Celebrating Community and Overcoming Challenges in the Ham Radio World

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

I'm your host , uh , eric callsign n1jr , and I'm with my co-host hey , it's paul n1OG .

We are all sporting the usual hats here that we all truly love and wear everywhere , and so , as always , we are always working on some great new ideas in the future .

So we encourage you to come check back often or check out our socials for when we do new launches or updates or sales or anything of that , and you can always check our website directly at livefreeandhamcom for all of those details . But , as we know , we love feedback , good and bad .

You know we want to hear from all of our listeners as to how we're doing and what's going on , and so , with that , you know , you can always email us , uh and tell us about what's going on , um , and how we're doing uh , at livefreeandham , at gmailcom , or , if you're the texting type , you know , just use that link in our show notes description , uh , to

leave us an SMS review , and I see , uh , you know Paul reaching for his phone right there and uh , oh , maybe a drink , sorry . Okay , he'll text us after the show and let us know how we're doing . You know , and we always want to hear you , but this week we have got some good stuff .

I am slow and I'll have to edit this section out here , but here we go .

Let us know , send us a quick email and we'll make sure we let everybody know and we celebrate with you along the way . And so you too , as our listeners , we want to hear your feedback , we want to know how we're doing and we want to hear from you guys .

So , like I said , you can always email us at livefreeandham , at gmailcom , or use our SMS link in any one of our show notes descriptions , both on our YouTube channel and here in the podcast stream in the show notes below . But , going full steam ahead , we've got a couple of things we just want to make you guys aware of .

First and foremost , if you haven't , you know , been aware of what's going on , our bands are obviously being threatened again , so we want to make sure that , uh , you know , our listenership knows , uh , you know what stuff's going on . So , paul is going to take a little bit of time .

We're going to talk about the 900 megahertz stuff a little bit and hopefully uh make you guys a little bit more aware and uh saying how , or show you guys how you guys can uh , you know , keep uh the mission alive and and provide feedback to keep those bands available to us well , of course I .

But anyways , they would like to take over a large majority of the unlicensed portion of the 900 megahertz band . They want to do some really cool stuff , which is fantastic .

They want to increase GPS so that it's pinpoint in buildings , and while that's a very worthwhile endeavor , we have to consider the effects that it'll have on every device that is currently already using the 900 megahertz band , such as every lore device that there is in the United States pretty much , such as every LoRa device that there is in the United States

pretty much . And they're talking about using anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 watts EIRP , which , if anybody knows what that kind of power does to a device that's running in milliwatts , it would be devastating to every Loura device that's out there . So please , uh , use the link . Uh , go to the comment section .

The new comments are currently closed , but you can leave comments on other comments , and so the more comments that we can get out there , let them know . Please do not take away that unlicensed portion of the 900 megahertz band , because a lot of hams use it and it's a very useful part of the spectrum , so we want to keep that .

But a lot of repeaters still kind of use that 900 megahertz as a backhaul to other linking repeaters . So that is still alive and well in many big sections of the country and so we want to make sure that we don't lose that um , and we definitely still hold on to every bit of frequency space we have been allotted as hams because it's important .

If we don't use it , we lose it , right . So you know , get out and let them know , all right . So just a little bit of uh like additional here . Um , if you haven't figured out right now , uh , and if you don't read our show notes at the bottom , you may not know we have a Discord .

Well , if you haven't , then let me be the first to tell you we got a Discord . We want to have you guys come be a part of the Live Free and Ham community . It's one way to be able to join and join free . The link is in all of our descriptions and on our website at livefreeandhamcom , and we'd love to have you come be part of the conversation .

Come hang out . We we try to do a lot of , you know , updates there as much as we can , and we want to continue to kind of pour into it . So we're looking for ways to be able to just reach you guys as our community and build our community . So , you know , come be a part of that fun and , and you know , talk to us .

You know , come be a part of that fun and you know , talk to us , hang out with other great hams . And you know you can do that through the Live Free in Ham Discord . And , as always , we are obviously in the month of September and so , if you haven't been aware , we usually do a once a month live stream .

So you're going to want to make sure you pay attention to our YouTube channel and you can go over to youtubecom at livefreeandhampodcast and check us out there and you can subscribe . If you haven't , and make sure you hit the notification bell and then that way you'll be notified anytime we go live .

So we want you to come be part of that community and , as always , coupled with that , we participate in a bunch of other great cool things , so you can catch all that stuff on our youtube page or over at live free and ham um for any of the past shows or any of our uh video or audio archives .

So with that , let me take a breath here and let's pick this back up . Um , we are gonna kick into doing good , good , doing good you do . That's good .

But with that you know we've put together this segment and so if you've been a an avid listener or a consistent listener , you know that we've been doing every episode , uh the do good episode , and you know we want to promote people and clubs and uh other hams out there doing some great stuff for the hobby , um , and so you know I I opened up the mailbox

again today and how many entries did you guys see in our mailbox ? Zero , roger , that big old nil as they say in soccer over in england .

So with this Do Good episode , we're going to throw our club in and say on spreading the gospel of ham radio , as they say , um .

So you know , with , uh , you know this do good episode , we're gonna throw our club in and say you know , hey , we were at the 4-h fair , uh , this past weekend , um , so when this this episode's there , this will be a couple weeks after .

But either way , we decided as a club you know , hey , what's the best thing we can do to be able to get out and encourage others to get it and play with ham radio and play with radio in general , and so we figured , okay , what better than four H ? So they invited us along . We showed up and I think we had a blast .

I know I did myself , uh , paul , you can chime in there in a second or two and let us know your thoughts on it . But you know we did something . I think that made a huge impact to who knows how many people showed up for that event on that Saturday . But we set up a special event station or get on the air type station .

