheaper license that a lot of these little tiny computers and whatnot would come with . So yeah , I mean Linux is just easy to run . Today it's almost better in some cases even just using it for daily driver use .

I mean , the browsers run faster , everything launches faster , jeez , yeah , it's amazing , you can add a printer . You can add a printer that's probably 10 , 20 years old and guess what , there's still a driver for it . I mean , you try doing that in . Windows or Mac OS , you're SOL .

You're not going to be able to print to like an old canon printer from the , you know , late 90s , early 2000s . That's barely got , you know , usb support , let alone any driver support . Uh , I mean , I'm always amazed at , uh , at what linux is able to do . I mean I remember , like you know , ubuntu used to give them some props .

I mean , like you know , eight years ago ubuntu would drop on a Wi-Fi network and all of a sudden find every printer on a Wi-Fi network that you connected to automatically , without even asking you to do it , and I thought , like that was like the pan ultimate of the operating system . It's like this is gonna solve so many problems for people .

So it's really it's grown so well in the years , uh , that it's like every every year , it's just easier to sell free software , you know , because it's like you can give it away without any problems , right ?

yeah , yeah , it's like , you know it's , it's there's so much value , uh , for it and uh , you know it's really hard to say that it's there's there's problems with it , and you know , yeah , there's . There's certain instances that you can get yourself into trouble .

There's so many choices in linux that I think people find themselves in a spot where it's like , oh well , I tried this and it didn't work , and blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , and it's like , well , that's the thing is like there's so many choices that you can find yourself sort of pigeonholed in some sort of ecosystem that's specific to your particular choice ,

like , oh , I decided to have Solus or I decided to have you know Arch , you know Linux from scratch , or you know NixOS or something like that . You know I found this niche that I wanted to go with for one reason and then I'm trying to make it solve all my other problems and you know , maybe they don't always find their solution .

So we tend to talk about everywhere that you can find an easy path into using Linux and we do a lot of reviews on distributions where we give a Linux . You know ham radio readiness score and you know we have probably covered .

You know , I wouldn't say all of them because there's so many , but like we do cover quite a few that that most people should at least have in their you know , you know bookmarks , list of things that you might want to try and stuff like that Cool .

So now here I am , am I'm , I'm , as as uh jim wt1w has has uh so eloquently put uh , you know , windows is that that bloated old girlfriend that you just keep around because she's comfortable and I , I like windows for that fact . Like I know it , I understand it .

Like I got obs running and I got all this stuff running on this tiny little computer and it works . Yeah , most of the time now I I'm always fighting windows with audio and and different things .

But for years I've I've had friends that have told me you'd be so much happier going to linux , you'd be so much happier , and I'm like , well , but what does that transition look like for me ?

Right , I mean , I've got everything on this computer and so how do I take everything that is functioning and move it to linux and not have like three weeks where I can't do anything because I don't understand how it works ?

Let's say , like you know , ham radio deluxe or something like that , or these , the flex guys next to you and stuff like that , you know they're using power sdr that for some reason they can't build on linux , even though the entire freaking radio runs linux .

Yeah , there's , there's that instance where it's like you have something that is just not going to work you , because you have something within your workflow that prevents you to do that . But like things like OBS I mean God , that's an open source piece of software that was written for cross platform to begin with .

So , like you know , stuff like that should just work . You can grab your obs folder out of your home directory and you know it's kind of a strange thing . Why does it have a ? You know , a dot dot file in windows land ? You know , because it wasn't developed for windows . But there's a lot of those applications that you know .

Pretty much all you do is you move your configuration file repoint where you have your images for your backdrops and everything else like that . That's pretty easy . And then it's , like you know , the logging software . Yeah , there are some differences . Like we talked about , hrd is windows only . You know there's .

You know several , several windows only softwares that are just not not available in Linux . Yeah , you can probably run them in Linux with the emulators or what's . You know windows is not an emulator the wine emulator or the proton emulator and stuff like that's . You know Windows is not an emulator the Wine emulator or the Proton emulator and stuff like that .

But you know there's other options out there and that's one of the kind of things that we talk about on the podcast is , like you know , we're always talking about loggers . What can we use alternative to what we're currently using ? And you know it's always amazing what else we can find that will actually run and solve problems like how do we do contest logging ?

How do I do this kind of logging ? How do I do poda logging ? How do I do satellite logging ?

But like I don't really like emulation , so I try to run loggers that are more native , more closer for contesting .

I'm using not one mm right now , uh , it's kind of like an n1mm not necessarily it kind of looks like n1mm , uh , but I'm an old like ct guy from the old contest days when we had like dos computers out there in the field , so I always appreciate that .

When n1mm came out , uh , they like kept the same key bindings so I I wouldn't have to rebind everything that I have ingrained in my contest head of what I'm supposed to be doing .

