From Missteps to Mastery: Ham Radio’s Community Impact

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 first-time guest , we are excited to have you here and appreciate your support and thanks for tuning in to tonight's episode . So let's get into the show . I'm your host , eric , call sign W1LFH .

Wait , I can explain , you know , just sit tight , we'll get in with our co-host later . That was a big debacle of the year . But you know , obviously in normal fashion here I'd like to introduce my partners in crime . How's it going , paul ?

We want you to head over there , check out all of our merch because there are some great teas and awesome products up there that just support the live free and ham community . But at the same time you get to wear proudly . You know I know being at a near fest . You know I bumped into a bunch of people . They were all excited . They knew who we were .

They were excited to see it . They were , you know , they were glad to get the live free and ham stickers . For sure . That was a big , you know , big plus for me . I don't know about you , paul , did you get a bunch of them ?

You can always send us a review , because we all love feedback , and the nice part is that we're getting some , and so we're excited to share that with you a little bit . But you can always use that SMSs link in , uh , our description of every show , just click it and send it .

Or you can use the old-fashioned way check out our forms on our website , or feel free to send us an email at livefreeandham at gmailcom . We want to hear the good , the bad and the ugly , um , and you too , I'm sure , are going to enjoy it . So obviously , you , we are in the month of october when this airs .

Uh , you'll probably have already been notified if we have already scheduled our live stream . If not , keep an eye out for that , because we always want to make sure you're part of that .

So make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell when you do see it , um , and we'll , uh , we'd love to have your support and be part of the youtube live stream , um . And so , as I alluded , you know we have some good news and we have bad news , and the good news is we now have a show call sign .

We all have heard it , it's w1 lfh , so a huge applause , uh , you know , for all of that , that that's totally incredible and amazing , but , yeah , incredible . We have some bad news , or I have some bad news .

I made a snafu and that snafu was in my transposing and cutting and pasting and all of these ridiculous forms that you have to fill in to get the vanity call sign . I accidentally cut and pasted in my own fr number , um , and so when they processed it , they processed it and took my call sign away .

So , as you see , I am the uh , what was formerly known as n1jur for at least a little while here and until the FCC straightens that stuff out and I get my call sign back and , man , I miss my call sign .

I can't tell you how many times over this weekend I tried to use the call sign , our club call sign , and was tripping over myself all the time that , yeah , it's definitely something I miss , so it's a sad day I requested n1jur as my new vanity call sign , so we'll see who gets it first right .

Exactly so the the race is on , but for right now I I will formally identify as w1flh lfh . Yes , see again this is my problem . This is what I was tripping over all weekend . I could never get lima foxtrot hotel . It was always hotel foxtrot lima . Finally , after a while in frustration , I would yell out live free at ham .

And somebody would be like , live what ? And then you'll finally get into the . You know to bust the pile up . So all good either way . But uh , with that , we'll keep you updated and tell you a little bit more about that in the future , once we get it all sorted out and I get back to uh being the original n1 jur . So all right .

So now that we've gotten over that uh little uh craziness there , let's get into uh , one of our uh first segments here ladies , gentlemen , can I please have your attention ? I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story . Everybody , we got some news . Slow down , boog , let me handle this . We've got some news . I've got bad news and bad news .

So that was last year , not this year and subscribed right away . I always listen to each podcast . One thing I'd like to tweak , like Todd me is going for his extra and I enjoy the test questions . I kind of wish that after each test question is answered , you would spend a bit of time explaining the correct answer . That would help reinforce the right answer .

And you know what ? I agree with him . I think it would be helpful . I go to the ham fest or the ham fest on ham study . I do that when I get the answer wrong or I don't know it or I don't understand , I hit that little question mark and it explains . So I think we're going to try that today , right ?

paul , yeah , message received and we will absolutely implement that it says other than that . Thanks for creating uh , informative and entertaining podcast about our hobby . So , uh , thank you , kb1jw . We're going to take your advice and we're going to add that to my testing if we will go over the answer and why it is what it is .

So thank you for sending us an email and we encourage everyone who's listening send us an email , tell us what you think . Good , new , bad . You know we can make fun of Eric and his loss of call sign . I didn't even know you could do that , but Eric figured out a way to do it . So now he's not going to . Now .

If I go out and do a poter this week with him , he won't be so famous . We'll actually get through an activation without having to have a 30Q . So it's oh , I love your , your YouTube channel .

We like to call it doing good or do good , and with that , if it's your first time listening , do good is all kind of a brainchild brain trust that we created because we were tired of hearing all the lids , we were tired of hearing the complaints , we were tired of hearing about how bad clubs are , so forth and so on .

So we asked you guys , and we pulled all of our listener base and said , hey , you know , we want to do something good , we want to hear your good stories , we want to hear what awesome stuff is happening in your club . So we created this segment and , yeah , it's been a struggle barely .

I mean , every time we get a call , every time we get feedback from somebody , yes , very little good going on these days , oh my gosh , every time , every time , and it's , it's , it's , it's , it's trite and sarcasm that comes back with the hey , this is how the good stuff is going on in our club . So you know here , add to it .

So again , we , we appreciate it , bring it on , we want to hear it and , as always , are you know , you can reach us via two or three ways , um , and the first one obviously is you can send us an email , livefreeandham at gmailcom . I know it's a little old-fashioned , but that's one way you can submit your do good , um .

The other option is is we've got a new whiz bang form on our website . If you go up to livefreeandhamcom forward , slash do good , all one word . You can fill in the form and tell us a little bit about your do good story and we'll be glad to share it on .

But if you're the PR resistance , as they say , and you're one of those go-getters , then send us a win link . Send it to Paul actually not me , because my win link doesn't work and I'm too lazy to get my butt in gear to fix it . Maybe one day you can , he'll come over and fix it for me and then we'll go from there .

But if you send it via win link yeah , if you send it via win link , then yeah , it's said to be a win link , then you know , we want you to be on the show . So whether it's a recorded show , um , or it's one of our live streams , we want you to come on and hang out with us and share your story .

