Getting Ready for Ham X with Mark from Halibut Electronic - Live Stream

You know this is kind of all of our primers . If you've been kind of paying attention to some of the other stuff that's going on with the Northeast Ham Radio group guys , we're talking about HamFest and you know we've been talking . You know quite a bit about HamFest in general . You know ham fest and you know we've been talking in .

You know quite a bit about , uh , ham fest in general . You know , I think , uh , you know you might be getting sick of it , but either way , um , you know the way I kind of say um , you know I'm super psyched . I mean ham x is coming up and we are getting geared up for it .

I think it's the 22nd to the 25th of august , so if you're doing nothing , block your calendar off head down there . Um , there's some great , uh great vendors , mark being definitely one of them , but we've got some great friends and other companies like Reliance . I mean , we're all big Reliance users here .

Yeah , correct , you know we all love our Reliance attendees Awesome . Okay , well , matt will be there too as well . And you know , make sure you know you keep an eye out on all our channels because Matt will probably be back on , just like Mark , to chit chat about some of the stuff he's doing down there . But otherwise I'm excited .

This should be a fun event . I always love having Mark on . I'm a big , you know . I have a little bit of a fan boy when it comes to ham radio workbench , so I love hearing about all their antics , especially what Mark working on . But uh , you know , before we kind of dive into that , guys , how's life been with you ?

Guys , what's your hammer a week been like ? And , uh , you know , mike , since you are , you know , our natural , normal fixture , mr six , you have to give us your official title because it's obviously not in the sub , sub , uh section there . Uh , how's it been going your hammer a week ?

There's a big VHF group in Western New york and southern ontario , canada , so , uh , a lot of activity on the high bands out this way . So it was . It was neat to see .

I haven't done any of it myself , I'm still kind of new to that , but um , but it was really cool to check out and so , uh , that a lot of fun and I got a video on it that'll be dropping later this week . So stay tuned very cool .

Uh , so , todd , what , what's your uh ham radio week been like ? Or so far , if at all yeah , it hasn't been really too .

So , uh , thursday seems to work for me and him , so that's probably going to be a plan that . The issue is basically what time ? Um , but as for working on ham radio stuff , uh , I did get the uh weed whacker with the blade on it and I started attacking my yard and I started clearing out where my uh , my antenna is going to go . The dx commander .

Yeah right , you say it's a special antenna . It's not just yeah , yeah my dx commander , um . I've cleared this area out now for the third time , um , and it just keeps growing back . So I'm doing it really good this time . I'm chopping the crap out of it and I'm gonna put some brush killer or whatever to see if I can get it to stay down .

But it's a work in progress , but I did make some progress today .

So we wish him luck and hope he's having fun there and he better come back with a win , otherwise he's just going to get hazed for the next couple of shows for sure . But all good fun , we're glad , uh , you know he's out . Uh , you know , representing and having some fun . At least he's exercising .

I know I'm just drinking beer here and you know , talking on the radio , you know . So , if anything , that's not helping my health , but it's another story for another day . So , uh , with me . Oh , man , you know , I'm kind of in the same boat . Um , you know , I haven't played much radio although , uh , although I've made a few contacts , you know , with Rob .

I know Rob was doing a couple of photo activations in the past and Izzo and the like . So I just , you know , made the effort to , you know , try to at least reach out them off the flex . But , yeah , I've got some interesting projects on the horizon .

I finally finished my 3D prints for my HF install on the truck , so videos are going to be , you know , hopefully getting wrapped up there . And I just got one of my favorite things in . I'm a big tool nut when it comes to like tools and stuff , so I all my tool cases tend to have like foam inserts in them . And you know I spent a little money .

If you ever seen like those tool kits where they cut out the shapes for all of the wrenches and everything else like that , you know I I kind of said , well , why can't I do this in the ham radio world ? So I reached out to one of my favorite foam cutting places and , lo and behold , they shipped me some stuff .

So I'm looking forward putting a video together to that and uh sharing some of the those uh you know experiences , because I'd love to be able to put my dx10 and a few other radios in a you know a better , you know pelican style case where you know the foam uh isn't uh that that crappy stuff that comes out of , uh , the harbor freight .

