Live Show - We are Alaska Bound with Jeremy KL7EC

We're division two and they were playing a division one elite , so really wasn't . I don't even know why they were playing them , but , yeah , just to see how they stack up , I guess . Yeah , and it was when we left . It was beautiful , sunny out , nice and warm , and then it , uh , as soon as we got over peterborough , it just started pouring .

I'm like we're not gonna have this game , but we ended up having it . So it was good , cool , all right .

Uh , the wife ended up having some work related stuff and then she , you know , surprised me at the very last minute and said , hey , we got to go to the beach .

And so I uh packed the dog up and uh , sprinted out to hampton in less than record time for me and turned back around after grabbing some pizza and , you know , getting rained on , because we're pretty much , you know , the rain was chasing us , so didn't really get a whole lot of , you know , beach time , but enough to check the box for my wife .

So I think that worked out good for me and you know we're back here . So , oh , cool , well , I we've got obviously a great show tonight and I want to say hello to everybody in the chat and thanks for folks jumping in there and tuning in .

And before we bring in our awesome guests tonight , this evening we're going to cover a little housekeeping things out , our story . Lately , you know we've added some exciting stuff there , um , to the live free and ham storefront . So you know , obviously among some of the new arrivals are stylish teas , you know , trendy shirts , or top of line beer mugs .

You know that's , you know , perfect for any craft beer enthusiast . I guarantee you will get five db more if you pick up two of them .

So you know you want to make sure you consider that if you really value your contest scores , you know you want to make sure you have , uh , you know , your ham radio gear live free and ham specific right next to you because it's going to be that rewarding for you .

But uh , you know , if that's not enough , you know , to entice you , you know , perhaps maybe you're more like uh , mike n2mak . You know he recently picked up a live free and ham classic t . You know it's a must-have for any fashion-forward individual . And you know , thank you , mike again for grabbing that from the store and the support in Liffreenham .

And you know my favorite friend , tim KC1QDK . He came by , he picked up our classic Liffreenham snapback hat . We've all seen the lovely lettering . You know our logos and the whole deal there . So you know you want to head over to our shop and check that stuff out .

And you know it's a great way to support the show and everything that we do here , and , as always , we always want to thank everybody who have in the past and we appreciate it 100% . So , you know , we've got a little bit of a new segment here .

We've got a little bit of a new segment here , and so , without further ado , I'm going to go ahead and kick that off here .

You know we need to replace the toilet paper in the men's bathroom type messages or you know what's the point of a comment box . So let's kind of dive in . We got two reviews this week and for this episode . So the first one's from Keith Casey , one OZX . He says this is his favorite ham radio podcast .

Well , I appreciate that and I'm sure all the other guys embrace that as well . He says these guys do a great job of taking complicated topics and breaking it down into very educational , entertaining content . Keep it up . Well , we definitely will , keith , and we appreciate your comment and your review .

As always , and as Paul's shirt says , ham radio makes me feel dumb every day and that's why we do . You know , live free and ham podcast . So you know , with that , uh , that is uh , keith . And so we have one more . Um , this one comes from a J , t , G , h , y , I , I don't know what that one's get jiggy with it , who knows know ?

Uh , anyway , he says we're educational , which , uh , you know , is questionable in some weeks . Uh , you know , as we said before , um , but he said it's a great podcast entering interesting topics for all levels of experience and and , uh , we definitely keep you guys entertaining .

So , thanks to keith and jt , we appreciate you guys listening and to all those uh that want to uh or have uh left , uh , left us a review . Uh , thank you again for posting and , as , if you want to head over , you can go to your favorite podcast app .

You can always head over to our website or to iTunes , leave us a review and , if it even makes it easier , you can always send a review to livefreeandham at gmailcom and we'll be sure to read it on our next episode . So , again , my thank you , thanks to everybody and for everyone in those reviews .