So I really used N1MM for a long time in Windows and then I played around with it in the Linux emulation days and then , yeah , now that there's not 1MM , there's no reason for me to even use Windows or an emulator for that kind of logging and that purpose .

Um , because , yeah , I wouldn't ask anyone to go through 556 episodes to try and find some specific content that they're looking for .

But if you're looking for a specific application of a type like if you want to use FTA , if you want to do digital work , if you want to do PSK 31 , if you , you know , if you want to learn CW , if you want to install your desktop environment , if you want to change the colors on your screen , stuff like that , you can literally put that in the in the

search bar and it will give you relevant episodes to to check out for sure , the show notes , like we don't , we don't like publish a transcript of the show or anything like that , but they do uh have links to relevant uh projects , uh configuration examples , things like that , whenever necessary .

So I would just say , like I mean , you could type in how do I install Linux and you know you'll get . We've done two or three separate episodes where we walk you from step one through step N of how to get Linux on your machine , with destroying Windows , which is the way we prefer it , but also without , if that's the way you want to go .

But yeah , and one of the things we highlighted , ham mentioned all the time is now you can run Linux off a USB stick . You just plug it into your computer , boot it up , see what you like about it , what you don't like about it . It doesn't touch your hard drive at all . And you can even run a ham shack off your thumb drive if you want to .

I mean , or if nothing else , go to micro center and buy a 50 dollar , you know um pie uh yeah , just went totally out of my head raspberry pi 5 and just , uh , you know , just run your shack off of that .

And then when you , you know , when you get that like going of ennui and uncomfortableness and all of a sudden you can just kind of like pull the stick out , you're back in Windows land . Everything the world is right again . You're all set to go .

Why do you think they're doing that ?

Or you know they did the same thing , like I installed rum log on my mac os box and I , you know I can't can't no longer connect to my radio and Rumlog's not answering any questions , so I have to go and contact Apple .

And I brought my son one that was like a hundred dollars and the receivers are like 15 bucks versus they're selling them for 60 . And you know , my son just got into it . So I'm like Versus they're selling them for 60 . And you know , my son just got into it . So I'm like this is going to cost me a small fortune if I go .

You know what everyone else is doing . I can do it a lot sooner . So I'm learning how to program this radio and it's all open source , and so it's not as I don't think it's not as easy , it's not as like Apple-like , like the radios they have now is like you could be stew . I mean they sell batteries at charge that you just plug in .

Well , like the old way of doing it , you had to like program the charger to charge whatever battery you have .

So I don't think it's going to be that hard , but I'm wondering if , like with Linux and this open source stuff , if that's the way it's going to be , because things are just going to get so out of control with pricing Like it's three , four times as much for the same thing . It's not even as good .

You know they've already made it like a pain in the butt of Mac to run software you download anyway . I mean , you have to the very first time you have to like right click and open and then or do a shift open Because it's like they don't want you to install crap that is not from the store . And Windows is the same thing .

You know they get the scary red button . Oh , do you want to run this anyway , even though you're stupid and shouldn't download something from the internet ? Yeah , those are things you generally don't see in Linux at all .

So if you're looking to dip that toe in the water , there's many options and I'd have to say that these guys are going to be your best resource , especially in trying to find that match one-for-one for loggers and connectivity to be able to do cat control and all of those other things you're going to do in the ham radio world .

So it sounds like if you haven't already subscribed , you need to head over to their website , subscribe , start listening , catching on and start learning , because I guarantee you might be very surprised by the whole process of how easy it is . I , you know , I've been in lennox for a long time , in and out of my job .

I've got a lot of lennox servers in the back doing you know different things like , um , everything under the sun , a pie hole , the no one in yards , all that stuff doing . You know all the things in the back where , because by my background's all lennox and networking . So you know , I I love to see all that stuff .

I always love to be in part of it , always felt like it was the cool crowd to be in when it wasn't cool and you know , and in the whole academic world when it was , that was very popular in those days , and so you know it's good to see that it's more now , uh , mainstream , and you know .

So when I hear you guys talk about new flavors I'm just like , oh cool , I gotta think about adding that to the list .

It used to be fringe , it was the outer bounds , it was the edge , it was like leading it , it was like the , the restaurant at the end of the universe . Thank you , douglas adams for that . And now it's easier to use than the mainstream distros . It does everything right off the bat . It's all ui based .

Uh , I mean , and and some of the ones like manjaro and garuda that have that have rolled like these customizations on top of arch have made it so easy to use it . It makes windows look like it's complicated garbage , which which it kind of is , but anyway , you know it's that perception . It's just mean there's so many ways to go with it .

I mean everybody should try it and it's so easy to do these days . Plug in your USB stick , downloads , it's all free , it's open source and everything . Everyone should be doing it .