We had Aries represented , we had our club represented , we had a couple of awesome individuals in our club that you know just love talking about ham radio and it showed , because I can't tell you how many people walk away thinking that they I'm sure they were hot to trot .

Two things I think we learned when we left that uh , at the end of the day was one , kwan ching is going to run out of a certain model of radio , uh , in the next week or two , because of a few individuals that were pushing those radios hard to get them on the air and start playing .

And two , there's going to be , hopefully , a big rush on everybody signing up to get their technician license on our club website . So I'm hoping the best . But you know , paul , what's your two cents on the whole or take on the whole thing ?

And and um , while I was working the GODA station , I happened to make contact with a station in Michigan that was putting scouts on the air for their merit badges , and so I got to yeah , I got to talk to two scouts , one was 11 and one was 12 . And you know , it was just . It was so good to have all of those interactions with these kids .

Plus , there was a whole bunch of adults that came through and they're interested in signing up for our next testing session , so I'm really looking forward to seeing that .

And , uh , that was all they really talked about is how awesome it was and how everyone had a great time . Probably something we'll be doing every year , I guess , moving forward . Right , it was that much of a success . Unfortunately , I wasn't there . I was coaching baseball as usual , so I got one more year .

And to sit there and teach the kids how to do their his own Morse code learning , uh , and and to to sit there and teach the kids how to do their name in Morse code Um , a lot , a lot of faces were lit up and a lot of smiles and and fantastic job , tim .

He was super patient and super entertaining , if anything , to watch him show people how to do CW and Morse code , especially with their names . It was cool to see that .

And he's a square dancing legend and uh and uh , uh , you might see him on dancing with the stars but there was one story and you were mentioning stories earlier there was one couple that I kind of walked in into our booth , um , that were like they were totally over the moon Alex and Henry .

If you're listening to the podcast , I invited them to check us out and download the episode , so hopefully , maybe they'll respond back and send us an email and let us know that they heard .

But yeah , they were both super ecstatic about how cool Ham Radio was , and more so after introducing them to the podcast and telling them that , between you know , between Todd I and Paul , you know , or big beer , you know , craft guys and whiskey guys , and his eyes lit up . He's got a German , he's from Germany or from Germany , I think .

And so when you know , I said both of those , he was like oh , me and my wife , we're we're With that .

Send us something via email and , like we said on our last episode , if you send us this via win link to paul , we will make sure we figure out how to get you on a future episode or a live stream , and that's a guarantee .

So if we get one one person , the first person sends us something via winlink on a do good that they did with their club , then we'll make sure we have you on either the live stream or they can even say they did good by connecting to us with on winlink .

I did yeah , no , come on , you gotta be a little bit of like an effort , that you know , besides clicking a winlink button to say , hey , I do good look at all the good I'm doing okay , I'm a big you know .

And surprised about how many people were in the hobby years ago , 20 years ago , still have their call sign but haven't really done the hobby and they're like I have no idea about like the new technology and was shocked that you know we're doing a , a poda activation or the radio was small and the antennas and stuff In public , yeah , yeah .

So , like I said , that's doing good , poda is good .

So definitely , uh , send us to a live free and ham at gmailcom or your rsms link or via win link and you're guaranteed to get on the show . Um , you know ? And so with that , um you know , we are going into our favorite segment , as we have uh for the past couple of uh .

Paul paul and I were doing a little calculation earlier about how long this has been going . What did we end up ? Figuring ? Todd's road to Extra was currently already on .

If you'd like to follow along , you can always head over to hamstudyorg , which is a great resource and it helps you prepare for your tests , and it's always recommended by three out of four volunteers examiners . As the American Dental Association wasn't going to comment whatsoever before the survey , so without further delay , I hand it over to our VE Quizmaster .

Take it away N1OG .

C run a net to allow many stations to contact a rare dx station . Or is it d allocate frequencies for dx petitions ?

So if you're on the journey to studying for technician general or the extra class , like Todd , uh , in that case hamstudyorg is a great resource for getting your ticket and we want to know if you've received your license or you've upgraded just recently . You know we'd like to recognize you on the next episode for all your hard work and effort .

You know we'd like to recognize you on the next episode for all your hard work and effort .

So , again , email us at live free and ham at gmailcom , or feel free to use the SMS link in our description notes to let us know what , uh , you know license class you got upgraded to , what your call sign is , and we'll make sure we mentioned you on our next show . All right , just a picture . Yeah , totally , yeah , sure , yeah , totally , yeah .

We'd love to showcase it on our website too as well . So you know , you know , let us know share that information , let's . Let's uh rejoice together and celebrate together . So all right , well , with our usual format , guys . Um , let me ask you , paul , what's uh been going on in your ham radio week ?

He has a 3D printer and he's so excited about his 3D printer that he printed up a whole bunch of stuff , and when he showed me these I said , hey , I want one of those , can you send me one ? And he did better . He sent me two . It's just a 3D printed case because he ran out of power poles . I've got to put the power poles in .

It's a nice little distribution block . Thank you , stephen , for sending me two of those . Otherwise , I was able to make a contact with Jason from Ham Radio 2.0 this week .

I believe that I got Rob and one NUG 2.0 this week , and I believe that I got Rob and N1NUG in a park this week , and Tim from Gray man Pota I got him in a park this week as well . So overall it wasn't a ton of radio , but I had a lot of fun doing it and it was great to make the contacts that I made .

All right , well , with that , paul todd over to you . Uh , how was your hammering week doing ?

It's been good , um and uh , I was today before we did this and before I ran the net this this evening and I was trying to , I saw alaska came up 20 meters . Uh , jeremy , hey , good . Uh , kl70c , I can't get you on 20 meters .

I I'm itching to go out and do a pota to see how good it really is .

I was like , oh , if that's coming our way , that's going to really suck .