You guys ever deal with any of that ?

So , yeah , cool , all right , all right . Well , so let's kind of go a little further . Obviously , just the usual . If you haven't , head over to livefreeandhamcom forward slash shop . We got a bunch takeover t-shirt that we did with the ham radio clubhouse . That'll be in the storefront until the end of the month . So make sure you get that .

Uh , you know , and don't waste any time . There's discount code is still available . So , if you can figure it out , yeah , I'm mike's wearing it . I got mine right now . Do a spin , mike , do a spin . No , just kidding , there we go . That is the official shirt man idea . What you saw , what you saw , but I think you were . So , yeah , yeah .

So with that you can still pick it up and it's still available in the end of the month . After that it is gone . And you know we've got a bunch of other stuff in there that we're producing . So you know , you know , definitely head over there and check it out . And again , that discount code still applies out . And again , that discount code still applies .

So it's the hrc 220 or no , sorry , hrc rules , is the the , the 20 off code there , so you can still grab a good t-shirt and anything in the shop and it's 20 off . So outside of that , um , you know . So let's uh bring in our guest here because , uh , you know he he deserves , uh , all the credit . He is a , uh , the man of the hour . We love Mark .

He's done some amazing stuff for the hobby in the hobby , with all of his stuff that he's produced from Halibut Electronics .

But the benefit is that if you're in the New England area and you're looking to meet Mark and hang out and check out some of his stuff , he will be at Huntsville I should say first , before Ham X , because Ham X is a little after , but if you're going to Huntsville , you know he will definitely be there and so you can check him out there .

But more so , close enough to us in the New England area , he'll be at Ham X and he'll be , you know , setting up a booth there and he'll be talking . I have a couple of seminars on OHIS as well . So , without further ado , let's bring in Mark . Mark , welcome . Oh , audio . We've had technical difficulties . Captain Batteries have run low today .

I'll give him a second there to get adjusted . Oh , getting there , earth to mark . Nope , no audio yet . No audio , no audio he's . We'll let him , uh , keep working on that one while he's there , just yell at us when we get going there .

So , so let's kind of do a little bit of background while mark's sitting there doing some , uh , technical fixes , um fixes with , you know , ham X or ham exposition , is it's officially known . Any of you guys planning on going this year ?

I got a vacation coming up . I missed , uh , field day because I was driving to north carolina , but I did work it . I did get my POTA activation on Saturday .

It said cape , and I'm like , oh , when are we leaving for the cape ? And oh , we're leaving saturday night . So oh , I I already said I said well , we're leaving saturday night . When I get back from uh , hammocks no audio yet , mark .

Not gonna hurt numbers , we're not worried about it , we'll just edit it in post . Ai to the rescue , cool , well , okay , how are you Mark ?

However , sfo is about uh half an hour from my sister and brother-in-law , uh , and so I will be staying with them for those three or four days between Huntsville and Hammocks .

And but then I got like a brand new truck that has the big plastic ones that , like you see on f , uh , f-150s or whatever , uh , you know where , that , where the mirrors can go in and out , but it's this big plastic thing and you can't clamp anything to that . Uh , yeah , so , anyway .

So I ended up mounting it to , uh , the handles that are on the back of the box truck to help you get up into the box truck , but that means I had to get feed line through the box to the back of the . Yeah , anyway , it was fun , I made it work .

Field day , right , yes , exactly numbers , yeah , yeah , so , uh , yeah , it's a good episode there and he talks all about his uh challenges with trying to do field day from a u-haul box truck which will go down , go down in history for sure . So cool , all right . Well , so you operated one , charlie , before , so that was fun .

You hauled one , charlie , you sure , sanger , you should have gotten a vanity call sign . That's right , all right , well , so you're obviously heading down to . You know two , really good . You know conventions there , obviously Huntsville , which we'll touch a little bit there .

So what kind of stuff do you want to get into in terms of what should people expect to see from Mark down there ? Anything new ? What's going on ?

The naming pun was too good to pass up , so it became Eggnogs . Having said that , it will work on any quadrature fed antenna , not just an egg beater , and it will work with any satellite system , not just sat knocks . So the name is makes it sound more limited than it actually is , but it's all good . So , um , do you know what an egg beater antenna is ?