So , um , without further ado , I won't leave him in the green room too long . Uh , we got a special guest tonight on the show . Uh , you might know him from his outdoor extreme podo adventures in the alaskan bush . Uh , let's bring in and welcome Jeremy KL7EC of KL7EC Outdoors . Man , that's a mouthful there . But hey , jeremy , how's it going ?

Hey , good , how are you guys Good , good , good , cool . Well , thank you for coming on the show tonight . Hopefully you know well , not hopefully . I know we will have a lot of conversations . I can already see Paul beaming ear to ear because you know just . And we're going to have a lot of fun tonight .

Extreme ice fishing conversations are going to , you know , ensue soon enough , so Jeremy , it's nice to me .

I look I'm getting them on the radio , but yeah , I need a . I need alaska and hawaii are my last two uh parks or hunted parks . So I've gotten alaska . Um , while like doing a park , I have a north pole alaska . I don't know , are you anywhere near there ?

You know so we always like to kind of have , uh , you know , put them on the spot a little bit and you know , ask them , uh , you know kind of what their hammer your story is , why , why get into this crazy hobby ? You know , I don't see you have your tinfoil hat with you or any in any of the background photos .

So I assume you're probably normal , like all the rest of us . But kind of start there . What inspired you to get into ham radio ? And obviously we'll talk a little bit about Alaska and where you're at , because there's a lot of great stories that I want to get details on . But yeah , so let's start there .

We couldn't afford it . So we just put some what was it the Cobra , not Teens in all of our trucks and so that's how it started . Did that for I don't know , a couple years in high school and then just completely forgot about it . And Dad started his trucking business .

He was an over-the-road driver and got his own authority and then started doing his uh trucking business . Uh , he was a over the road driver and uh , got his own authority and then started doing his own run and uh went with him a couple of times and uh , you know the cb was a big thing and you know in the rigs .

So that kind of sparked the interest again . Then it kind of fell back out and um , I was always fascinated with weather growing up . Um , it's always been that . Just it's always fascinated me .

You know , being in being in the south , in Georgia , you know we had a lot of severe thunderstorms , hail , tornadoes , whatnot , trapped me and my sister inside and yeah , it was a bad . It could have been really bad , but we made it through it . My sister did have like a fractured back , but she's okay now . No issues .

But , I was like , oh man , I need to get into something you know weather wise , because I always loved weather . So I started Googling , or was it Google back then ?

So I started looking into that and went to a Skywarn class , met some good friends that I call now from back home , the CIRC club back in Somerville , georgia , and yeah , I kind of got my ticket and you know we were talking about earlier in the back .

You know this was the time you still had to do the code , the code to go up to the general , and so I did that for a couple years , just stayed in the technician I was able to um , I think they just changed it where you could , um , but technician , have plivers is on 10 meters yeah , they barely gave us a sliver of 10 meters .

Yeah , yeah , it was just yeah , it was just a little bit to get me really hooked . And then they dropped the code and I was like I got to take the general test . So I took the general test , got my first call , which was KO4NBI so that was in Georgia . That went on , I don't know a couple of years . I really got really into it .

I put up a tower at the house it was a 50-foot tower really into it . Um , I put up a tower at the house it was 50 foot tower um , me and my buddy well , he helped me duane , uh , tread away , uh , helped me build a hex beam , um . So we had like some some crappy poles and you built a whole hex beam , put it on top and and uh .

So I really loved hf and um . So , but like anything else , I was a big metal detectorist too . I loved metal detecting , being in the South , that's all the Civil War stuff that happened . I loved finding those . It was a kind of push and shove between the two hobbies . One time I wanted to do metal detecting , the other time I wanted to do just ham radio .

It was back and forth , back and forth . Finally I just gave up ham radio and just done metal detecting full-time every ounce of time I got . That's what I did , and so fast forward a little bit . Life brought me up to Alaska . I still had , you know , my collar . I kept it up .