Uh , we ended up uh doing um , you know that event and , like paul said , you know contacts . At the get on the air station , um , it's always comical and I was sharing that with a bunch of the guys that were standing around .

I'm like , every time I hop on and I'm calling cq , it like I get crickets for 20 minutes and then all of a sudden I get four or five contacts and things are good . And this is the same thing in my POTA life and it takes a little while for the motor to get going .

And then anytime with POTA like anybody I'm sure , either on this podcast or anywhere else , when they say last call , last call , what happens ? You get the floodgates open . Happens , you get the floodgates open , I get nothing , I get chirps .

So lo and behold , guess what happens to you when I you know , and I'm like , all right , I'll make this one last try after , I think , the third attempt , I end up getting like maybe total 12 , probably nothing you know , to shake a stick at .

But you know , contacts were fun I mean mostly stateside and the bands , like we all mentioned , have been crazy busy . I think we had a um , at least I know today . Uh , at busy . I think we had a um , at least I know today .

Uh , at this time of recording we had an R1 , uh blackout which was like really kind of just sitting right over like the East , you know , right over the Atlantic ocean for us and you know it was like oh , tough , tough going . And so , you know , with that I tried to play a little home radio .

But you know , since I gave Shaneane uh k5 qbf access to my flex , I have to now ask for permission if I can use my flex . Because he's just using my flex . I'm like I don't know , I don't mind , he's good to use it , it's totally fun to watch him play .

I know past couple of uh , if you're an hrc listener , um , between paul's uh , your remote station , because he's got the heater . He's the one that they go to when they need the extra horsepower and the or firepower as they say , um , and then you know .

You know the other reason why that they use my flex is because it's nice and shiny and a little bit uh , you know colorful interface . But uh , yeah , the power all goes to , you know , n1og when they , when they need to pound the message home .

That's pretty much kind of my hammer of the week and I'm hoping that , like you said , get out and do a little bit more potas .

I had an opportunity to go today but I kind of turned it down because I was like , by the time I looked at my watch and tried to figure out what my battery state was , I was like I'm going to give it , just close it up and we'll do some other time . That was my original plan .

So I finally have , you know , bought all the components . I need to have a full , complete station where I take all my batteries out , plug it all in and everything gets charged . Now everything's getting charged at the right levels and everything has a connector for the connector type .

And if it doesn't have a power pole on it and I can put a power pole on it , guess what's getting a power pole . So that's how we solve .

You guys know more . Like I said , I'm very , I just like to operate . I don't really get into like all the how it all works . I mean I'll listen to it but it's not my thing . I wonder , can I take , can I take a DC plug and plug it into my cigarette lighter , right Like the cigarette lighter in your car , and run the battery from that and run it ?

So you know , I yeah good old cigarette port yep yeah , so that was , uh , that was a good kind of a question , like in case , like you know , you're doing a poda , you die battery , you got your car battery , but I guess , that's not going to work .

It's the one where you can run shore power and or alternative battery and it does solar . Uh , the name's gonna the model number is gonna escape me if I don't look it up .

Um , but that basically is just one little box and it's all power poles on the top of it and so you can plug your radio in as the output source , you can plug in the what they call the mains power , and that could be the battery off your car , and then it's got a third power pole port that you can put to .

Like what I did was move it to another um , uh , basically a cigarette , another cigarette lighter , a um power pole port that I mounted on the inside of my center console , and then I just plug the battery into that , so like I'll bring my 20 amp hour battery bioeno with me , plug into that and then when I shut the truck off , the radio will still keep

running because the uh west mountain radio device says , oh , power's gone from there . I have this power source in the background and it just kicks it in and and uh wouldn't it run both at the same time ?

it could actually charge the battery that , the bio-ano battery on top of it from the gains power if I wanted to , so I don't have that in the back , but I do have that backup as a battery .

You know , like I forgot to charge the radio , I didn't think , and then you're in the middle of a call and cq and all the radio dies and you're like , well , that's the end of that one called an epic power gate .

So I gotta take my whole dashboard apart right now if I could find some type of a 3D-printed power pole mount , like a little circle mount or whatever , and I'll put a hole in the dash and have the power pole connection right in the dash and I can just plug my battery right in that way and then have another one that's an output and plug my radio in .

I'll have power poles right in my dash they have .

There's a bunch on printables and a few of the other like sites , so if you want to send it over to Ryan , I'm sure he'll print it for you and it just basically has the power pole inserts , but it's threaded on one side , so you have just a threaded nut that you can sandwich up against a piece of plastic , so you just cut it out .

Oh , or you can go to amazon for like 11 bucks and I think I have one that I bought there and it's actually behind me . I could go grab it and just go with you what , um , what did you get ?

Battery is battery , so it would be the my bio and it would be plugged into the battery side , and then my power supply is the source from the car , so that would be the car's battery .

I saw one of them in North Carolina and I was like I saw it driving and then we went to the store and it was parked in the parking lot and I took a look at it . And then I just saw one in Merrimack , right at exit 11 . It was parked in a parking lot and I'm like damn , I'm like that has got to be the ugliest thing I've ever seen .

Like what damn ? I'm like that is gotta be the ugliest thing I've ever seen . Like what what everybody says , yeah , it doesn't look even like a truck . Like what do you ? I mean , it looked like something like I'd build like with legos when I was a kid , you know , yep well , all right , I'll comment on that in a second .

I'd buy it , and I don't care how much it would cost me , so like , okay , I'd be able to charge everything off of it yeah , uh , all right .

Like he put a turret on it with a 50 cal and everything like it looks like a warthog .

We we've got a , let's say , a um smorgasbord smorgasbord , yeah , or uh , you know , buffet style kind of uh conversation . Tonight we're gonna be bouncing all over the place here tonight . Um , you know , we were just kind of , you know , vamping uh offline a little bit , thinking about you know , hey , what , what topics should we talk about ?