Would you like me to go into what that is ?

Right , if you have a vertical antenna , just like a standard quarter wave whip , that's great horizon , but it's got a deep null straight up . It has no radiation straight up , and so that makes satellite operations a real challenge with using a vertical antenna . So what we want is an antenna with a roughly hemispherical radiation pattern .

You want a little bit more gain at the horizon , because the satellites are a lot farther away . You know they're a lot closer to you when they're straight overhead , so some gain down on going straight up is okay . So you want most of it out at the horizon , but you still want to have some gain directly above you .

You want to have some gain directly above you . You want to have some radiation directly above you . You don't want to null and so that's what an eggbeater antenna is um .

Electrically , it is two full wave loops mounted vertically at right angles to each other and so you end up with this uh , the one I recommend is a rectangular , but it also works with circular , you know . So you end up with these two loops and then they're at right angles to each other .

So when you're looking down at it from on top , it looks like a cross , right . So they are mounted physically 90 degrees from each other and you feed them electrically 90 degrees from each other your mic went away again I thought it was at first , I thought it was me .

shielded because there's a lot of interactions with the near field . So what you want is a hundred ohm balanced , shielded feed line . I have never been able to find 100 ohm balanced shielded feed line . So you can hack it .

You can compromise by using two parallel lengths of 50 ohm coax , or there's an old coax called RG62 , which was used back in the early days of computer networking for a network called ArcNet . It's roughly 92 ohms , which is pretty darn close to 100 ohms . So if you used a quarter wave of RG62 , that also kind of works , but these are all compromises .

62 , that also kind of works , but these are all compromises .

And the epiphany moment I had was the realization that there are calculators out there that like , if you want to run rf on a trace on a circuit board , your trace needs to be the right width with the right spacing to the ground plane , like on a different layer , and the ground pores next to it , like all of that geometry .

There are calculators out there to say how do I lay this out ? So that it is a 50 ohm feed line on the circuit board , right ?

And so if you want to keep the impedance on that circuit board , you have to make the you know , the correct trace width and the correct spacing and all of that fun stuff , make the correct trace width and the correct spacing and all of that fun stuff . But that got me thinking that there's no reason that I can't also do balanced lines on the circuit board .

And in fact , if I can calculate what the geometry has to be for 50 ohms , I should be able to calculate what the geometry is for 100 ohms .

And if I calculate that geometry , assuming the two layers are on are the , the two , um , you know , pieces of feed line , the , the two wires of the feed line are on inner layers and I put copper pores on the outer layers , I can now calculate the correct geometry to make a hundred ohm balanced feed line Nice .

And because I'm laying it out on a circuit board , I can make it exactly the correct length , down to a fractional millimeter Right . And so my epiphany was that I went out and I did all of this math to go figure out what that geometry is , because there aren't any obvious calculators online for that anymore .

So like I had to go back to well , not quite first principles , but I had to go back to actual math , oh boy . I know right , it was a stretch . College was 25 years ago . My last calculus class was probably 28 years ago , anyway .

But I went out and I figured out what all of that math was and I ran through the numbers and I figured out the geometry and I laid out a circuit board to do the phasing loop . So my quarter wavelength phasing loop is on a circuit board and I can have them mass produced and I know exactly where they measure and all that fun stuff .

So anyway , I got the boards , I hooked up connectors to them , I measured the phase delay and , sure enough , it's 90 degrees .

Um , anyway , these are all the parts that come in the kit . So you have the , the main circuit board , this kind kind of round , circular one . It just has traces . There's nothing exciting on it , but you'll note that it has those two slots in the middle and then there are two tabs on this one over here , this rectangular board .

This rectangular board is the phasing board , so the quarter wavelength of feed line is inside this board and these tabs just solder into those slots to make it , uh , you know , to connect it to this . So the feed line is down here , the feed point .

Uh , you put a sma or bnc connector down here , it's got a spot for a common mode current choke , and then it does the quarter wave uh , phasing delay here , and then it feeds to the two different loops up here .