I didn't do a lot of uh stuff on hf um , so I ended up , uh , I was like I need to get a ko call . I mean that would be , that's just cool you gotta get a seven . Call alone is cool yeah , it's like it looks like the ko call is its own amplifier . Somebody hears the ko call . Oh , I want them . You know , that's that's what I thought .

And uh , so I got my kl call and uh put a station up here at the house and um , you know , this was when this , uh , this past cycle was just at the bottom , um , you know , starting to come up . I tried to make contacts over and over , so I was all these people at . You know , I have a kl call now .

He goes , yeah , you , you get a portable setup , you go out to the park , you make it , you know , do activation , you get contacts . I was like , well , that sounds pretty cool .

So I looked into it and I was like , okay , because metal detection is like I did a little bit up here in alaska , but it's like okay from , we had a very minimum window when the ground wasn't frozen , where you can actually go out and dig or whatever , and there's not really a lot of history .

I mean , there is history here , but not that old what I'm used to . So I never really got a , a hankering , if you will , to to uh , to chase metal detecting up here in alaska , which I still love it though .

? Was it with the wolf of recoil there , you know so I , I got a question and I ask every poda guy this is especially when they do their activation what was your first activation like for you ? Was it rocky , was memorable , you know ? Was it like , uh , you know I could do better than this what was it ?

Like I said , we were still climbing up out of you know , in this new solar cycle , still , we were still coming up and , uh , I really didn't know a lot about propagation here in alaska , um , so I wasn't out at the right times when I should have been , and , uh , and I , I spent two , three hours at a park , only Only get four , five , six contacts .

I've got quite a few failed activations even since then , but you know , it's just one of those things you have to deal with here .

But you know you must have built it pretty well .

But so in terms of the POTUS side , where along the lines did you just decide that things started to take off for you and then at that point , I assume somewhere along the line , you just decided that hey , I should start recording this and doing videos , or what kind of led you to the channel side of things ?

Where , the time where there's only a few of us here in Alaska , um , that were that were operating and uh , so I was like , all right , you know , I gotta do this .

And um , at first it started where , um , my , my friends , uh , dwayne , he , he , him and Doug came up and , uh , they had done something with uh Chris over at Buddy Pole you know they were just coming out with the Buddy Hex , so it was the prototype and he said , hey , you know , I'll let you guys bring it up to Alaska .

You get me some videos , some , you know , cool photos .

His channels make sense . I don't know if you ever ran into him .

I was like , okay , so he's the one that actually inspired me and talked a lot about how to set up a channel . I was like , okay , so at first it was Just a visual of everybody who I made contact with to see me or kind of for them to hear how they come across in Alaska . That's how it started .

And then I started getting emails hey , you should do this , do this and this . And I was like , okay , so it just progressed and it was between all the viewers just giving me suggestions of what , what it brought it , how it is today . So , but I've had a , I've had a lot of fun doing it .

I can't remember when I did , but when I did I think it's probably right around the same when everybody else is like I need to get alaska on poda , you know just to kind of like more of the selfish reasons to like see , see , if I could find somebody on the internet , you know , who might be able to get me what I need .

But when I caught your channel , I think I caught it like right when you were starting or just had gotten your FAA license for doing the drone stuff , and I was just like , oh dude , this , this , this is awesome . And it was like the footage was just like , you know , top quality .

Like I was like I'm not watching a regular YouTuber here , I mean , this guy's putting some solid content out there . And I was just like I want to be in Alaska . I , you know I'm like , hey , honey , we're going to Alaska next week . You know , I don't care what you're saying .

And then you know , and then I saw some of your other videos and I'm like , well , okay , maybe I might make a trip .

You know , I've been up here eight years now and it's like every time I go out , every time I see the Chugat Mountain Range , it never gets old to see that beauty , to see that majestic that you got mountain range it's .

It never gets old to see that beauty , to see that majestic and and I really wanted to capture that from , you know , from a drone , and I started looking into it . Yeah , you have to . You know , have your , your your faa license to to do it because my channel is now monetized ?