You know where should we go ? And and uh , because we definitely got some stuff that we're working in the background on having uh on future shows . But this show we're just going to take a little lightly , you know .

I mean it's not going to be the vacation show of todd and and paul , but uh , you know it'll be a combination of all of us and stuff going on .

Over there I didn't cry about the uh ham and potato side of things in terms of uh , you know , being so bad . I actually love the the delivery of ham one . I was just coming up with a crappy one and that's what came to mind . So that tells you how good my you know creative skills are . I you know I .

YouTube , which we probably already are anyway .

And if I was stupid enough to hang on to him a potato , you know I , you know I would not be as popular as we are today . Put it that way . All right , well , enough of that . Um , so you know we got a bunch of things we're going to chat about , so we're just going to kind of dive into it .

So you know , um , one of the things that we've just been recently doing , I think , is a club that I thought was pretty cool . Um , that , uh , a little backstory is . I like to kind of . You know push um . You know activities in our club because you know it makes you know the three-letter word fun . Come out and you know push um .

You know activities in our club because you know it makes you know the three-letter word fun . Come out and you know people enjoy you know fooling around with the hobby . So I did . You can go on my channel and check this out . But I did a , uh , a live fox hunt and from that , um , my daughter had done it and it was a blast . It was good video .

You can go check it out on my channel if you want to see it , um , and we'll put it in the show notes on my channel . You know , at the time livery and ham wasn't doing video until now , but and uh , with that , um , a lot of conversation came . I was like , oh , dude , wouldn't it be great if we could build antennas ?

You know what would be a great thing . And so , guess what ? You know what's the cheapest , easiest antenna to build ? Uh , a tape measure y . You know we , we kind of did a zoom build on our club zoom meeting with , you know , the tape measure Yagi , and I thought that was a good project .

I mean , you know we , we had all the parts and everything , and I haven't a chance to finish soldering , excuse me up my coax , but I know you tested yours on the show , you know , the zoom live , and it worked out great .

And I was like this is great , like I built it , and not only did I not have to fix anything , it worked the first time .

So I'm chiseling away and I got a dull blade and the thing's smoking and smoking and all of a sudden I get through it , I put it down and it's just sitting there and before I moved it and I I turn around and I'm looking and the thing is like literally caught on fire . It was smoking .

I'm like , oh crap , I'm like it's on fire lighting your new deck on fire . I know well the old railing . But yeah , it was pretty , it was pretty bad . I was like , oh boy . So my wife's like get the hose , get the hose . I had to hose it down . I'm like , holy crap I go .

I would have ever thought I would have started a fire on my deck by using the multi tool because I'm too damn cheap . They will get a new , uh , the new blade . I was like I just used this old one . I only have a couple more to do we've all done it , man .

You know the pieces of wood , so it was like cindering inside , it had no place to .

You need to take away one of the three yeah , what all else fails .

And , uh , you know , in how my antenna performs , I know , I I , based off of your preliminary test , I I have some confidence that I cut them the right length and who we should be tuned for the two meter band .

You have a little transmitter . Wait a minute . Where the hell is that signal coming from ? You know , have you like ? Can you identify paul in the woods ? He's a big foot , I know . Right , that would be the worst .

All of a sudden it turns into like , uh , you know the bedford police showing up and yeah , all of a sudden it turns into the Bedford police showing up and all of a sudden , all of the SWAT . Oh yeah , no , not looking forward to that . Well , yeah , so that was kind of fun , I had a blast with that and looking forward to kind of doing .

We do a lot more of those with our club , I think , in the wintertime . So it was kind of a weird time for us to be on a Zoom , because we usually use zoom when we're trapped in our you know , you know shacks in the winter time and not willing to go out in the six feet of snow .

But you know , with that it was still fun and I'm hoping the rest of the club members that had their kits were able to build them and and they'll be ready for the . The Fox on suit , so that'd be cool . Cool box on soon , so that'd be cool , cool , awesome . Well , let's , uh , let's , dive in like we talked . Uh , one of our other things was like 4h .

Um , that was an interesting segue . We talked about it a little bit at the beginning of the show , um , but I thought , uh , from a standpoint , what , what was your highlight ? You know , real , for you , paul , like , uh , obviously , the context I you already mentioned , but anything else kind of catch your fancy with the , we'll say , ambiance .

I mean , we obviously mentioned the tractor show and some of the other interesting aspects that the 4-H provides , but anything in our little corner of the world , you know , kind of , you know , gave you a good memory .

He was just kind of tired and done with the go to station and I was like I'll sit down and I'll operate for a little bit . And I got into a good rhythm and I'm getting some good contacts and and I'm like all right , you know , last call , last call , last call . And I get a guy and I'm like all right , thanks so much , you're the last call .

Have a great day . And thank you everybody for taking part in this wonderful special event . You know it's 4h and blah , blah , blah and it's 73 . We are qrt , qrt , qrt . And then I got four guys that all come in at the same time . They're like like no , no , no , no , come on , come on , come on .

And they're throwing their call signs out and I was like Ira , this is what you do , and I just took the volume novels all the way down . We are done . Sirs , have a great day .

So like , if I'm going to gonna like , if it's gonna get to like 95 , I'm gonna go for the next five so I can get 100 and then go from there . But this one , oh yeah , no , we get to a round number , let's roll three more guys , let's keep going . I was like , oh my gosh , todd , we're gonna go , and you said you had to go 10 minutes ago .

It does not stop I love it .

Let them know that where they can follow us to the next park , and they'll be able to get that plenty of times . That was a tough lesson but yeah , we got through that one . Yeah , I think .