So this is what comes in the kit those two circuit boards , there's a pre-drilled PVC cap that is used for mechanical stuff , a section of RG316 and a binocular core that's used for the common mode current choke , and then a bunch of stainless steel hardware , the idea being that it comes with all of the parts you can't get at your local hardware store .

Um , when you have it entirely built , it looks like this um , so you know there's the , the main board , and you can kind of see how you solder in those connectors on that tab , those tabs there and then the um . The phasing board hangs down from the circular one , there's the common mode , current choke and you see the sma in the back .

This is what it looks like in my see-through pvc cap .

For VHF I can make a 10 gauge Romex wire solid core copper wire work , but it's a little floppy . Some like aluminum strap would also work as a common method of building this . But if you look at the PVC cap , I don't know how hard it is to see . I'm going to try and put my cursor right on top of it .

So the four holes are in very precise locations and then it does just a little tiny divot there .

The divot is still waterproof right now , but if you want to build some sort of a structure that goes up from the center of the of the feed point and supports the top of the egg beater , uh , you know , that little boop there just tells you where the exact center of your pvc cap is okay , cool um , so you know you can use that as a starter hole to uh ,

to drill out and put the more the structural stuff on there there . But so eggnogs , you know , comes with all of these parts and then you have , you buy the PVC pipe and the copper wire or whatever materials you want to use for that . That's all stuff you can get at the local hardware store .

The kit comes with all the stuff that you can't get at the local hardware store . Okay , fine , yes , you can get stainless steel hardware at the local hardware store .

If I can get to 50 watts then I will consider that done and it does not require any additional work on it . My logic behind that is that the the gain of an egg beater antenna is roughly that of a dipole , whereas the gain of a yagi is hand wavy 10 db , better than that . It depends on how many elements in your Yagi and all that fun stuff .

But if you look like , look at an arrow , like the handheld antennas that are used for satellites , I think the VHFs are like eight DB and the UHF is 13 DB or whatever . So hand wave call it 10 DB of gain .

So if we can make up for that gain by letting you transmit 10 db more of power than you can on an ht into an arrow , right , so it's going to be five watts into an arrow will give you 50 watts equivalent . Uh , so if I can get the ability to transmit 50 watts through eggnogs then that'll be good .

My testing has gone as high as 17 watts at the antenna and it did not blow up , nothing melted . It got pretty warm . I think it got up to 50 or 60 degrees Celsius , but that was after two or three minutes of constant FM transmission at 17 watts . So short bursts , like you're going to use on a satellite , not a problem at all .

But I'm not comfortable putting any of this in writing yet because there's still more testing to be done . I am comfortable saying 5 to 10 watts all day long , like if you've got it hooked up to an HT or something and you accidentally transmit into it . You're not going to blow anything up , it'll be fine .

There's not a lot you can do about that , but as if you're losing signal on the transmission line , the feed line , as it comes down to your radio amp knobs can compensate for that , and so it's just this small little tiny board that screws directly onto the bottom of eggnogs , right , right . So with eggnogs you saw an SMA female socket pointing down .

Ampnogs will be just a little tiny board with a male on one side and a female on the other , and you literally just screw it straight to the antenna . It gets power through the coax , so the bias T powers it , and if you remove bias T power then a relay closes and bypasses the amplifier . So no power .

The amplifier is removed from the circuit and you connect directly to the antenna With bias power . Then the LNA gets put into circuit , the relay switches over to its normally open state and um and the amplifier is in in the path .

Which means with radios that can switch the bias power on , transmit like the icom 9700 we all have one right I wish , I did too . Yeah , but you can configure the 9700 to remove bias power 10 milliseconds before it starts transmitting , or you can configure that time there .

When that PTT triggers then it will remove the bias power from the feed line . So if you have a radio that cannot switch the bias power automatically but you can get a ptt signal out of it , then t-nogs will do that . Bias power uh removal for nice .

So uh , basically the whole ecosystem together should give you a no moving parts satellite antenna that has enough gain on receive to be able to compensate for feed line losses right , and if you've got a low enough noise folder , then you'll actually get some benefit out of that as well on the receive signal and then hopefully also be able to handle transmit up to

50 Watts , like with the whole system together . So my goal is also be able to handle transmit up to 50 watts Wow Like with the whole system together . So my goal is to be able to make a satellite operational station without an azimuth and elevator elevation rotor right .