Obviously , if you were last month's live stream , you uh would have been privy to mike's um do good story and to mak that was a great story and all the stuff that he's doing in his club and what their club's doing in new york , um , and so we're looking for stuff like that .

And , uh , you know , carlos uh k9ol life at terminal velocity came through this week , um with his email , and so he's sharing his story and he used the form . So if carlos can use the form , then you can use the form . There's no reason , no excuse , nothing . And so Carlos writes doing good .

Well , the Fort Wayne Radio Club , w9te and Allen County Amateur Radio Technical Society helped with the Allen County Safety Fair in Fort Wayne in early September . As Carlos says , they spread the gospel of ham radio . Love them , god , bless them all and help spread the word about how amateur radio can help when things go bad .

And we , you know actually funny , as we're talking about tonight a little bit about that , so it'll be good . And so also , he recommends the Whitley County Amateur Radio Club , wc9ar . Every year there's a 100-mile race oh my gosh , that's long At Chano Lake State Park , which is also a podo park , because he listed it here . So you heard him .

I guarantee he's probably stationed at that park doing comms for them and also activating at the same time .

But he says this club always helps the race by providing operators at checkpoints along the race for getting information back to race management and uh as well as uh talks a little bit more about how the status of runners and the course the race takes place and I guess in october 12th and 13th , which is actually coming up , uh , soon .

So if you're in the area , um , and you know of that club , you know and you want to volunteer head over to them area and you know of that club , you know and you want to volunteer head over to them and you know I'm sure they would love the support and continue to , you know , provide communications for the race itself .

It looks like they have 13 different stations and five different shifts and the race is a two-day race , wow . So if you belong to a club , you know , or you hang out with a bunch of guys and gals doing podo meetups , you know we want to hear about it .

You know , share the ham radio , uh , gospel , you know , the ham radio hobby does some awesome stuff in it and we want to continue to spread that message . So send us your note , your stories and , like we said , we will be gladly uh glad to feature them on our next episode or have you on one of our live streams .

So with that , we now get into our ever fun little segment here that we call . And now for something a little extra with Todd W1STJ . All right , well , you've heard it here .

This is where we help Todd study for his extra class license , and each episode we pick three questions from the extra class question pool to test his knowledge and hoping he gets the upgrade , uh , two extra .

And so if you'd like to follow along , you can always head over to hamstudyorg , which is a great resource , and we love the app , um , and it'll help you prepare , like we use it on our show .

Uh , every uh time we test todd to prepare for your test , and it's recommended by three out of four volunteer examiners because the arl was unavailable for comment at the time of when I ran the survey . So without further delay , I'll hand it over to our VE Quizmaster and , dear friend Paul , take it away , let's drill them .

That would have to be , I'd say , linear , it would have to be the line B .

A trigger is used to determine when the beginning of the pattern is . Otherwise it would just be showing a pattern at a random point in time . A trigger is used to determine when the beginning of the pattern is . Line triggers are edge triggers that look for the 50% level of the selected slope on the AC power line mains connected to the oscilloscope .

In other words , whenever the 50% level is crossed , it uses that as a reference point . A line trigger is useful when measuring power supplies , inverters and rotating machinery that are line frequency dependent , and so a test hint provided for you is that you measure a linear power supply output ripple or linear contains line .

C Excessive blanking occurs , which prevents display of the waveform . Or is it ? D ? A false , jittery , low-frequency version of the waveform is displayed , and you should know this , because you've already gotten this one correct on another episode . I did , yeah , you did , all right . Well , I'm going with D .

So generally an oscilloscope sampling at 20 megahertz will have filters to reject signals above 10 megahertz for this reason so memory aid , when you read aliasing in the question , think of alias as a false name . This will drive you to the correct answer choice .

Yep , but for the third and final question , todd , we've got what could be the cause of local AM broadcast band signals combining to generate spurious signals on the MF or HF band . Is it A one or more of the broadcast stations is transmitting an overmodulated signal . B your station receiver IF amplifier stage is overloaded .

C You're receiving skywave signals from a distant station . Or is it D Nearby corroded metal connections are mixing and re-radiating the broadcast signal .

Broadcast stations are regularly monitored and would notice any kind of abnormal transmission , so a mistake on their part is highly unlikely . However this is a silly hint AM music look for the answer with metal band , aka Metallica .

People raise your lighters , all right . Well , hey , that's not bad , just say for yourself hey , I'm getting there right .

And so , like we say every episode , if you've recently received your license or you upgraded , let us know . We want to recognize you on the next episode for all your hard work , all the effort you put in for it . And you can email us at livefreeandham at gmailcom . If you're on our Discord , you can hit us up there too .

Or if you're just next to the app and you're listening to us on your podcast app of choice , go into the notes section , hit that sms link and send us , you know , an update . We want to hear from you .

So you know , we want to share with you and you know , and rejoice and continue to welcome you into the hobby , if it's being a technician , or you know you got upgraded , all right . Well , we wrapped up all of that , but you know , in usual fashion , um , you know , let's talk . How's your hammer your week's been , guys , and start with you , paul .

How's your hammer , your week bud ?

Uh , we got hit with a big geomantic magnetic storm , um , but otherwise I think the highlight of the week , ham radio wise , was near fest , yeah , and so , uh , that was my first time experiencing any type of a ham expo , flea market kind of thing . Um , I had a ton of fun . I went both days .

Uh , I wish , I wish I had gotten to spend more time on Friday is , um , like Saturday , by by the time I got there at one o'clock , uh , like half the people had packed up and laugh , yeah , um , but I , I did .

I did find some good deals on things that you know , I really wasn't looking forward , nor did I want , but so , uh any , any interesting deals you find , I assume , with your first . Uh well , so there was a . There was a guy that had a whole bunch of old cop stuff and he had Panasonic Toughbooks that were from the sheriff's department .

So I picked one of those up for $25 . And he had an SUV police light bar and I said , hey , just out of curiosity , what do you want for that ? He goes give me five bucks , you can have it . So I got myself a police light bar .

