Marco? Polo? HamRS? - That doesn't seem right.

So , whether you're a regular listener or a first-time guest , we are excited to have you here and appreciate your support and checking out the show . So let's tune in tonight's episode . As always , let's get in the show . I'm your host , Eric Paulstein , N1JUR , and I'm with my notorious crew here .

You can head over there and check out some of our awesome merch . We're all sporting our usual livery and ham caps there . Um , we've got a boatload of shirts and we've got a surprise coming up soon that we're going to be launching on the show .

If you , uh , are a follower of us and you've been paying attention , um , a certain host of ours is going to be making a jump . We'll say and , uh , we're going to be putting a commemorative shirt in his favor .

You know , if we have to raise it for other reasons , then so be it , but I'm sure he's going to land safely and everything will be great and ready to meet Carlos . Sorry about that , we'll edit that in post .

We'll meet Carlos , hopefully in October , and both him and Paul will make that jump that we're we're anticipating We'll be able to make a five , two contact with them . That'd be a wonderful , all right , well , anyway . So , as always , we want to thank you If you've purchased stuff from our store , um , as it can support our show .

We love the feedback and you can always send us a feedback through our SMS link in all of our description show notes below , or , if you're the type you can , Ladies and gentlemen , can I please have your attention ?

Uh , you , rob , and actually now that I'm thinking about this one rob is more of a do good episode , so we're gonna hold that one over and I'm just gonna edit this and post edit , because I can screw this one up big time . Uh , anyway , well , you know , we're just gonna skip over that and I'm gonna cut it out . So , between those three oh , do you have .

I got a post on my facebook page , uh , from a shannon , and of course , I am not anywhere close to being able to pick it up here . Um , yep , shannon , uh , she .

I don't have her call sign , she didn't list it here , but she uh left us a wonderful update saying how she was able to uh hit a lot of YouTubers when she was out there doing a poda at activation of a park of US 4509 and 6927 .

So she was doing a twofer , which we appreciate because that helped us immensely with our logs , and she looks like she hit 30 parks , but she was able to get a hold of K murder , uh , kmrd , um and myself , uh and uh , paul , obviously , uh , live free and ham status . Uh , we were all super excited .

We didn't make the connection in our head because we were already drinking from the higher hose because , uh , that was , uh , an intense , uh , a tense photo we'll talk about in a little bit , but , uh , yeah , outside of that , yeah , it was great to see it . Thank you again , shannon , and I apologize for not having your call sign .

I should have looked it up in the logs there . But appreciate you making contact with us and you know telling how awesome our show is and being a part of that . So thanks again and appreciate that feedback . So there , yeah , so we do have a review , so nothing in post edit has to get edited out .

So we do have a review , so nothing in post-edit has to get edited out . Thank you , paul , for saving the day once again . All right , well , you know . So let's get to the real stuff here . You know , as we said , our regular segment here Doing good , good , doing good . You do , that's good .

Do good , do good , you're doing good , good , good , good , good , good , good good , Absolutely .

There are looking at , you know , bringing lids to light and salty hams . You know , exposed . But we decided that you know , we want to take a different route with this and so you know , whether you're looking to join a club or you're looking to , you know , participate in the ham radio hobby . We want to highlight the things that are doing good .

So we want to highlight our clubs , the people around us , clubs in the greater US and beyond and worldwide . So we've started this new segment called Do Good and we're going to again show and hopefully with the help of you guys , show how clubs are doing good .

So we're giving you guys the podium , we're giving you guys the opportunity to promote your club , to show how awesome stuff is going on , and if you don't have a club and you have a group of guys and gals that get together to do a podo meetup once a month or whatever , we want to hear about it .

We want to hear about all the fun and we want to share it with the rest of our listeners . So we're asking you to , to , to send in those reviews . And so you have heard our cries and , uh , we have got a review or not a review . We got a , a feedback from uh 741 and and n1 nug sorry about the screw up there , rob on the call sign .