Um , so went through that process and uh , bought a uh air three and it's god , it's been fun , it's just been a lot of fun very cool .

I love POTA . It's being outdoors , working the parks , just getting out mobile is really my thing . It's it's . It's what I do more of than anything else in ham radio . But yeah , I've been flying model airplanes , helicopters and the drones . I mean the drones to me are like cheating because you know , like they just stay in the air and do the things .

But the old ones , when dji came out with their first ones , you used to be able to hit the switch and it'd fly manually and all these guys would come out and buy them and I'd always say , all right , let's see you fly it manually and it just wasn't happening . But the technology now is just absolutely incredible .

I mean I was looking at the drones that they came out Like . They just came out with a new FPV drone and it's just amazing the stuff that they can do Like . And it's just amazing the stuff that they can do like how advanced it's gotten probably within the last five to 10 years . It's just been .

It's been crazy , so yeah , but that's uh , that's kind of where I'm at and , like I said , I've uh , I , when you guys , didn't you do a trip with your buddies ? Uh , it was like a , you had to like drive , then you'd take snowmobiles and you had to hike , did you do that ?

Yeah , yeah , I was trying to work you on that weekend and I'd get glimpses of you , like you'd come in for a little bit . I'd try and like . You guys never heard me , but that was quite the the adventure . I mean , you guys took a what did you take ? Trucks , snowmobile , and then you had the hike too , didn't you ?

But yeah , I met um um sean , um kel 5ne and uh doug kel 70 og , and you know they started watching the channel and you know they live right here close to me and they reached out and I met with them , become real good friends with them , love those guys and it's because of them that we've taken kind of the channel to kind of this other side of activation ,

like doing the more I wouldn't say extreme stuff , but uh , doing the stuff that . That that I've never did . Um , you know , I rode a snow machine a couple times but uh , to actually jump on a snow machine , go out to a park , um it , it was all new to me and uh , so , sean , he was like , yeah , let's go up and do mental flats .

You know , which is , you know , probably about a five hour drive for us and then probably about 30 minutes on a snow machine . So it's not really that bad , but it was like negative 18 degrees . So it was , it was a little chilly .

I mean , we might get a little crazy , but not that crazy no yeah I was just really impressed with that one and you know you guys were like I think you were pretty much there for the weekend , right , and you were running all kinds of bands and I I tried all weekend , that's all I was doing .

I was like hunting you guys down and I just couldn't , for some reason away my antenna setup or whatever . Alaska is really really hard , but I'm eventually going to get my uh dx commander up and I'm hoping that'll uh make a little difference to get me to better out west . I'm better off South America and Europe in that direction .

So you know , even California is tough to get . But if the bands are right , you know I can get them . And my brother lives out in California and I was out there a couple times and I'd be listening to you and I'd have my portable set up on the deck just waiting like all right , he's got to be activating . You know , one time out there you didn't activate .

All week . I'm like where is he ?

You know that that I think that might just give me that little extra . You know a couple of DB . I need to get ahold of you .

My previous experience , but for the last six , seven months has been incredible . So we like to hit those . 10 meters is one of those bands where I don't know what it is .

I call it a magic band because for very minimal effort , antenna , your compromise antenna , whatnot you can you can talk like very good distances , uh , so we're we really been focusing , uh , staying on that 10 meter side , um , but sometimes , you know , um , you know we , we try other bands . Of course , um 17 is typically a good one for us as well .

Um , it really depends on , uh , the propagation . In the winter time it seems like a 10 is probably the best . As soon as we start going into summertime , for us , 20 and 17 , 15 is probably going to be the ones that that we choose the most , and last 10 is open .

So , if you don't mind , just kind of give me a quick rundown so that everybody else can understand too what it took to put a wood stove in there , because it's a phenomenal idea .