I do have an elk uh dual band antenna and I I got an older icom ic32 which is a full duplex ht from like the late 80s , early 90s , um , and I got it at um my , my club's annual auction . They do every november . So I I got that from like an estate sale and it works .

But the thing's great , it looks like it's straight out of the 80s . And whether I use that or something else , when I was looking at eggnogs , my understanding of a lot of satellites , with the exception of something like Green Cube , you need VHF and UHF .

Generally you have an uplink and a downlink , and UHF , generally , you know , you have an uplink and a downlink .

So for somebody is what , when you're talking about having a satellite station that's not going to require some sort of rotor , whatever , you've got that hemispherical radiation pattern you're going to build , someone's going to probably going to want to build both one for , you know , two meters and then for for 70 centimeters , right , generally that's the thought , okay

uh , yeah , so I have at home .

Anyway , satnog Station 2704 , 2,704 , 2704 is my SatNog station Right now , so I have Amp noggs hooked up to it , but I've also got a cell tower that is directly across the street that is pummeling the front end of my lna uh and it is just absolutely saturated man , how do you do ham radio at all at your location ?

They have literally no pre-selection . That's the whole point , right ? They want to be able to receive DC to daylight . So you can't put any filtering on that thing and still without making it switched filtering , and so you have lots of different bands with the filters .

Then you have to switch in the correct one and that would just be way too expensive for something like a RTL SDR dongle . So they have they cannot have any front end filtering . So because of this problem I designed a filter . It's called an AM . Bci stands for broadcast interference , so it's a BCI filter .

The first one I designed was for that AM station which I knew about and assumed was the source of all of my problems . Designed to pass vhf and uhf right , so it filters out uh like below two megahertz um and then passes above 50 megahertz I think that was the the range I was going for , because that's such a giant , giant range . excuse me .

It's very easy to design a filter that will do that . It's only three components , two capacitors and one inductor , and they're all surface mount . It's on a board and you can buy it on my website right now . So if you're being blown out by an AM broadcast station , go to electronicshelmetcom and look for the BCI filter .

And that thing will knock out all your AM broadcast . But then I found the FM station . So I designed one that did AM and FM , but blocking at 108 megahertz and passing at 137 megahertz , because I want this to work for weather satellites as well .

That is a much narrower transition , right between 40 dB of block at 108 megahertz and 0.1 dB of insertion loss at 137 megahertz and 0.1 db of insertion loss at 137 megahertz . That's a much narrower frequency range to make that transition . So that filter is much more complicated .

Um , it's a seven pole , uh , high pass and uh , and it wanted it inside a metal can for shielding and all kinds of things . So I now have an AM FM BCI filter . That is not yet available , but I have all the parts at home . That's just waiting for me to make a webpage for it and then start selling it .

So the AM FM BCI filter if you're getting clobbered by FM broadcast , then this will help you . You're getting clobbered by fm broadcast , then this will help you . And I put that on my , on my station and my front end was still being clobbered . It's like okay , so what else is it ?

And I finally got , instead of just tuning around on my rtl , I actually got out my tiny sa and hooked it up to the , to the antenna , and sure enough , I found that cell power coming from across the street .

And so , instead of being just a high pass where it's got very little insertion loss all the way up to three gigahertz , like the other ones , um , this one is a band pass , and so the pass band is between 137 megahertz , to include the weather satellites , and up to 450 megahertz , so that that's the goal is big range seven to 450 and then it is , uh , trying

to block everything else outside of that . So that range . There's a little bit more insertion loss on this one . So that range is 1 dB or less of insertion loss , but it is 40 dB . I'm sorry , it is 35 dB right at the edge of the FM broadcast band , but 40 dB everywhere else below it and then same on the up-port side .

It's 35 dB on the first hump of the frequency analysis , the frequency spectrum , but then everything above that is 40 dB or more of attenuation . Cool . So that third one has not been built yet . I had to buy a bunch of new parts for it and it took a while for those parts to come in to JLCPCP .

But they've got them now and as soon as I get home I'll be able to order that filter and actually test it out .