For me , with the 4-8 stuff , the one thing I was totally blown away by is that we got a club member , um , and some of our community members might know him , ralph K C one T O Y , great guy , very passionate about ham radio , loves always having a HT specifically Okay .

Yeah , he has a big addiction when it comes to HTs and , as as we all mentioned , the specific variety of Chinese HTs .

So we went up to his radio room you are not kidding like he had a probably a 24 foot long shelf window , you know arrangement , and there was no space whatsoever in between the radios . They were all back to back to back to back to back . I'm like ralph , um , what's the difference between that one and that one ? He's like oh yeah , it's this . I'm like .

I'm like , okay , he knows , he knows . And then the worst one . Like ralph , you know , you have an addiction if you have a name for each one of those radios . He's like I do , I have a name for listen .

I'm like holy crap , that guy just listed off like 50 names .

The only time I've used them is like when I go to like near fest or any kind of thing like that , and or field day , and this year I just didn't even bring it to , uh , marlboro I . Who am I going to have to talk to ? They voted you .

You know , why would I want to get into this hobby if I'm spending this much money on the hobby ? So he did this .

He took all of like four or five models of radios and most of them were conchangs and he had a yezu on another one , and he went online and printed out the small little amazon kind of description with the price , put them next to each of the radios and then , you know , showed visually to all of the people coming in that the hobby isn't expensive to get in ,

that you can buy a sub ht less than 50 bucks and still talk on the repeater and more so . He took it one step earlier . Like paul said , he invited them and he set up with other guys on the repeater , which are so awesome . He set up scheduled cue shows with those guys and so they were all sitting on the repeater , which are so awesome .

He set up scheduled cue shows with those guys and so they were all sitting on the repeaters both the epson and our repeater as a club um , waiting for these people to make contact with them , and so what he would do is that , you know , he'd show them the , the hts , and they'd be like , oh , go ahead , pick one .

And he grabbed that ht and then he'd go outside and he would be like , hey , let's set up a qso . And so he would engage somebody from a 440 side , depending on the type of radio , or on the two meter side , and he was just like knocking it out of the park .

I mean , I have never seen someone like get people to the point that , like I said earlier , either running out tomorrow and clicking on that amazon link that they'd already taken a picture of to go buy that HT because they know they needed it , and two , probably signing up for their next technician's test , or running out and buying the book online so they could

start studying quickly using any one of the apps . And so that was just total awesomeness with what that was going on , was just like . That was just total awesomeness with what that was going on .

And so I've thanked ralph , you know , multiple times and I know a bunch of other people did in the club too as well , watching how awesome that was , because a lot of people just left there going yeah , I can do ham radio .

Yeah , I don't have to , like spend gazillions amounts of dollars to , like you know , play in that space and you know , to basically get into something like that . That . That was awesome . Yeah , that's awesome .

I don't know how they do it but like , yeah , he could just go in there and have him sell off his channel and buy direct and he could make money . Geez , you buy more .

He was what I'll call the ringleader of the whole entire weekend , or that's how it was , Because as people entered the door , he was like , hey , you want to learn about ham radio ?

And then literally they would not have two seconds to say anything more and he would be already escorting them over to hey , learn your name in CW or here , talk to Ralph , If Ralph wasn't busy or like you know . So they had this whole system set up and I was just totally like you know , this is this , is it I mean ?

I'm a big fan of cloning myself because I could use a few of me , but anyway , it sounded like a good time and just tons of positive feedback since it happened . Just on the repeaters and just today on the net , that's all they really talked about how wonderful it was , and so I think it's a good thing for us .

And just today on the net , that's all they really talked about how wonderful it was , and so I think it's a good thing for us . It's one of the things that we promote here . You know we're trying to .

This whole podcast is about promoting ham radio and it's just another way to do it , to get out there in the community and it's a hands-on kind of learning thing and people can touch radios and say , oh , this radio is 25 bucks . They're like what you know that'll get . That would have gotten me in if I didn't .

You know , if I walked up there and I wasn't , didn't know anything about it , and you said you can go on amazon buy this . I would have bought one right there at the spot . You know , was there cell phone coverage out there ? yeah , it was all right , it's all right .

It's here in new hampshire , you know , I don't have cell phone service at my house , let alone my town . It sucks .

So I'll give you guys the floor . I'm tired of talking what's going on with the remote station stuff with you guys .

And I'm like , ah , for like the last 24 hours , because I went on trying to get Alaska and I was like , what do you mean ? I have no radios available . And then I went down I saw it was just not turned on , so I rebooted it . He's got one on order , I believe , and I think he just wanted to get full around with it and I didn't mind him doing it .

And I don't know how he's been doing it . I haven't talked to him since he had the trouble logging on , but he did tell me that he did get logged on once . He fixed his problem on his end . Yeah we'll have to talk .

You know , uh , discretion , uh has been um , both , uh amazing to constantly keep seeing your , your name in , uh in lights all the time , uh , especially on the HRC side . But , um , you know , from a standpoint of , uh , you know , just seeing how like they they're using New Hampshire stuff , that's like to me , that's awesome .

But anyway , we'll take your thunder Go .

But anyways , it's Oklahoma Paul , and I met him through the Flag and Torch Society and what he was doing was making his radio available to any of the deployed soldiers , and so Flag and Torch being mostly active duty guys , there's constant rotations throughout the world .

And so I had a friend of mine in Flag and Torch that was deployed to Romania for a while and I sent him an antenna and somebody else in the club had sent him a radio , so that you know , I mean he had something in Romania to play with , but for the most part because a lot of these countries that guys are deployed to , you know , there's a lot of

restrictions and you know , depending on where you are and what your base is like , you might not be able to put up an antenna . So I said , well , let me also do this , so that way they have an alternate station . So if they can't , you know , get in through Oklahoma , at least they'd have a New Hampshire station and they can use it .