Um , but on mine personally , I have , uh , there's two ventilation ports on each side for cross ventilation . I essentially took one flapper out , just cut out the flapper and got a fire blanket that once I shove the stove pop through that ventilation hole , I just wrap it with the fire blanket for that protection from the heat . And that's worked exceptional well .

I've had no issues with it whatsoever and it's kept the kept the shanty warm , very warm , even in that negative 34 degrees , and once I had the wood heat I had to cut it down because it was hitting close to 80 degrees inside the tent .

Yeah , and that's the smallest wood uh , wood stove you can get Um yeah , you , you guys , you had to let the , the , the , the wood stove run so long that by the time the next day rolled around , you had like a nice , like it had died so low that you were like oh , we got to get this thing back up and stoked , because it was like or you had like layer

on the tent .

They call them hardwoods but they're really not , they're more of a softwood . They're only going to burn for about an hour or so . So you're , you're constantly feeding the stove . Um , so at that time we just turned on the propane heat . But yeah , next morning , I mean the , the black canvas of the tent of the inside was just completely white .

Uh , fire up the wood stove and it melted . It was like a rainforest in there for a minute . It was just showering . Uh , all that stuff , nothing I've been there .

So I'm gonna definitely take a tip from you and look into putting a wood stove into my eskimo yeah , it's , it's amazing so , on an average , I mean you're , when you do these trips , I I want to touch on your the who .

But it was real late . We went in , set up about , froze our butts off . But not a first contact .

So we were in a group chat , essentially just a you know group , text me , doug and Sean , and we were talking about , well , let essentially just uh , you know a group text me , doug and Sean , and uh , we were talking about , well , let's go activate a park we never activated and uh , sean wouldn't able to go . So , um , uh , so Doug said , hey , let's .

I was like , well , what are you thinking about ? He said , well , let's go up the Denali . I was like and this was like Sunday morning , nine o'clock or so I'm like , doug , that's like a five hour drive up there , five hour drive back , and it's already you know , we're already starting late .

He goes no , just come over to the house , we'll jump in the cup head up there land on the lake . I already got it all planned out . Do our activation . I was like are you kidding me ?

I'm on my way , yeah , yeah , so , so , yeah , yeah , doug lives rot , uh , an airport community , um , you know , out his front yard is a is an airstrip , um , so he's got a hanger , he's got two hangers at his house . So , uh , we pulled the his cub out of the lower hanger , jumped in . It took off .

It's probably about an hour flat landed on the landed on the lake , in the middle of the valley , and uh , operator off the wing , I mean that's like dude , that's like golden . Yeah , I wasn't thinking that he was going to do that , because we brought all of his gear and , yeah , he just sets it up on the wing .

I was like , oh man , this is going to be cool . I need to put the camera right here .

You had posted video , uh , of your hex beam basically inverted in in , basically just totally , and you're like , yeah , no big deal , you know , it'll eventually just warm up . And all of a sudden I'm like I'm thinking in my head , I'm like any hex beam around in this , you know , part of the world , we get more , you know solid ice and it just hangs .

And uh , you know , I was just like man , I hope that thing survives . And it's like it was no problem . He's like , yeah , I pop back up , everything's all good . And so you're still running the hex beam at home , or you , you got a different setup , or no , no , I have that exact same uh hex beam .

Um , we , we had , uh , early in the season , we had , uh , some real wet snow which typically we don't get . It's more of a dry snow , but it was earlier in the season . We had some real wet snow which typically we don't get . It's more of a dry snow , but it was earlier in the season .

So we had a bunch of freeze-thaw stuff going on and got a real , I think it was like what was it ? 14 , 15 inches . That night we got through a storm and I didn't even notice it , went outside to do something , looked up and I was like , oh my God .

I got a roof rake that I used to get the snow off the roof and extended it as far as it goes , Started hitting some of the elements and knocking off the snow and it just pops right back . I was like wow . I even threw the drone up to catch that as it was happening . I didn't think it was going to go that way at all .