So change the led color from blue to you know , yellow or maybe green , and uh , yeah , just rock it on the truck cool , I think .

This year was kind of special because we got , I wouldn't say , kicked out of , but we were kind of encouraged to move on from our location that they've been with for a long time . We moved over to a new one closer to us , which was awesome , which I'm really happy with .

It's like 20 minutes away instead of 35 or 40 or whatever it is , but I thought it was pretty good . I mean the the one thing you , if this is your first hand fest , you may not have been aware is that with near fest , traditionally everybody shows up on Thursday afternoon and camps out .

When they were over at Deerfield , camps out Thursday and then they open the gates , like it's 7 am , and then everybody rushes in . Who slept over the night before to , you know , basically set up shop . This year , I think that they just you , showed up on Thursday , so people had already been camping Thursday night .

So that's probably why they bolted Saturday afternoon , because it was like , dude , I've been here for two days already , I'm ready to go home . So that's why , uh , you didn't see much going on .

To me it's like , uh , I I just picture all these wives , the yl , saying you see , all this stuff , bring it to near fest and come home with nothing , nothing , because a lot of it is a lot of old stuff . Like I saw a scanner I think it was my first scanner as a kid that they had . It was like an eight channel scanner .

I'm like , oh crap , I had one of those . Like 20 bucks , you can have it . I'm like , yeah , I don't need another scanner .

It's much better being on the driver's side , but it basically mounts underneath your headrest . It's like a bar and it attaches out and fits a lot better . I just used to have the speaker just kind of sitting on the side between , like just in between the , the main seat and the headrest , that metal piece .

I just had it sticking in there and this is a much more professional looking and clearer , cleaner . So I got that works well , very easy to uh , install , no , no holes , no screws or anything .

He has like one of those like little clear plastic , like watertight , like you put your phone in , and he had a bow fang and some other thing . He made a repeat and he showed me how it worked . But yeah , you could like if you were you know you were hiking or whatever and you had a bunch of people out , you can get his own repeater .

It was like a little bow fang radio . It was pretty cool .

So I talked to him a little bit and uh thought that was pretty interesting and uh , yeah , and I saw you guys and and then I kind of got tired of it and went home and I was home by one , so it was good yeah , I know , lightning fast too , probably very lightning fast too , right , yeah , it was like to get home take no traffic all right , yeah , yeah ,

it took me like 15 minutes . I was like , oh well , let's talk before we go on about near , let's talk about eric and him not knowing how to follow a gps . He tells me it's in new boston and we leave goffstown and the next town over is new boston and next thing , you know , I'm like shit , we're like eight miles from concord .

Like where the hell is he taking us ? Did he tell you this , paul ?

And if you all know highways in New Hampshire , if you've been in here , when we have storms and stuff like that , or kids just get bored , they steal stuff or the signs get knocked down , and so my problem was is that I was I had a , a , a guy I was friends with and picked up over in hudson , to bring with me , and so we were in the car and we were

just talking , and so it was a blast to uh , you know , just have a conversation . We were just bouncing back and forth , talking about hf and a whole bunch of other things that when we were cruising down 13 , by the time I made the trigger in my head . I'm like , wait a minute , we're going too far here at this point .

I had no gps to be able to get you know any directions at this point . So I'm like , all right , I know 114 travels somewhere up into concord and I'm gonna have to , you know , take the long haul back . And so I radioed like I radioed to todd . At that point , when we finally got , after we left henneker I mean it was towards .

And you know , because I didn't , we had to backtrack and we were like we still got there at 9 30 . I mean , it wasn't like we missed , like you know whatever , but it was quite .

I'm like I thought the place was like 10 minutes from the restaurant .

I'm like maybe it's not new boston , maybe it's in like bow or like I was thinking like maybe it's in , uh yeah . So it was quite funny and then you know , and then he pulls up . I'm right behind him and he just takes a right . I give my money and I try to go .

Yeah , so it was off , you know . So I , uh , I just walked around and I like I'm walking out like on this back side , and I see his truck like parked on a hill like the last truck . I'm like like behind the building . I'm like what the hell is he parking way out here ?

everything else like that , and I'm like this can't be right . This is like why are they sending us through the crowds of people like it , like it's silly and so like I'm getting all the dirty looks as I'm driving through at two miles an hour and you know , people are like standing in the middle of the road and I'm just like this . They sent me the like .

It just didn't make sense . So I parked literally all the way in the back of the fair and walked it all the way back and then I had to drive all the way back through because there was no way to get out that side .

You know , if you don't want to see two , two hopeless hams trying to figure out how to set the uh ftd 3r or 3dr uh into simplex mode and take the repeater shift off , you know , oh yeah , you gotta hold down the display as a hard press and then you have to go into config . But that took todd and I like half an hour to 20 minutes .

What is him buying ? But it wasn't for him buying , it was for the chairs , so they'd have to lug the chairs or just pull the wagon . And I honestly thought , like tim was like in the thing and he had like a list of things that he was getting , like amps or whatever . That's where my mind goes . I'm like , what is tim getting now ? But uh , it was good .

It was really cool to see everyone . I met some guys I talked to on , uh , the epsom repeater , so it was . I had a good time . You know , it's more social for me than than buying . Um , I , I like the , the social aspect and just to hang out with people and do the ham radio thing . Cool , I saw Brian too , w-o-1 .

I think all us local guys just rely on that repeater to get on the wolf then . But yeah , it was good . Even though Peppere pepper is probably in range , and definitely I think pepper was down for a while too , because it wasn't before golf town went down . I think pepper went down . I don't know if it's up or not .

I can get both of them , but cool , all right .

I got to see I didn't expect Chris KI1P to show up with his contesting van Loved , that van Loved hanging out with him , him and I kind of strolled around , chatted about channels and stuff , and while we were kind of walking around he's cut his we'll say connections with people and antennas and stuff like that .

So every five minutes people will see him and be like , be like , hey , I got an antenna I need to sell you , or hey , I got this for your van , or whatever . And so you know he was always kind of , you know , being pulled left and right to , you know be shown you know the latest and greatest stuff for his uh , contesting van .