Obviously , you know you're gonna be at ham x and we are super excited to have you there because , uh , you know , as we all know , in New England we are always looking for the big guys and this year , I think HamX has kind of come back and delivered .

They're bringing Flex , they're bringing Halib Electronics , they're bringing Reliance Antenna and a boatload of other bigger guys , boatload of other bigger guys . So we're looking forward to , uh , seeing all of those vendors there . But more so , like you know , obviously , mark , you mentioned just a touch on the ohis stuff .

You know , maybe talk a little bit about that kind of , uh , you know your presentation , or , you know , allude to your presentation , you know , and , uh , you know , if there's anything you want to talk in terms of , you know , maybe alluding to a contest console so contesting console is so Contesting Console is out now it's the station console that everybody's banging

down my door for .

So I will be giving a talk at HamX on the standard itself and what it is and why it is and how- . Why you need it Using it and why you need it and all that fun stuff . Take off my standards advocacy hat and put on my commercial product hat .

I also do sell adapters for it , but , it being an open standard , I encourage people to make their own , to not buy from me , to build a competing product with me , to price me out of the market of adapters .

Please by all means make it so that I am not the only one selling these adapters , because if we get to that state , then that's a sign that it's being adopted and that makes me happy . I want this to be adopted way more than I want to be selling adapters Now .

What I do want to be selling are devices that go between the radio and the user and actually adds new functionality , like the contesting console that we were just talking about , and that is much easier to do with OHIS . Without OHIS , then , I need to build in all of the complexity of what kind of microphone are you plugging into this ?

What kind of output from the radio is it ? Is it speaker level ? Is it headphone level ? Is it line level ? You know , is it stereo , is it mono , is it ground referenced or not ? Blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . All of that complexity that OHIS deals with would have to be built into every single product that goes between the radio and the user without OHIS .

So the contesting console , all right . So you've got some products on the screen there . The OHIS user adapter kit . Oh , okay .

Once you have one of these on your headset , then that headset is now standards compliant . Look over at the HHI Radio Pro and that is a radio adapter . You put one of these on every radio that you have and now your radio is standards compliant . It also has a pass-through .

So like when you plug the adapter into your radio , you're plugging it into the microphone port on the front of the radio , which means you can't plug the radio's microphone into the microphone port on the radio , right , because you just use that port . So the RadioPro passes that port through to the other side .

So you can plug your radio's microphone into the RadioPro and then plug your RadioPro into the radio and it does all of the switching and everything when you press the PTT on the . OHIS stuff . That microphone gets sent to the radio . Otherwise the normal microphone goes to the radio .

So , once you have these adapters on your radios and your headsets , then in the middle you have the standard interface and you can plug any headset into any adapter . At a home station , this isn't all that exciting .

But if you go to a multi-user environment like a club station or a contesting station or an EOC or a field day event , where I show up to this event and I've got my own headphones and I don't want you getting your ear goobers in my headphones and you don't want my ear goobers into your headphones , right ?

So we each want to have our own headphones that we can bring and plug into any radio and not have to worry about what radio I'm plugging my headset into and do I have the correct adapter for the pairing of that headset to that radio ? And if I go to a different radio , I need a different adapter for that headset to that radio .

Right , with OHIS , I have one adapter for my headset that's it , and that headset is now standards compliant . One adapter for my headset that's it , and that headset is now standards compliant . One adapter for that radio , and that's it , and that radio is now standards compliant . Okay , that's . OHIS .

When you have that and that standard layer in the middle , it also makes it a lot easier to put devices between the radio and the user . That's what the Contesting Console is . It is the first product of mine of the console series . It is two users , one radio . So the idea is that you've got two users that are operating .

I designed it for kind of a casual field day style operating where I've got one person that's operating the radio and another person who is listening and logging right so I've got one person who's like you feel they seek , you feel they n6mts , blah , blah , blah and someone sitting next to me who's listening to the person calling back and saying you know giving

their call sign and they're typing it in . but occasionally we want to be able to chat with each other and was that a KF6 or you know what was the call sign ? And so it provides an intercom . So , users have an intercom between each other . You can adjust the volume of the other person's microphone .