I think you're a perfect candidate .

His claim to fame is the same thing New England weathers will kill it and I'm like like I bet you he sends should send it up to alaska and I'm gonna have to put you in touch with him just to real test the crap out of that thing to see whether or not I can handle it yeah , so , jeremy , real quick , you're from alabama , right ?

I mean I know you guys are probably laughing at us at that point um , anytime there's a mention of snow in the south , um , but yeah , once I got up here in alaska , so it's a real different kind of snow . Um , you know everything we get back when we did get snow back in georg , you know that kind of that wet snow , that that real slippery stuff .

Um , the snow we get here , except for that one particular time , you know , beginning of the season , it's kind of that wet stuff , but for most part it's real dry . Um , and it , it , it makes driving horrible , especially if there's , you know , a lot of wind . It , uh , it can be a wide out in quite no time . Great .

I mean obviously you want to make sure you're comfortable and whatnot , but the one thing I don't see a lot of is like okay , what are you packing for food ?

There is a couple times I went out and at the beginning of the winter almost , I brought out a tent at South Big Lake , I believe it was . I think it was one of the first activations I did with the stove , not in the shanty , but it was in another tent that's actually got a roof jack . Uh , but I did do some cooking there . I'm just playing around .

I love to eat , I love to cook . Um , you know these longer trips , uh , we'll probably just stick to mountain houses . Like , we have this huge trip coming up . We're probably going to do it after . After we get back from Dayton . Doug is going to fly , sean and I . It's it's about a five hour flight to the Arctic which has never been activated before .

There's a landing strip up there . We're going to land and and kind of hock up a little ways and set up camp there . Um , so that's been in the works for a while now . Um , and it will continue , cause logistics is crazy .

Um , there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong on that trip , um , so we're trying to , you know , dial everything down and to make sure we got a . We've got a good plan , and but that's going to be fun .

As far as uh disposing of , you know , every the carcass , I don't know , cool , I'm gonna have to look into that now follow-up uh episode .

I won't like , obviously you don't show it in your videos , but I'm curious , like , obviously in any of your activations either the overnight ones where you're doing a weekend and whatnot you've have you seen anything like crazy , like , uh , you know , like either like animals or nature or something just like , really like that just threw you for , like , oh my gosh ,

I can't . You know , you know you're dealing with the elements , or has it just been kind of , you know , even keel for you ?

I mean , that's Grizzly country , so that's something we're definitely going to have to keep an eye on that trip . But as far as anything like that recent no .

But you know any , you , any digital mode ? I know in one of your activations I think it was either Dave or somebody else was doing digital . But do you do digital yourself or are you just mostly a sideband guy ?

I did try digital FTA , ft4 a few times and I still do it every now and again , more in the summertime , you know , for camping with the family and in the camper and I don't want to really bother them with you know the whole voice stuff and while they're asleep and I'm not , you know , jump on ft8 or ft4 and make some contacts .

Then digital in the field is so boring oh , I'm with you , jerry sideband sideband .

You know , when you see pictures you see a lot of still pictures and you're like , oh , that's cool . But actually visibly seeing it and how it just changes shapes and it moves like extremely fast and it's just , it's just remarkable . We've , we've been getting it .

You know some of these bigger ones that they have , but uh , uh , but I'm sure by you it's just like amazing oh yeah , yeah , but the Aurora kills the uh HF signals .

Uh , I've never tried it , but uh , they , there's a couple locals that say , you know , especially if you have , um a uh antenna that you can , you know , directional antenna , you can point it over the aurora and uh , sometimes you can make some like extremely cool contacts , doing it that way , um , some effects of it , where it just bounces a signal , whichever

way , uh it's , it's never one of those things where you know exactly , uh , where you're , where you're going to hear or where you're going to talk to um , but I've never tried it .