But it was fun and uh , you know , so we talked about he's . So popular .

He was walking down and he had him and some guy were carrying some big pieces of equipment Like . He was like oh , I'm like oh , what's he buying now ?

So , yeah , we hung around there and then I didn't get all the call signs of uh all the listeners that we bumped into that either recognized my call sign or recognized uh live free and ham and uh , we appreciate all you guys uh saying hello and and we love to uh hear that you guys listen to the podcast because , uh , you know it encourages us .

But we enjoy , uh , you know , meeting all of our listeners , so that was always fun to put uh names to faces and meet new people . Um , I also got a chance to uh talk um repeater shop a little bit with uh w1ass , who's the epson repeater owner , and so we might have him on in the future um to talk , uh , you know , to our listeners .

Some you know viewpoints from an actual repeater owner and you know take , take uh . Some , uh , you know a bit of schooling and and learn a little bit about you know what it takes to kind of run a repeater and you know all the crap that repeater owners deal with multiple repeater .

It's it's probably like a 20 minute drive to Vermont but it is like surrounded by mountains and peaks and and there's nothing up there .

And I was sitting in the parking lot and I just went on and called out and Anthony , uh , the guy that's always on that repeater , who's kind of made that repeater pretty popular , uh got me and I said , yeah , I'm in Warren , I'll , I'll keep talking to you on my way back down South . And you know Campton , plymouth .

I was at the Walmart in Plymouth in that parking lot which is up on a hill , five , nine easy . So every Peter's a good repeater . It's got a lot of a lot of space and there's a lot . It's very active now .

So , uh , yeah , it was a good to see uh , you know he offers a whole lot , so you know , and to hear some of his stuff , but at the same time he's you know . I think it's going to be fun to have on and talk about that side of the stuff .

I did buy a few kind of like you know you , you always go to the bits and bobs table inside the vendor and buy the connectors and everything You're like . I think I have one of these and you find that you always end up buying the same connector that you'd never really need .

So I think again , I bought a couple of 2L259 right angle 90 degree ones ones and I need the two female versions instead of the male female version and it's like , why do I do that ? I should just put a list together , remember you get .

There's so many of them like if you can't , if you need a connector for anything , that's the place to go , because they've got every type of connector you could possibly think of well , it's funny because I brad , this is his first time he's from north carolina or south carolina .

And so he grabbed a few . And you know , somebody was one thing I was surprised at . I don't know if you guys caught it . You ever see , remember the ? Um when we went to ham max and um , why did I forget his name was mike . Did the the wago connector to uh power pole ? Was it it Mike who does the ? Yeah , so he was selling it for a decent price .

It was like two for 20 bucks . They were selling in that barn . Yeah , those things , yeah , exactly yeah .

But uh , yeah , you know , I saw some boat anchors it was hung around with the motorola , guys from , uh , you know , the moto table and learned a little of their speak , although I don't know if I'm ready to dive into that pool quite yet .

But you know , um , I'll let him go through all of the difficulties and struggles of trying to get software and hardware set up and then I'll uh smooth sailing to uh 900 megahertz . So , all good , all right . Well , so with that let's kind of dive into our topics , uh , tonight .

So you know , obviously , when this show airs , um , more than likely , we'll probably be through , I think , our second hurricane , uh , that's rolled through the florida panhandle and and into , uh you know , the southern states there .

Uh , but we just recently kind of came off of , um , uh , the latest one that's , uh really did a lot of damage to the South Carolina , georgia , florida area , a lot of storm surge , yeah , tennessee . Oh yeah , all of those areas , all major damage . I mean I see videos after videos of people and just the cleanup process and all of the craziness in that .

But one of the things I kind of did , and just listening and kind of seeing it from an outside , looking in perspective , I was curious to see how , you know , the emergency communication side of stuff would work .

Because you always wonder and if you're like me in our local areas , you know we have those MCOM groups that meet the areas of RACES folks and they talk , you know they do their training and their drills and you know I kind of stay out of that because I'm not really like that type .

I am not cut to like want to , you know , do road races and stuff like that . Now maybe I should , and you know , just to kind of get a feel for it . But I'll , uh , you know I'll put a pin in that for now , but uh , you know I .

So I was thinking , okay , well , I'm gonna tune into some of some of the nets because there's a couple of guys that were doing live broadcasts over the two meter repeater . That was in South Carolina . We probably heard some of those communications and most of that was like welfare messages and people running like message nets for voice .

And one of the things that kind of was popping in my head while that was going on was like , okay , so where's all the other technology stuff ?

Because , like , we fought hard for a long time to get the bod rate taken off , like things like wind link and , and every time one of those disasters rolled around we had to get a waiver from the FCC to to allow us to be able to send faster symbol rates and stuff like that , to allow us to be able to send faster symbol rates and stuff like that .

And so I was looking for those stories and I didn't see them for a while . They're starting to pop up now , I think . But you know . So I kind of thought I was like OK , so what about Winlink ? What are we doing in terms of the communication side ?

Because I know when I communicate over radio , especially over HF , or even just in general on repeaters , when I communicate over radio , especially over HF or even just in general on repeaters , voice is a tough thing , especially when you're trying to confirm messages and send messages and make sure you get to the right locations .

The stuff I was hearing was I was like , what are they doing with that stuff when they get it ? Were they like , okay , well , we're going to try to get it to this person , but obviously roads are closed or damaged or whatever . How are they spending ? What's that communications network look like ? But then I was thinking , okay , well , what's bigger than that ?

Like what happens to all of like that aries racy stuff that they were training for , like they like did ? Did any of that get interact , you know , acted upon ? Did that start to like get into motion quickly , or did it ? Was it just so devastated down there that they just got blindsided ? And ?

And so I got thinking and I'm like , okay , what , what , how effective is like a lot of our ham radio aries racy stuff ?