You're both can hear the radio , you can hear each other and then whichever user presses their PTT , their microphone gets sent to the radio .

So if you want to hear what's going on around you , uh , like somebody comes up and says dinner's ready , you don't want to miss that message . So you can turn up the ambient , uh , and it just has like a little men's microphone in the box and you can hear what's going on around you , or if you want to block out the world , you can turn that down .

Similarly , if people like somebody comes up and wants to know what you're doing , they want to hear both sides of the conversation . Normally the radio's receivers in my headset I can't hear it , or the person outside can't hear it . So , there's a speaker power amplifier in there .

You hook up an external speaker and there's another knob to play the receive audio from the radio . So if it's night and you want to be quiet , you turn that knob all the way down .

Um , because I had an ft 920 at the time and I was using pc gaming headsets because they were cheap , um , and so I I , but I had all of the same features with the mixers and the intercom and that ptt selection and all that fun stuff . So , and I've been using it for field day with our local club for the last 10 years and it is wonderful .

So Paul is going to be towing it tomorrow , towing it to next field day , and so we'll have it there in the summertime . So I'm thinking , you know why not just , you know , invest in a , you know , contest console ? And so you know , with this , you know , if you haven't been paying the free and ham , obviously we have a 10% discount .

So there's no reason why you can't head over to Mark's website , pick one up and set this up in your shack , because I guarantee you will be totally , 100% blown away with something as awesome as a contest console . But even so , much the .

You know , if you're like me , I got a DX10 , I got a Flex , I've got , you know , a 450 , I've got all these radios , but like I can't tell you how many freaking headsets I've got , you know , piled over here in the corner . So I would love to simplify this and you know , in essence , you know , as I've always said , we can't hear what he's saying .

Yeah , well , we'll have to fix that . Oh man , of course . You know that's so typical . You know technical difficulties . So yeah , bottom line is you need to run over to his website and pick one up . I am 100% you know% sold on this one and I'm trying to push our club in that direction .

So if you guys haven't figured that out , you need to jump on that bandwagon .

You know , portable ops is my thing and uh , um , usually I just go set up in a summit or a park and and activate on the high bands . But , um , just over the weekend one of the rovers was asking if I wanted to go in september and um , because I I haven't roved before .

Um , I think there's restrictions , like it's usually like two people , maybe part of like a rover and uh or whatever . But if you know , I'm curious to see how that goes .

But but something like this being able to have you know work off the same radios and and both have you know headsets , mics , not have to pass things back and forth , be able to easily do your logging separately , or maybe in a position where you're doing voice together on the same radio but separate radios , you're doing digital modes or something else , and you've

got that free I can see some value in this , possibly definitely for something as quirky as I do , like I said the VHf contesting and stuff and roving , but uh no , this is cool very cool , I , I , I only I am not a contester , so I only learned about um , a different mode of contesting , after I released contesting console and everybody started asking me about

it .

And so you need a device that will interlock and if I'm transmitting , it will prevent you from transmitting right right , um , okay . So everyone kept asking what happens when both people press their ptt and I'm like first couple times I didn't understand why they kept asking , but it was because they were looking for this interlock feature .

It's not easy for me to add it to the current contesting console , but I'm working on . Once I'm done with eggnogs and getting all of those six products out I talked about eggnogs , TNOGs , AMPNOGs and then the three BCI filters . Once I'll get all of that out and released , then I start working on my station console .

Eric , you were just talking about how you have so many radios . The station you know , where contesting console is two users , one radio . The station console is four radios one user . Yeah , I'm on that so that's my next of the console products . That'd be awesome . I've kind of already started working on on it , but I'm not going to go into any details here .

You know recognize a few folks in the chat here . You know we got Chris Knox , k1ip . He's been actually on my channel . I did a video on his roving , you know , hf , vhff , uh setup and beautiful setup . Uh , he's , I know , been at uh dayton and a few others and I'm sure he'll probably be at uh , you know , ham x as well .

So looking forward to touching base with chris again as well . And and uh , james , there in the chat . Uh , hello everybody . And you know , thanks again for uh chiming in there . And then , you know , steve doing a little bit of a dig here , you know I , you know I will leave mark there . You know we all . We'll talk about soar later .