And we've got another guy . He's deploying very , very soon , within the next couple of days , he's going to an undisclosed location in Africa for 18 months , and so I sent him the link and everything and I said look , it's rcforb remotehamscom .

I went a step above and beyond and I also got the SDR console V3 where you can actually take your whatever is displayed on your SDR and you can stream it , and so that makes it a little bit more like the Flex interface where you've got RC4 and you see the radio face on RC4 , but then you're actually using the SDR console to do your tuning and you get ,

you know , the full spectrum , waterfall and everything , and it's a really nice interface . Um , so , yeah , so that my , my station is it's it's pretty locked down , uh , but any , anybody that wants access , uh , if you send me an email uh , it's on cure's ad , just send . Just send me an email and I'll give you the approval .

But yeah , primarily I put it up there for active duty guys to use while they're deployed .

And then , you know , we just kind of got busy with life and didn't really follow up . And then paul's like hey , yo , get you . Gave him his offer and you know he was on there a couple of live stream shows that I was listening to him like what's , what's going on .

And then I realized that Shane's like all of a sudden like hey , we're doing a live stream now we're going to play ham radio , which is very rare for HRC in general . But yeah , he was . It was the fun episode of trying to reach Jason . I thought he was over in Texas , right ? Is that the one that ?

And you know they kept bouncing back and forth with the . You know they kept bouncing back and forth with the . You know , hey , we'll , we'll get paul going and get some pauls . And he's like I can't hear him . And then I was like paul's like give me a second here , hold my beer .

And uh , you know , within two seconds he's , you know , blasting uh jason with another . What ? 500 watts or 750 watts , or less than a kilowatt or something like that , just uh well , yeah , I mean .

So , sideband , effectively , on the meter it was reading about 500 , a little better than 500 watts , watts , um , but the the funniest part of that is I had gotten jason from my radio , uh , like 10 minutes before the stream barefoot , and then they , they were using my station and they couldn't , couldn't make , make it through .

And so , yeah , I mean the , the amp uh can't stay on you on for remote use , because if you change bands , the amp's not going to like that . But yeah , I was like yeah , I'm sitting here , so let me warm it up . And yeah , all right , give it a go now . Yeah , they broke through Awesome .

And and Kyle did a live stream from one of the parks he was working out in St Louis and I was like I got the ham alert that he was on . I was like , oh , I'll swing over to my flex . And as I swing over my flex , all of a sudden I'm like why am I ?

why , why , like , why is it when I move the band , one or two killers this way it all reverts back . And I'm like it .

Apparently , and you know again , flex and all their infant wisdom still has kind of that old school mentality that , even though you give people access to your flex and they're using your login information , they really have control of the sdr software per se .

And it's not like what they call their multi-flex , which is that , like you know , I can have a slice , he can have a slice . Well , no , that's not true . I can have a separate slice . So I could probably . But when we transmit , like , if I'm on his slice , I have control just as much he control .

So we could let their like fight back and forth over what goes on . And I , like I spent five minutes like why is my mic ? You flip him back ? Why , like , why is the EQ flat ? Like this doesn't make sense . And I go to my profile and I click the profile and it changes everything and then two seconds later , all of them change again .

And I was , was like what is going on ? And I'm like I realized , um , you know , when he presses , transmit , all of a sudden , like I don't hear anything , like I'm not hearing the audio back . And I'm like , oh crap , shane's on my flex . And so I was like , at that point , I'm hitting him on discord . I'm like , hey , are you using the flex ?

He's like , yeah , I'm like I'm trying to get kyle . I'm like , well , I'm trying to get kyle . I mean , like I can't hear each other if you keep fighting us back and forth . And so , you know , I'm like , all right , fine , just go ahead .

And you know , go ahead , you make your contact and then let go of the flex and I'll go play with it , try to see if I can make a contact . But then , of course , you know , the bands and their infinite wisdom just fell on the floor and he almost got the contact . I got nothing except static . So , oh , the life we live . But cool , all right .

Well , you know , so remote , I mean , we're getting into it . It's definitely fun to do . Um , if you've got a friend or buddy who's got one , you know , dude , see if you can get their access . I mean , that's kind of what that's basically .

Again , todd being my flex pusher was what pushed me over the edge to get a flex , because he's like here , here's my login information and so you know when he wasn't using it . I was using it and I was like oh , I really like this . So you know , we're just enablers . I guess is what it boils down to well again , I mean it's it's .

Already , I mean , our club has our club radio that I know uh , tim had used for a while . Um , casey won qdk and you know , and he's I don't know who has it now , but it's uh but we have a club radio that we give to new members to try out and to get on until they get their own . So , um , anyway , so anyway , good good deal .

I'm glad , uh , we're able to do that and I like that idea about , uh , your buddy there , you know , allowing all the , all the guys in active duty getting access to radio so they can , uh , you know , have some fun too while they're serving our country .

But what is ? We all have been testing with Todd . I mean , we all have , at some form or another , had been introduced to getting our technician or our general class license , and we've been introduced to different styles of testing and whatnot .

But I think one of the things that I'm learning and Paul's teaching me a lot is that you know , this world of online BE testing is like the the the bees need the place to be . You know what we should be doing . So , you know , talk to us a little bit about it . You know what , what ?

What have you learned in your experience so far as we kind of , you know , push our club at into 21st century a little bit and trying to do some of that , and you know , maybe we can talk a little bit about . You know how easier it is to . You know , take tests .

Now , you can't touch anything above a technician test as a general , so that was that was my motivation to get my extra , and so I took my . I took my technician and my general in person . I did my technician up in Concord , at the Bektash Shriners there , and those guys in Concord were super great . They were very , very , very nice .

And then , when I upgraded general , I took that with GSARA , and I did that in person as well .