And do we see like that strong sense of like , um , I don't will say , uh , you know enablement , or you know getting out there and saying , okay , we'll say you know enablement , or you know getting out there and saying , okay , when a disaster strikes , you know , do those guys and gals that have been training and practicing and whatever , are they starting to get

these nets up and running ? And I didn't feel that way , at least by listening to some of the stuff I heard . I heard people running informal nets , you know , to try to get some of these messages into people and out of the , the disaster site . But I thought it was like , okay , you know what , what does that look like ? And so I don't know what .

Let's kind of step back . And so what is your take on ?

Um , I haven't done a ton with aries um , but you know like I've watched their training videos and I have binders of all the frequencies and all of the you know , if things were to go wrong locally , what the plan is right .

But one of the things that kind of always , I guess , made me question right was , in a worst case scenario , you aren't going to want to overcomplicate things by using FL , digi and wind link and especially if you don't have power right and you're running everything off of battery , assuming that maybe you've got solar abilities , but even if you don't , right , I

mean , even a battery is a commodity , right , and you need to conserve your commodity because you don't know when you're going to be able to recharge it , just like fuel for your generators or whatever . Those are consumables that you have to conserve , especially in this type of situation .

So what makes sense to me is what some other groups that I'll not'll not name , uh things that they're doing right , which is , yes , they have the digital modes as a fallback , but they do active practicing in voice and and not only over uh , hf , uhf , vhf , but also cb , frs , gmrs , because , if you're thinking about it , okay , most of these people that are

getting trapped right and they're literally cut off from the world because there's no way for them to go anywhere , well , even if they've got a ham radio license , you're talking about running portable .

You know some kind of battery , you know , are they on the roof of their house because of the flooding , you know , and so the logistics of it is really really complex . So you want to make sure that you can communicate to the people in need as simply and easily as possible . That's where voice excels , you know .

So if we've got people who are monitoring , uh , you know channel three on frs , channel three on gmrs , channel three on cb plus , you know select calling frequencies on , you know the ham bands , you're gonna hear those non-hams and and be able to offer some type of communication relay or offering assistance to them .

And so I think that's where the private citizen is going to excel versus the Ares head guy who's certified to operate at the fire station , and he's the only guy , or , you know , he's one of three guys . Well , what if those three guys can't get to the fire station , operate right Like cause . They're cut off and they're stranded also , you know .

So I think , when it comes to emergency communications and what they're doing down there right now is exactly in line with this they're they're using simple voice communications easy to get messages from one person to another , whether they're a licensed not okay , I kind of buy that .

Like when there's hurricanes on the Caribbean they normally assign an HF frequency not to use to do it , but I think with this one the problem is people are they can't go anywhere because the roads are either washed out or there's trees down and no one can get to them . Landslides , landslides , like they're just . They're just like you said .

They're just disconnected from the world and there's no electricity and even the major city , like I think it's ashville , north carolina , which is a very expensive kind of high-end place to live . It's like wherever they go , you high end place to live , it's like wherever you go , you got to go to Asheville . That's like the ritzy place to go . It's destroyed .

I mean , I've seen pictures of it and I'm thinking , like you know , people aren't going to have if they don't have internet , they don't have anything . I mean , voice is going to be the way to communicate , right .

And my son asked me he goes , dad , if , dad , if , if everything is broken except your ham radio and and the house is burning down , like can I get on the ham radio and and ask for help , you know . I said well , you should get your license , son , but um so you said no to him basically you know my wife's like you .

If everything's dad , you can get on dad's radio and ask , scream for help . But I think more with Ham Radio and what hams do , is we kind of practice and perfect the art of communicating on the radio . Right , when people who watch me do poda and have never seen it before and watch me do a pile up like they're like how did you learn all that ?

Because we hear it . It's just like you know , we hear it day in and day out .

But the way we can work through nets , like being a net control right and keeping that in order and running the net , and then like someone pops in you can't hear them , and going back and passing it on to the next guy and there's different ways to do it , but that's what we do , that's why we get on the radio is like we're really practicing for , you know ,

I would say like an emergency kind of situation , and I think that's where the hams become important . I don't I mean I'm not an Aries member and I don't know much about it , but I think that any ham would be able to run any active ham .

Who who does nets , does hf , you know , is on the radio speaking , could basically run a fire station and be the head of communication , if they just have those skills . And the reason we have those skills is because we get to play radio and we practice , you know not so much .

So I mean , obviously we're going to refer to you , paul , since you studied the book and you know exactly , and so give us a little grace here a little bit .

But from the outside , looking in , I felt at least listening to the message traffic , it was kind of more like someone running an informal net who didn't have a lot of the technical formal net , who didn't have a lot of the technical , because I was looking for that technical kind of like speak that you would expect , like they'd be short , abbreviated , you know ,

very informative , more kind of uh , actionary type messages versus like hey , someone's sending a radiogram , which is what it sounded like to me a lot when they were sending those messages and I'm just like I don't think that , like I was like thinking in my head that's not going to get to those people right now .

I mean it eventually will and I would hope it would .

You know they would spend the time funneling it down the line , but I I would say , just like Paul said , there's not enough of those communications in line to be able to get that message down to that person at the local level , because all of the regular modes that we , you know know , rely on , like internet and stuff like that is unavailable at that moment .

But I think too is if someone is able to get a message let's say , someone got and said , hey , this section is closed off and there's people there and that gets messaged back to the central control Then maybe they can get that message to the helicopter pilots and say , hey , you need to go to this grid square and go check to see , because we know that there's

people trapped there , and go check it out because we got confirmation from someone that was able to get on the radio and get through . So it may not be a direct connection , but in an emergency situation it's about assisting others and getting them the supplies they need .

So I mean , I think it's , I think it's important and I think a lot of people forget that communication in an emergency is the most important thing . I remember 9-11 , when my friend was in the towers trying to get through to him on a cell phone and there's , it wasn't working , it was just done , you know . So radio is radio .

You know if you can pick the mic and you get the signal out there and you can receive it , you know you're good to go and that's probably the only communication right now , that probably all that area in georgia and that's isolated , that's probably all they have . And , like , I like the idea of fmrs too , because everyone's got those radios .

What's the name of this one ?