Um , he sent us a uh , do good thing and he said over the last year or two the bears of manchester connecticut radio club had done several new things to help serve its members while still keeping on with the club traditions . Um , they've got newsletters , they've got a bunch of projects , um , and up-and-coming presentations .

So they're a very active club , which is totally awesome to hear . Um , they're obviously doing a lot like , uh , some of the other clubs that we've come across doing general license and technician classes and all the sorts . So , um , they're always looking to promote and bring in new young members to their club .

And they just said that they've got , uh , a new , brand new two meter repeater . So they're pouring time , resources and effort into their club to be able to help the ham community to promote them , and so we are super excited to hear that . And , rob , we we give you a thumbs up and thank you again for telling us all about your club there in Connecticut .

So if you are in the local Connecticut area , definitely check out the Bears Club . They've got a ton of stuff . Their website we'll leave in the show notes description below so you can check them out . And if you too also have a similar story like your club , we want to hear about it . So make sure you send it to us .

You can go up to our website , use the comment form and fill it in , or you can just send it directly to us at livefreeandham at gmailcom and put in the subject line do good , and we will share it with our , you know , at the next episode , and we , you know , want to hear from you . So , you know , keep it coming .

Okay , all right , now with our usual thoroughfare , with a slight caveat , because , remember , todd threw down the gauntlet with this one and he said I had to help answer the question . So we are going to be doing a head-to-head challenge with this one . So let's spin it right into , right into , and now for something a little extra with Todd W1STJ . All right .

Well , you heard it here . This is where we help Todd study for his extra class license . Each episode we pick three questions , sir Three , no more , no less to help him review the extra class question pool to test his knowledge , hoping he gets his upgrade . We know he will . He's done so far really well and he's going to continue the streak .

So if you'd like to follow along , you can always head over to ham studyorg . It's a great resource and they've done some awesome updates to their mobile apps , which todd has been super excited to talk about , and I too have gone on there and play with it , love it . Great , great addition . Guys , thank you for all the great hard effort work you're putting in .

You're definitely help , uh , you know , uh many future hams to get their ticket , and so , without any further ado , I'm going to hand it over to our lovely VE Quizmaster .

Hey , if you've recently received your license or upgraded , we want to know , you know , and we're serious about this we would like to recognize you on the next episode for your hard work and effort .

So email us at livefreeatham at gmailcom , and we are going to make sure we mention , uh , you on the next show and , you know , give you the praise that you did , you know , for getting your you know upgrade or your technician license , your first technician . So , you know , let us know .

We want to celebrate with you and so we , uh , we will leave it at that . You know , in essence , I'm still an extra Todd's working towards his um , and you know , we're all good , we're all friends here . At the end of the day , Bonus points .

I made a lot of fantastic contacts on 10 meters fantastic Worldwide . 10 meters was wide open . I made a lot of fantastic contacts on 10 meters , both from the shack , which is very , very hard , because my QTH has basically a bowl going around it and so it tends to block a lot of signals , especially with 10 meters . So it was fantastic .

Today I had a ton of fun playing on 10 meters and making contacts all around the world . Got to go out to my favorite park the other day Thanks for accompanying me , eric Wrapped up with 111 contacts , so I'm one step closer to that kilo . And , yes , where are you right now ? Do you know ?

I said this reminds me of my very first time doing Parks on the Air , when I went out and did my first activation and I was like 30 contacts and I felt like the pile up and I was like this is just awesome , I've got to keep doing this all the time and super addicted to it .

And then you kind of get into the lull and you wish for those days to come back and guess what ? Those came back like game busters , cool , all right . Well , that is . That is definitely a good way to wrap up or start of the weekend . But so , leading over to you , todd , how was your you know , ham radio week ?

It was a little , it wasn't really raining , but it was windy and the trees were wet , so I was getting a little wet , but I did it on my lunch break , was there for about an hour and uh got a bunch activated the park , and then I took a break and uh , I went hunting and could hear a lot of stations , really like five , nine but they weren't hearing me .