You know it's like , it's like sort of like the delay or just kind of killing you , you know , during the regular day down here , you know where you , you know you would probably have that with the Aurora and the fact , but you know , you might , you might , surprise . I'd be curious to see what , if that would work for you .

But there's been times where , you know , it's's been six , seven o'clock at night for me and I'm working like a ton of east coast stations now , have you ever do you get a lot of asian stations too ?

We get a lot of japan stations uh through the day , um , and then at night time is really when when everything kind of fires up um , you get more of that that .

But you know , every once in a while the bands will be up . That's why , like , if you get a hawaii or alaska or even like a japan , you're like loving life .

But we had , like last summer , 20 meters , I have , I worked a couple overnight shifts and I was hitting , uh , new zealand and australia like there was no tomorrow , like 5 , 9 , nine , 20 over on a hundred meters and I had a CUSO with a guy who was , he had a , he had a Yagi a hundred meters and I had a wire .

We probably talked for 20 minutes and he was out in New Zealand . It was like 10,800 miles away . So those are , those are kind of cool when you get that far . But you know , for us , you know a good typical day , if you get a couple europe stations , you're like all right , that was a good , uh good , some good dx during the potter thing yeah .

You know you kind of open the door a little bit , you can see your family side and get to . You know , see that . You know kind of the everything beyond the hammer . You know we got to kind of see that , uh , when you were on , uh , you had done a I can't rented a cabin , I think is what that was .

So how does your family kind of adjust to your hobby ? Do they embrace it , do they kind of just accept it ? What's that kind of feeling ?

The family will be with me next weekend for , you know , support your parks weekend at Big Lake , so they'll be with me . So I plan on doing a video of that , so , but yeah , it's , they love it .

Um , she's , she's really not interested in it , but uh , I think one day one thing I think she will hopefully my advice is start with the kid first , then the wife will come . Yeah , yeah , the girls absolutely . They eat it up . They love going out on activations with me . I really got to watch it .

You know , youtube has a thing about having your little ones , so I really have to watch that side of it .

I mean , she would come on poters with me all the time and , and , as todd would say , you know I'm cheating , but uh , you know she recorded a couple of uh , you know cq messages that I usually use in desperation . Uh , you know when I need to get that extra , you know a couple of extra contacts to get over to activate the park and you know they go .

Well , where's the girl ? I'm like I don't know what girl you're talking about not a oh man .

I'm like at least half an hour , 40 minutes once . Oh , that was easy . The power of the female voice .

But uh , you know , overall I so far out of the way I look at I'm winning . So yeah , that's awesome cool , cool , well , so let's kind of dive in , uh , before I do . But , uh , you guys , any other questions you want to throw ? Jeremy or you know , want to talk about the cw stuff ?

I know it's not popular with us , but hey , I just don't speak that language , understood , so so okay , so , yeah , so let's kind of frame this a little bit .

So , on your channel you just recently been picking cw back up and and doing a couple of videos and they've been phenomenal , like even you know you've inspired me a little bit to want to take that keyer that I have underneath my uh , you know shelf here and you know put it to use . But , uh , you know talk a little that .

You know kind of what's your experience been in that ? And we obviously shared a little bit of you know how it was a struggle for you very early on , but you know . So what inspired you to want to get back to it and start picking it up again .

It was like I will try it for a couple days , then I will just get so burnt out on it where I just gave it up . And uh , about a month or so ago I got an email from uh , one of the viewers , john , and uh , he said , hey , I need , uh , do you do any cw ? I need a 40 meter contact . Uh from he's a county hunter so he needs my .

My county , which is not Alaska , doesn't have counties , we just have a lot of boroughs , so he needs the Matanuska Borough for a CW contact . He says if he gets that he would be the second person in the world to ever have done it what he's accomplished thus far , plus having this contact with the Mat-Su Second person in the world .