So yeah , my thought is two things , to any mode and any way possible to get , I'll get a message out in the shortest method possible that communicates exactly what needs to be done is important .

And so , like Paul was saying with , you know , having the right people , at least in the positions , is important , but you know those that step in per se before the , those folks get to the scene .

Whatever that , even if it's a ham radio , even in those circles , I think it's still important , and so I applaud those folks that you know had some training to be able to get into you know those scenes and just start , you know , getting the messages you know gathered and put into some motion and I'm sure probably they were funneled back up and , you know ,

gotten into some more formal processes down the road .

You know , at the end of the day , you need to simplify everything and and I I really like the channel three uh thought process where you know , at the end of the day , you need to simplify everything and and I I really like the channel three thought process where you know channel three on every , every radio is that's your calling .

So if you're in distress you call out on channel three . Somebody somewhere around you should be listening . So you know , if more people know about that , more people start doing getting into that practice .

Then you know , if you've got one ham , you know , say , say theoretically , one ham per you know 20 miles , right , well , that one ham can hear you know every frs radio , cb radio and , and in their little radius they can then relay that information you know to to maybe the Aries guy that's , you know , listening on the other end .

keep those established relationships between the eocs and our you know volunteer groups I'm sure is another you know 20 , you know full-time job a lot of times just being able to properly or even if there is any handoff of that , that kind of stuff of like when either hands change on the government side or you know hands change on our side , you know who's who's

making sure those relationships stay solid and , you know , allow you to build that . And so it kind of got me thinking . It's like , okay , well , yeah , that a lot of the , at least over the past couple of years for me observing like there's a lot of push , we're making inroads , I should say , with ham radio , into those areas .

I think it would be good if we were seeing a lot more , which I think we will .

But I , like I think we also have to kind of clean up our act too , to be able to kind of stay in line , like you said , with being able to have clear message deliverables , you know clear , you know plans in place that we practice , but more so that you know anybody you know in the ham community can pick up and , you know , do with the you know purpose

of like , hey , when the sh ft , whatever , when the shit hits the fan will say , um I'm not doing abbreviations tonight , apparently , sorry my uh , younger audience here um , that , uh , you know , we , uh , we can effectively try to be able to communicate the message and without getting tied up in jargon and and stuff like that I mean .

I've been doing it for I don't know three years now , four years now , every Sunday I've been doing it for I don't know three years now , four years now , and I've been in different situations right , like like today we got a I couldn't hear someone , but then I heard him and I lost them and and I was saying , hey , did anyone get the guy's call sign ?

And someone called , you know , I mean it was like that's that's part of running the net and you learn that by experience .

So I think , like with some of these Aries guys , I think that they do their monthly net or whatever , but that's all they do , right , or they're not used to like communicating with people and getting curveballs , like it's like I don't know .

Like you have a script right , but if something goes off on that script , you got to be able to respond to it right , and you can't be like hold on a second . Let me look through my book to see what the next thing is right and I think you learn that it's something that you can't be taught through a book or studying a test or anything .

I think it's just by experience of being on the radio and anything . Paul good segue there . But but I mean , I mean Paul , right , I mean think about it , you , you , the more we're on the radio , the more we're practicing , the more we're on different bands doing different things .

You just get that experience and then you know when something doesn't go right as planned , you , you adapt and adjust and you're prepared to deal with it .

And I think that there's some hams that can do that and I think there's others that could use more practice and like some hams , they get on , they like I've met so many guys that they see my like I'll leave my radio on at the flying field and people be like , oh , you're a ham , oh , me too I'm not practicing though . That's the point then .

But I think that that guy might have a harder time getting on a radio and and start organizing and trying to manage information than someone like the three of us who are on the radio a lot , who do nets , who do HF , do POTA and do Winlink and everything . I mean we've got the experience and we just do it .

So I think there's different levels , but I think the three of us , I think , would have no problem if someone grabbed us and said hey , you're in charge of communication . Go for it , and I think that we would be able to figure out a way to organize and get messages to where they needed to be Okay .

So , yeah , 100% I agree that nets are fantastic practices on how to handle groups and group traffic and relays , and that's an important skill to have okay , yeah .

So , after all of the stuff that's going on , and hearing all of the you know the we'll say buzz about whether aries and racy's did all of their things , right or wrong , or whether or not , uh , you know , we we handed off in the right way or things got accomplished , it kind of got me thinking myself , like if I'm at an individual level for myself and I'll

throw this to you guys too as well like what are , what am I doing , or what are you guys doing to kind of prepare for that stuff ? I mean , obviously we've been insulated a little bit . We've had our few ice storms that you know we got hit with 23 , you know , 20 years ago . So I'm sure we'll probably do for something soon .

But you know , what are you guys doing ? Any suggestions ? Or like you want to share kind of what you guys have in place for things like that , for when you get into emergency situation with you know , say we'll start with , we'll do weather , because that for me is , you know , obviously a big one and just , you know , recent on everyone's minds .

What , um , what do you got in place now ? And if you have nothing , like I'm going to say and and and honestly put out there and say I don't have anything in place . So , outside of maybe your batteries and first aid kit , you know , which is the simple basic kind of necessities , what do do you ?

What are you guys preparing for , or are you doing any preparedness in , in that sense , for your you know kind of uh emergency situation that might occur well , I guess the real question is to either of the two of you .

Like this guy has backpacks with change of clothes in them , like sitting like whatever he needs and every time I've been at at field day and I need something he always has has it like it's just like it's like going to my dad's house and I need a screw .

He picks up every screw and saves it and he knows where each screw is and I'm like Dad , I need this size . I got one of those downstairs and he goes through this mess . That's you . When it comes to preparedness , I think for me , communication wise , I think the portable stuff that I have . I have a solar panel .

I have some batteries that I keep charged that I can continue to charge even if the electricity goes out . Through the solar panel I've got multiple antennas , even like the portable ones , that I could continue to communicate . One of the things I do want to get is they sell that at what's that main vendor ? That's always at Nearfest .