And the one thing that I was noticing with these testing sessions , though , is everything is paper and it's a little bit slow , and so , as I was gearing up and studying for my extra , I was obviously getting more involved in Flag and Torch , and Flag and Torch uses the greater Los Angeles area radio group for all of their testing , because we do hybrid testing ,

because most of our guys are active duty and they're on a military base , and so what they'll do is they'll have a week or two week long class and the culmination of the class will be a testing session . And so it was really , it was really interesting to to be able to sit in on the virtual side of things . You know where I got to .

I got to see and experience what it's like to do online testing and hybrid testing , where you've got a v that's in the room and they're handing out the tests and they're doing the grade cam , um , and and then you know like a totally remote session is unreal , like I mean you would talk about the easiest testing session of the world .

Like you , you got an opening script and you just kind of go through the script and you say , hey , you know , show me your room .

And they , they do a nice slow pan with their computer and they show you the room , they show you the ceiling and they show you underneath their desk and everything and and you make sure that their workspace is clean and clear and um , but they take the test online , it's instantly graded and it it shows up in exam tools that hey , it's green if they pass ,

it's red if they fail . If they pass , just like an in-person session , you get to take the next element if you're ready for it , and I really wanted to get our club to get away from the old school paper , wanted to get our club to get away from the old school paper and exam tools is .

It's a phenomenal resource and a lot of clubs are using it for online and hybrid and in-person testing sessions . Um , so I , I reached out to the , the head , the lead , the team lead for uh , gsa , ra , v , um and I and I said let me explain to you a little bit of what I've been doing with exam tools and and how that can benefit us .

Um , and so we sat down . Uh , what last week ? Uh , and I and I , yeah , I , I , I showed him on on my laptop . I said look , this is how easy it is and for the VEs , once the VE is set up in exam tools , it is so super easy .

You get assigned to the testing session and then , once the testing session is complete , you just click and you sign and you've got a digital signature . So all of the forms are digital and so they're all submitted up the food chain digitally and then the testee gets a digital copy instantly , right , so there's no more waiting for paper .

There's no more , you know , mailing the packet to the , you know the ARRL , and then they would then submit it to the FCC and , you know , a week or two later you get your call sign assigned to you . With everything being digital , it's all fast and you'll have a call sign issued to you within a couple of days .

So very , very happy and very proud to be kind of leading , uh , our club in in this new VE venture . Um , we've got a testing session coming up on September 14th and that'll be my first session running a session . So you know , uh , it's it's kind of a big deal for me , I guess , my first one on my own .

But yeah , I hope that in the future we can get some hybrid and some remote sessions , because currently we're only doing four in-person sessions a year and I think we could do better than that .

I think we should be able to do an event like the 4-H Agricultural Fair where we could say , hey , look , we're going to have a technician class for two to four hours and then at the end of the technician class we're going to have an exam session and just do it all right there and get everybody done and licensed .

Do it all right there and get everybody done and licensed . So I'm very excited about the future of VE testing and I got to say huge , huge shout out , right . I mean , we promote HAM study a lot and not for any reason that benefits us in any way . It's just a .

It's a great platform to learn , it's a great platform to study on , but it's also the platform that brought us exam tools and so you know , signal stuff is , is , is the the primary business that funds it all and and huge shout out to those guys because it's a great platform , it's easy to use and , um , and I and I and I really do uh look forward to a

lot of uh , the future nv testing for our club and maybe live free at ham yeah , yeah , we .

You know further the registration side of things and and getting people licensed and uh know when and where and have you be part of it . It'd be kind of fun , it'd be more than fun , it'd be awesome . I'd love to be able to . You know , wouldn't it be cool to be able to report numbers , like every like couple of weeks ?

So like hey , we had 25 hams , well 25 , we had 12 hams , you know , all of a sudden become licensed , you know 25 .

Because of my very first technician's test , I had to wait eight and a half weeks for my license to show up in the mail . Like I mean , I'm not , it's nothing like , I'm not like saying get off my lawn , type things , but it was .

It was still a long period and I was like 18 years old and I was , or no , I was 17 at that time and I was like I have to wait eight weeks for my freaking license .

This is really well , they have to mail it and you know , someone has to spend time sending the stuff yeah , well , my um , my first one , so it was god , I think it was , it wasn't , was it there ?

I got my on the website , on the FCC website . It was a lot quicker than getting the actual paper and nowadays you know one of the technicians that you can to get your technician license . Once it's on that webpage and and published , then you can talk right and and get on the air . My second one I did at um the ham , the Marlboro , what do they call it ?

Hamvention and uh , I kind of went with you guys , or I went with you and I think Bill was there . I can't remember who else was there . Brian with us ?

I'm like general and uh , it was just a big open room and there was different people at different stages doing all the tests , um , and they had I want to say they probably had like 10 VEs in there , you know , probably watching each one , like there was a lot of them up front and uh , yeah , that's how I got my general .

And then what was cool about that is I got it and you know , once you're a technician , you become a general . You can , you can activate , you know , you can start using the bands basically right away , but you have to do like what slash , stroke a , a G , yeah , stroke a G , yeah , stroke AG . So that was a little tongue twister-y .

I'm like geez . So it was like I would just check it like once a day . Like you know , nowadays you'd think there'd be like an app and you'd get an alert being like ding , you're on . But you know the government's always behind on their website stuff . So that was frustrating for me on their website stuff . So that was frustrating for me .

But you know , I think , paul , if , if there was a way that , you know , with this , if it gets to the point where , like , people can just do it online and you can have , you know , we could do one , like once a month at the club , like you know , like we do a club meeting , we do a test session , whether we get anyone or one or a hundred , you know ,

whatever , I think that would be awesome and and the convenience would be , um , would be huge , because that was the other one , like I had the for my technician , like I couldn't find one that was local , like that was the closest one . I mean they were like , oh , you can go down to rhode island .