So , uh , we're going to ask you three questions each and you know we're going to kind of go through here . You got to answer them right off the cuff . So , uh , you know , if you guys are ready for that , let's just step up to the plate first . Sounds like Cheryl's ready to go . First question is what's your favorite ? dessert Cheesecake Favorite mode .

So I'll stick with , just like I'll say Great Notion is probably my favorite brewery right now . They're out of Oregon .

But that just kind of reinvigorated my love for RIDI so much being kind of like the end of the spigot for all of the people trying to contact you and stuff like that , kind of like the business end of a pileup . So it's fun .

I really wanted the SB230 , which is the amplifier for it . With the beryllium oxide it's just like deadly . I so wanted the whole kit . When I got that radio and I used it a lot , I mean I I still love that radio . Uh , I think I finally gave it to somebody else .

I I think I gave it to another club member to uh to use , and I haven't seen that radio in many years you know , hopefully you come .

Thanks again for uh finding some time uh to get us on here and we appreciate you streaming out to your discord there . For this folks hope we wouldn't bore everybody to death and they haven't fallen asleep or fallen off . But you know , so to kind of put a bow on this , you know who wants to kind of close things off here .

I mean , obviously you know what's . You know we usually just give it around . If you guys got any other YouTube channels or other stuff , you do , you know , feel free to promote that .

Um , I guess I could do the phonetics , but I think that's pretty straightforward . So , uh , that literally has links to everything we're connected to one way or another . Um , we're on mastodon and that thing that used to be called twitter , and facebook and instagram and and youtube and and all of that .

So I mean , just literally , if you go into Google and search for Linux in the ham shack , you will definitely find us . We've been around long enough and we didn't even have to program our own SEO . It just kind of happens , you know , over time . So , that LHS podcast on info , that's like that's the email address too . It's all linked there .

Links to the episodes are there , of course , all the show notes . We sometimes do contests and give stuff away . You can support the show . We're over on Patreon and PayPal as well too . It's really cheap . We have actually become in the early days .

We would have to ask our listeners to support us , to go to hand mentions and stuff like that because it's not cheap . It's not an event , but we've had enough support over the last couple of years that our contributors have actually made us self-sustaining . So it's really nice . We're not getting rich or anything .

We're not buying yachts , anything we're not uh we're not buying yachts and mansions and stuff like that , and and uh , visiting europe every every autumn , uh , but we , we can at least go to ham pension every year , so , uh , that's always nice and we really appreciate everybody who listens to us . Uh , you guys , I mean well , I , I know Eric does .

Uh , I don't want to speak for Paul and Todd at this point , but I'm hoping that after this , that we have a couple of new subscribers , so , but , anyway , that's that's where you can find us . We hope you'll listen . Um , we do have a discord , of course , just like the guys here at the free and ham , so check that out .

Um , you know there's an invite that's on the website and everything else , so that's that's where you want to go . And , uh , we hope you'll join us and listen and maybe learn a little bit . And uh , please interact with , uh , join the discord , talk to us . There's always somebody around .

We have lots of fun , interesting and knowledgeable people uh , way more so than the three of us , uh , so definitely uh , enjoying that and uh , you might learn a little bit there too . We'd appreciate it . And thank you guys for having us on . Thanks for coming it's been fun yeah , definitely was a blast .

So you know , if you're ever around , you're in the chat and you just want to say hello , we'd love to have you come hang out with us . So you know the invitation's always open , our doors always open , um , so you know , don't , uh , don't be a stranger there , for sure , um .

And so , obviously , with that , we don't have , uh , the big budgets and whatnot , but , uh , we appreciate everybody who does support live free and ham , both through our storefront at livefreeandhamcom forward slash shop . You can get all of our merch there , plus the for a limited time . When will Paul jump someday ?

T-shirt and sweatshirt there , make sure you grab one . You definitely don't want to miss out on that , because he will eventually jump and then at that point they're gone . You know we'll have to replace it with something different . You know we'll have to replace it with something different .

You know it will probably have to be in supporting Paul's parachute purchase and all of the additional jumps and the pilot and eventually the plane which you know will help us get to places like Hamvention and Hamcation much faster . So you know , it's kind of like a logical progression . All good either way , all good either way .

And if you want , you can head over to either the Apple Podcasts or you can click the link , our SMS link , in all of our show notes descriptions to leave us a review good , bad and ugly and we will make sure we read it on our next episode .

And you can always go over to our Patreon and buy us a beer , links completely located at all of our show notes and on our website at LiveFreeAndHam . And if you want to reach any of our hosts , you can head over to LiveFreeAndHamcom . And thanks as always for listening and from all of us at LiveFreeAndHam and the Lennox and the Ham Shack podcast 7-3 . 7-3 .