Quicksilver yes , what is it called ? Quicksilver , quicksilver what's that main vendor ? That's always at Nearfest . Silverware yes , what is it called ?

Yeah , I , I think one of those is is huge for to have for just really for an emergency , meaning an ht is can only do so much , right , but if you've got 50 watts and you can grab a ammo can and throw it in your car or get to a higher place or get on your roof now you got 50 watts , you're going to get out somewhere and you're going to be able

to to do it .

So I I think I'm gonna eventually design one and build one kind of like what they do and just have it like probably never use it , maybe test it out once in a while , but really just as an emergency kind of thing that you can bring anywhere and you have it , um , all set because , like right now , my two radios are ones on my shack and ones in my car .

My car and shack are underwater . Yeah , what I got ? my hd I can't even I don't even know how to program the thing .

That's another thing I learned and I've learned , that is , you should always know how to program your radios without the computer , because chance you're not going to have a computer and I thought about that right and and I've I remembered I couldn't remember how because I haven't played with that ht , but I knew it was one of these buttons you had to , you know ,

hold the press down for a long and then another screen would come up , and that's how we found it . You know , I was like , I think if I press this , so I was just trying by error , but I knew the idea of like , but if you didn't know , you never did that , you , you'd never find it , like I , I did it before , so I knew .

But if I didn't know you never did that , you'd never find it . I did it before , so I knew . But if I took that radio out and said I would take the tone off , eric , and I would have been screwed because we'd never figure it out .

I know when St John , which is one of the places I go they had two hurricanes . It literally destroyed the island . I mean it took all the leaves off . The pictures were horrifying and I met people down there that lived through it and basically what they did is that the people that live there , the few people that were there , they all came together .

The one restaurant that still could cook , cook the field . The guys went out fishing , brought the fish back .

They had a they're trying to get the internet back they had generators , solar people were getting on their boats and getting gas , you know crossing the thing , and they all worked together as a , as a small community , until , you know , the government and FEMA and whoever else was going to come and fix everything .

But it took three months for them to get help and for three months these people lived like a community and made sure everyone was fed and everyone had water and whatever they needed , and they also had a communications team that was using ham radios . They were trying to get um , it was . It was pretty interesting .

This was , and when I talked to them , this was before I was a ham , but they were telling me about how traumatizing it was , but how everyone pulled together and the center of town was like that's where everyone met up and that's where everything went out from there .

I'm like , oh , I'm gonna do this , but like getting like food that'll last 25 years , like I mean they're I mean the doc strike , right , like I don't know if you guys remember the last doc strike but there's nothing you can , couldn't buy food , there's nothing to eat . The shelves were like what do we do ?

There's no food on the shelves and we had that huge ice storm like years ago . They get no electricity , you couldn't get gas , so you couldn't drive anywhere to get the food so excuse me a second .

But you know we put a water filtration cell , like our water is like purified , to like nothing in it , like it goes through this osmo , reverse osmosis kind of stuff , and the water tastes great . But as long as I have my generator that will work . But if you run out of gas and there's no electricity , eventually that's not going to work .

But you have to get , like you know , water things that can , you can filter out . You know you can get water from the stream or whatever and filter out all the crap in it and you can get all that stuff . But you know it costs money . And then you're like , well , I'm never going to use it .

And then you , when the shit hits the fan and you wish you had it , you know you'll be like , oh , okay for sure , all right , well , I I won't get into my two cents because I'm similar boat as todd .

So I've got buckets with desiccants in them and five pounds of rice , five pounds of fried beans , canned meats , spam , canned tuna , canned chicken . That is stuff that , as long as the can stays intact , it'll last 30 plus years . You don't ever have to worry about it . 100% , I got that stuff .

I've got , uh , probably , uh , I got the five gallon bottles of water , um , maybe 12 of them , uh , stacked up in reserve , you know . So that should get us through at least . You know a month and a half , two months . You know water usage without having any . You know other clean water . Then I've also got , uh , you know a month and a half , two months .

You know water usage without having any . You know other clean water . Then I've also got , uh , you know water purification tablets and , uh , you know filters and things .

You know , if we had to uh clean the outside water , um , batteries , batteries , batteries , batteries , right , like having a way to recharge batteries , you know , with small solar panels and things , um , there are so many little nuances that people just they don't think of because they just go about their daily life and they never , they never question , well , what

happens if , uh , you know , a tornado rips through New Hampshire as rare as that occurrence is right , it could happen , happen , you know . You , yeah , you , you could be without power for weeks on end due to a snowstorm or an ice storm or , you know , depending on where you live in the country , there's various natural disasters that happen all the time .

And so having just a bare basic level of preparedness with food , water , a method of purification of water , first aid , being able to take care of yourself , and , you know , if you're not a ham , that's fine .

out this little uh , you know , if , if you want to hear more about stuff from what Paul's got set up and we'll bring on others and we can definitely talk more about that stuff .

Because one of the things I've been juggling just recently with I went away with the wife and of course I went to the trading post up in Maine and was going through my usual outdoorsy stores .

One thing that Josh HRCC has been talking a lot about on all his podcasts and live streams and stuff is his EDC bag and when he said it I was like , oh , prepper , stuff , don't want to hear it , blah , blah , blah .

But then as he started to kind of explain it , I was like , man , I sort of do that with some of my shorts or when I'm carrying the pocket knives and a few of the radios .

But as you start to kind of get in that , my truck's kind of equipped with some of that stuff like first aid and a few things here and there , but it's not really like a complete solution that I can grab and just go somewhere with . I have to be in my vehicle to be able to take advantage of it or if I'm not near that .

That kind of kind of like , you know , set me on easy a little bit . So I started thinking about you know what I want to do for this EDC bag and , and of course , you know , once we get into that , you know , as ham is , it's like oh cool , I can do color coding , oh cool , I can put this bag so . And so I'd love to hear what I know .

Paul's got some awesome color coding systems and things that he carries with him , that he's got , and so poles , all this stuff is kind of like easy hf setup but it's not like emergency setup .