And I was like , oh , man , talking about pressure Pressure , yeah , yeah , I mean he didn't , he didn't , he didn't say you know , I said I'm sorry , I tried to learn it and you know he was never . He was never pushy about the whole thing and I said I would love to learn it but I could never get there .

It's always been a very hard challenge for me and uh , so , uh he , he started sending me some links . Um , I mean , he , he put a lot of time in putting a bunch of resources together for me and I started looking into it and uh , you know , I really appreciate that and I sent him an email back .

I was like I really appreciate you taking the time and putting all these resources together for me . Because of that , I'm going to get you your 40 meter contact , um . So hopefully we can do that next weekend , um so so well .

So what you've been kind of my head and trying to break it all down , so what you've been kind of just sharing and whatnot , has been a positive influence in both my life and , I'm sure , others that have been watching , and it will eventually push me over the edge . I got Tim in the comments there telling me to dust off my key .

I'm like I will , I will , I promise I'm getting there . There's so much more aspects of the hobby , that kind of do , but it is going to be there and it's not going to disappear . So , yeah , morsemedia is a really good option too there . Vband was what we were talking about offline a little bit earlier .

If you want to practice keying and I'll do a little shameless plug for VBand If you want to just pick up this , go over to ham radio dot solutions . There's a simple , you know , plug-in keyer that interfaces with your computer .

You can plug your keyer in and you can converse with people online , you know , in a group , you know kind of cuso , and it's got all the functionality features you'd want out of it . So I played , started in that area and I liked it . But then I just got , you know , sidetracked and and squirreled . So you know I will pick it up , I promise .

Uh , you know burning you out or or whatever . But yeah , just just keep on it .

Anything you want to touch upon and we're kind of getting up on the top of the hour here and I appreciate everybody who's been in the chat . The questions have been great and the conversation has been awesome . But , paul or Todd , you got anything you want to throw at Jeremy ? You know , kind of last minute .

I just turned it because with my flex radio and I heard you and I'm like I ran downstairs , I got on the thing and it just died . I'm like you gotta be kidding me .

that antenna dude , you know , if they ever ask you to send it back , tell them over your dead body because , as you know , it's a great antenna . Oh yeah , yeah , cool , all right , well , so I guess with that . So you know , if you know , if people want to reach out to you , jeremy , they want to get to know more of you .

What , what's kind of the best way to get ahold of you , or you know what's your channel ? Uh , information and and , uh , you know , kind of want to share that a little bit .

I think you know that's on our to-do list and and we definitely want to get down to like camcation and whatever . So we're working on the budget there and you know , eventually , uh , you know , we we got uh ryan , who is a pilot as well , so , you know , maybe we can convince him to kind of arrange a flight .

So , if you listen , ryan , come on , step up the plate , man take one for the team .

I am happy and I'm sure Tana , obviously , and Paul , you know , share the same sentiment that it's great to have you on . We've been talking about you from time to time .

Every time we do a you know kind of what's going on our ham week , we're always like why can't we freaking get Alaska , you know , and your call will come up in a positive light , never in vain , of course , but we're looking forward to you .

I'm still going to work until I get you , but I appreciate you coming on . I mean , we've been . This was one of the ones I was kind of looking forward to a lot , just to hear your adventures and stuff and what it's like up there . So very cool and thank you .

There should be no reason why you haven't subscribed to us . Come on , we've got great content . Like Jeremy , there are always several ways you can connect with our show . As we said , you can head over to our shop at livefreeandhamcom , forward slash shop and pick up some of our merch .

You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts or any of your podcast players and leave us a review and we'll make sure we read it on our next episode . As always , you can support the show , if you prefer to , through Patreon or buy us a beer . Links , and they're also all located in our show notes and the website .

And if you want to reach any one of us , you can always head over to livefreeandhamcom . And , as always , thanks again for listening and from all of us at Live Free and Ham 73 . 73 guys , 73 . And , as always , thanks again for listening and from all of us at Live Free in Ham 7-3 .