I'm like I'm not going down to rhode island , like that's ridiculous , right so ?

So I , literally I went on to ham study and I said , find a session online . And there was one that started in five minutes . And so I clicked on it and I registered and I paid the I think it was 10 bucks instead of 15 . And I , all right , paypal paid it . And and so I got to experience .

That was my first experience with , you know , exam tools and all of that . And it was amazing . It was so easy , it was so relaxed .

You know , I was literally sitting in my living room in my recliner with a laptop and , you know , all they wanted to do was see the room , they wanted to make sure there wasn't anybody around that was going to bother me or they would . You know , there was no testing information that was going to .

You know , give me an advantage , um , and I , that's what I was like yeah , sign me up for this because I want to do this , I want to help with this because it's so good and to have all of your files digital , your CSCEs digital , your 605s digital . You get it instantly , as soon as the testing session is concluded .

It is in your inbox , in your email , and then the FCC emails you that says , yep , all right , we received it . And it's like two , three days later . So , yeah , it's 100% a no-brainer . It just makes things so much easier .

I was talking with Bob AA1DY , who is currently our VE lead until we have a transition , but I asked him I said what is it like after a session for you ?

And he said well , he said I have to go home and then I have to scan all of the tests and the answer sheets and their 605s and I have to scan everything all in a row and then compile it into a PDF and then email it to the ARRL . And I was like what a giant pain in the ass that is .

The ARRL is still doing everything the old way , but I did hear a rumor and it's a rumor , but I heard a rumor that by next year the ARRL is going to push all of their VE teams to switch to exam tools because it is so much more an efficient process . So we're just going to be a little bit ahead of the curve , and that's good .

The other thing too is like if you , if you go to like , say like you know the fair , and you see it , you know , you and I know today , you know you got more technology , you can google and you know and go on YouTube and find stuff , but like , honestly , it's like how much Better would it be for like people in their own homes , you know , maybe they get

, you know , maybe they have anxiety about testing or being in rooms with people and they're not you know , they just want it to be in their . They feel more comfortable .

They might actually even do better and think of the amount of of money it must save , because I don't know if some of these exams I mean maybe a lot of them are at churches and stuff and it's volunteer , but I mean think of the time saved too .

Like if you're a you know what do you call it A VE , and you're there , I mean you don't have to be there for five hours , you know , or however long you do the session , you're just there for you know . If you're doing the session , you know one session for you know and it's over and done with and you're in your own home .

So you know , if you you gotta go get something to eat , you can go grab something to eat , or you need something to drink . You know you're home . Um , so I I don't know . I agree , I think it'd be awesome . I mean , at some point they'll probably just have like an app for it .

You know , you just take the test on the app and voila , you're done so well , that's so .

that is exam tools and then that's it . I mean , you literally take your test right there and you can just select your answers and you go down through the list . If you have to skip a question , it highlights it and it shows it up at the top and it'll show you all the number of the questions that you skipped .

Well , I've heard so many horror stories too about people like they'll skip a question and but they forget to squip it , uh , to skip it on the bubble sheet , and so then every single question is wrong from there on out and they just they never realize , you know , but so doing it this way , it's , it's foolproof .

This , you know , testing session remote . Would you be willing to do this ? You know , and nine times out of 10 , most people jump on it Like , yeah , sure I could do one session .

So you've got now like more in the process to be able to get people tested without having to cause more delay because like , oh well , we can't find a room or we can't find enough people to staff the VE session to be able to make it official , and so forth and so on .

So yeah , it's a win-win-win all the way across the board , which is kind of silly for any club not to want to do it .

I'm in New Hampshire , I'm not in Los Angeles , but I'm VE-ing for them .

You know I work for the state and they would never let us use like zoom or any kind of video conferences for meetings . And then covid hit and all of a sudden they're like oh yeah , we can do this and I've been telling them to do this for like years . I'm like why are we driving every other day like 100 miles to go to a 20 minute meeting ?

I can just do it online . Oh , we , we can't do that . You know that's not good practice . Blah , blah , blah . Now you know everything's on zoom or teams or whatever . So so , yeah , that's , that's awesome . Uh , maybe I get my extra . The three of us could be our own uh testing session .

Hey , if we're striking a chord with folks that might be listening head over to Discord , check us out , let us know that you'd be interested and we'll get this ball rolling . It's an opportunity and it's something that you can obviously give back in , but more so , you get a whole lot more back from it just by doing it .

So it's totally awesome and I'm all for it . So I'm looking forward to seeing what . I am looking forward to the challenge when we need more VEs and we have too many people signing up for the from the 4-H because they all want to get their technician , that , that , that . When I get to that place , I was like , okay , I've , I've done it , I've completed it .

Let's see , let's hand this off and move it to something else . So you know , that's kind of my goal with that . So that'd be cool . So , all right , well , let's kind of wrap this up , since we're a little long here , but if you're still stuck with us , we're hanging out . Um , it's always a blast .

We , we are not like the ham radio uh clubhouses or you know the uh ham radio workbench folks , but we , we definitely still like to chat and talk about ham radio and so you know , if you've uh enjoyed any of this , you know , let us know . Talk to us in the discord , say hello . Um , you know , let's , let's keep this conversation going going .

It's always something fun to talk about . We're passionate about it . We know others out there are the same way , so let's see what we can do to put some feet under it . All right , well , with that , you guys have any last things you guys want to add to our smorgasbord event tonight , or you're all hammed out .

Well , let's wrap this up here . So thanks again for joining Live Free and Ham and being part of the podcast community . Remember , if you haven't subscribed , we say what the hell you been doing . Come on , you know . Come be part of what's going on . We'd love to have you if we want to hang out and get to know you more .

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