So you know , I think it's a way , a little bit of a wake-up call to hear and see some of this stuff and see the devastation , because I know we're probably due for it again in New England sometime , somewhere , whatever that is , whether it's snow , rain , ice or tornadoes or even hurricanes , for that matter . So what am I doing ?

I , you know , I , like Paul said , you know the typical stuff water , you know toiletries , that things . We have all that in surplus because I just have my wife go out and buy that stuff and we store it and we use it to keep it in rotation , rotation , but it's still there's enough there to get us probably about a week .

I'm not as good as paul with the whole month , but you know at least I have a lot buffer and you know it's kind of making me think more like okay , what are my battery supplies looking like and all of those other emergency type things , but more so like in my comm stuff , like I have hts , like todd said , but I took it to ham fest this past weekend .

I could barely like program the damn thing and it kind of like freaked me out a little bit .

I don't know , it's something to be fun to talk about a little bit , but I think it's definitely helpful and it's going to be one of those things that can happen more and more . It's going to be one of those things that can happen more and more .

I mean , I don't know about you , but I on a sidebar , and maybe you guys have been more aware of it , and I've seen a lot more social media posts around it , but ham radio is starting to get a lot more attention . I don't know how . About you guys ? What's your feeling on that ?

I mean , from all of the puff pieces that come out of your , you know , south Carolina or whatever .

And I I show them they're like , they're like , oh , what do you want ? And I tell them like oh , I just reached Croatia . And he's like which is that ? Because , like 20 years ago you didn't have like the backpack quota . You know what I mean . You had huge radios and stuff . And he was pretty amazed .

I'm like oh , and I give him the club card and give him my card and say hey , come check us out , give me a call if you want to get into it . So I think it is coming around more , um , especially now with like the digital modes and and how . Uh , kids are getting more into it . I think they're it's , it's more computer-based than it used to be .

But again , it's like you gotta get back to the basics too . You gotta still know how to use it when the computer and everything don't work . But you'll get that one . You know , whatever you're into , you'll eventually get that , because you'll just be on the radio . Like me , my favorite part is just hf sideband all day long .

I can do that all day long , yeah , give me 20 meters .

How do I , you know function and let people know that , yeah , I'm here . Well , you use radio , you know it's , it's tried and true and and honestly I mean anybody could become a technician like you don't even have to study a whole lot . 90 , 90 of it is common sense .

You read the the question long as you have you know , some comprehension of words and what they mean , and you can , you know process of elimination , figure out the answer .

And then look at me , now I'm getting drilled on every podcast on my extra . My wife goes , she goes why are you studying for your extra ? Like , why do you need that ? I'm like well , I wanted them to stop making fun of me and get it off the net so we can pick on someone else . But no , that's not really the reason .

I said , yeah , well , it's just gonna be yeah , I'm gonna be , uh , I'm gonna have all the , all the bands and I can have all the fun , so but you know , I am learning it . I mean you . I mean I don't have any schooling or education behind it , but I do understand more .

I mean we go to our barns and our social events and when I first started I was like these guys are like way like . They're like way up here and I'm like way down here , smart , wise , like my IQ is not near , and they're talking about that . I'm like I have no idea Now . I'm like I have no idea Now . I go there . I kind of understand .

I don't understand what they're talking about . I got a sense of it , maybe not in the great detail .

By process of elimination and knowing a little bit about what , what it means , I've , I've gotten some right on the first guess because I took an educated guess , because I knew that only because I'd been playing radio , I've been hanging out with you guys doing the podcast , watching podcasts and and got the previous test , you know , underdone .

I mean it sticks in your head and you start to understand it a little bit . So if anyone can pass the test , I mean I suck at test . I mean , honestly , I suck at taking tests and if I can pass , anyone could pass .

And I'll tell you the motivation I got now was when we were at Marlboro and that little kid was like , oh , I'm an extra , and he says , yeah . The dad was like , yeah , bypass me . How old was that kid ?

Get it , just so you can get practice , and and and purely for that , because , uh , you know , like , like Todd had said with he wants to get his little ammo , can you know , go box , which is fantastic , but if you leave it in the closet all the time and you're not actively using it on a regular basis , then when things go wrong , it's not guaranteed it's

going to work , it's not guaranteed you're going to remember how that radio functions . You know , I mean it's everything is about practice , practice , practice . And so , while you know we , we all live busy lives and nobody wants to think about you know well what happens if the worst case scenario happens .

But if you don't practice and you're not prepared , you're going to be in a much worse situation . You know , uh , it take our boys up North there that we we had on . Uh , you know they slid off the road Like , had they not been at least slightly practiced in understanding how it works and how it functions and what they needed to do to save themselves .

They would have been in a much worse situation . You know conspiracy theory , right wing . You know craziness , uh . To stockpile food and water that that'll get you through at least a couple of weeks , uh . And . And to have an alternative means of communication that you are comfortable using .

That was the New England Chronicle piece on two guys that , nick and Ben , were out in their usual doing everyday type things in the upper part of New Hampshire and you know , a non-cell phone area and ran into some trouble in the snow and , you know , had a tale to tell about it , but a really good one at that , you know , because they both were , as Paul

said , pretty well equipped . So we're able to , you know , practice what they uh were , uh , as paul said , pretty well equipped .

So , uh , we're able to , uh , you know , practice what they were , put into action for themselves and and save their own butts but at the same time , you know , demonstrate how important it is to to do exactly what paul was saying , you know , and what we've been kind of preaching .

You know , get out there , practice , have fun with radio and do it with others who are doing the same thing and you're all going to learn . You know we all haven't been born with the beofang manual tattooed on our shoulders , although I'm sure a few people are getting there , especially if you're in the chinese radio you know , club .

So , okay , well , good stuff . I mean , like I said , I hopefully you got something out of it .

As we kind of chit-chatted about it , I know it kind of made an impact on me , um , and got me thinking and I'm sure we'll be talking a heck of a lot more about , uh , everyday carry as I kind of go through that process and learn from paul and what he's been doing and and todd's gonna grow from it , because you know he's just gonna , I'm gonna help him

spend his money anyway .

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