You know that that's a process coming down the road , um , but we're all waiting patiently for that design to come up , because I will 100 percent , you know , be , you know one of at least the 20 in line to be able to pick one up and try it out myself , because I would love to see , uh , you know some , uh , you know all-in-one satellite kit , because my

satellite bag that I'm building keeps getting bigger and bigger instead of smaller and smaller . So that's what I'm looking forward to .

Obviously , we'll leave it to you , mark , at the very end , so you can kind of give your full spiel and let everybody know where you're going to be at and , uh , you know where we can expect to see you and shake your hand and say hello .

But uh , mike , if you , uh , you know want to just take it , uh , you know , just let us know what's going on your channel . You know , anything you want to , you know , announce that's going to coming up soon , and , uh , you know , go ahead , take it away well , first , I'm hoping to see mark at a ham fest .

I was just as I was going to look , cause I didn't realize you're out there and I was like , oh , I gotta go find find Halibut . I got to go find Halibut , but I was out there with two of my buddies from New York and they were doing the Hamvention Challenge and one of them , fred N2RPG , was the one that won the 705 .

So they called me for help as I was trying to find the booth for Halibut and I got suckered into that . I think it was Participation is king .

But uh , so sorry I missed you out in in dayton , but I know I'll be out there again and I'm definitely looking forward to meeting up with you . I know I gotta check out your um and I'll definitely looking forward to meeting up with you . I know I got to check out your um . That I've I've been sitting on .

I should probably just pull the trigger now , especially with the code getting the um , the the common mode , choke tester , um and so yeah , yeah , no , that that should be cool and everything . But as far as you know when I got going , yeah , as far as what I got going on with the channel , I think you know like I'm in the same boat that that todd is .

You know being um , you know a parent with uh , kids and sports and stuff just getting pulled in . You know all direction , every direction , yeah , every which way , but the right way , and uh , but I I find time when I can to get out there and and play radio . I got a couple antenna projects I've been working on .

I mean one thing and I'm not giving up on it . I haven't said what it's what it is yet . I've had two failures but , um , hopefully the third time I get this antenna right . I'm doing something different , um , that I don't know has been done before or I haven't seen anyone do it yet . You know it's and I just suck at soldering and stuff .

It is what it is , but I'll get around to it . You know like you learn from your mistakes and I try to have fun . You know you get frustrated , but at the end of the day , you know in this , in this hobby of hobbies , you know that's . That's how I've learned is by , you know , by borking it .

Obviously , you're going to be away on vacation .

I mean it's , it's , it's , it's's . You know the , the stuff that you come up with is just , I mean , it just is like stuff , like wow , you know , you actually created that and it's great for ham radio , it's great for all of us . And uh , you know , just keep doing it . That's all I can say .

It's , uh , it's gonna go big , I think , very cool yeah , I'm a hundred percent cool , all right .

I haven't actually , uh , committed to anything yet , but my goal is to get to hamcation as well .

I went up and got a booth for Halibut Electronics . George went up and then did George things , so he was wandering around , he wasn't in the booth at all , but he was going up and chatting with people and Taking hands , kissing babies , yeah . Yeah , yeah , being the celebrity that he is .

But yeah , we'll be at Hamvention next year , like the whole group , mike Walker , if you're interested in meeting other Ham Radio Workbench hosts , mike Walker will be at uh , huntsville and ham expo oh , he is okay , I didn't .

So by all means , use the electronics . If you don't , I'm also at halibut electronics and at smitty halibut on youtube very cool kind of the places that I hang out awesome .

You know I I've it's on my to-do list to buy and , like I said , it's going to be probably and you know I'm sure you won't have one at the convention . But that's okay , I can just go up to the website .

You know , make sure that . You know he continues to . You know , continues to create amazing things , like the contest console . I mean , that alone is just . You know , I've been waiting a long time for you to come around to , you know , to create something like that , or just , or someone , and you know you stepped up . So I appreciate that .

So cool , all right , well , you know , with that , let's kind of wrap up . You know , as always , you know , for those folks that have been , you know , hanging out here in the chat , you know we appreciate you and thanks for being part of the Live Free in Ham podcast community .

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