When I finally got through there was a bunch of park to parks and they said we were all too weak to hear um , but I did make some and uh , and then I went back to a different frequency , but on 20 meters and uh finished out with a couple more and ended up with 25 . So it was a good day let's see how long was that .

How long was the activation about ? An ? It was about an hour . I was waiting . It wasn't like an hour of me trying to get . I would say maybe a half an hour of activating , calling out , and then about 20 minutes of hunting and sitting on pileups trying to get through , and then about 10 minutes .

At the end I probably picked up like four or five more , but uh , the the coax that I got , um paul recommended , worked very well . It's nice and compact and , um , yeah , I was happy with it , so it all worked out good . I do know that my battery , though , is really getting beat up .

It's like all peeling apart , like now I can see the actual batteries inside the plastic . I'm like I'm going to tape that up , but I think , if I start , I have to go . I think I have to go down to Arkansas again either in November or December .

So I'm going to need to buy another battery , because I think , if the TSA sees this battery , they're going to be like what the hell is that ? I mean it works fine it . And the TSA sees this battery , they're going to be like what the hell is that ? I mean it works fine , it's just the plastic is just peeling apart .

I think it's just getting beat up in the bag , so I might have to go to the candy store and buy myself a new battery well , I won't stop you from buying a new battery .

But uh , it had been a while and I was itching to go and it wasn't really the best of day , but uh , I didn't have much going on at work and I was able to take a lunch break , so I figured it wasn't hungry . I'll just go , uh , activate the park , so we'll get there , eric , one of these days .

I mean , I figured I'm going to stop at like 900 and then that way we're just going to have to pick up a day and say we're dedicating a day , we're not leaving until we get a hundred instead of 10 .

We obviously did a dual poda poda this weekend at russell abbott great , great place . I mean , it was a little spitty and rainy , but uh , paul's official , uh , you know umbrella set up there , kept everything dry and and and we were shielded by trees . So I think , you know , for most of the you know , activation wasn't terribly that bad .

I mean , it was a little raw for sure , but as long as you had a sweater on , you were good .

The the two things that I learned , obviously , and you know it's kind of funny because we , we made a little joke because I know , todd , anytime you and I have done an activation , we always say last call , and then you're like that little star guy at the starfish , while the starfish wash up on the beach , you have to throw everyone back .

Well , like , paul knows how to shut the volume off . He's just like we're going QRT . We're going QRT . And then the next thing instead of even touching the mic , he just turns the volume off . Can't hear it Gone . No , I'm like .

I'm like , I know , paul , you know , I know Todd would be there for another more hour and a half trying to make sure you got everybody in the log , which is awesome , but I gosh , we would have been there until like midnight , that was that was pretty intense . Now , I would have stayed .

It was definitely one of the you know , it'll go down the record books for me just being able to go out and again and I know you had mentioned this on the last episode or two before the antenna that came to save our butts again was the Bugout Mini by Reliance Antenna .

That thing was on point no problem , 10 meters picking calls , like I mean literally 10 meters , felt like we were . I was just watching Paul activate and the people that he was talking to were coming in five , nine plus 20 over five , nine plus 40 over In some cases .

It was just like they were literally sitting there next to us having a conversation and then when we got into 20 , it was the same thing , like there was no point . We're a five , seven , five , eight , I'm sure , and so you know it was just , it was uh , it was just bliss . I'll have to say that I mean , that's that just basically it's an awesome .

Well worth the money , um , well worth the antenna itself , good design and matt's a great guy , so we can't thank him enough for , uh , putting something out there that that rescued a lot of us that were all looking for NFEDS antennas and couldn't get the pack antennas because they didn't exist or they weren't in production or they were behind in production .

And again , not to slam the car's antennas or anything , those are great antennas too , but the form factor for reliance is literally in the palm of your hand . You can't go any wrong with that . So , yeah , well , so kind of with that it kind of uh it's in a case like this well , yeah , we can see it . Put it in front of your shirt . Yeah , that's it .

Yeah , right there , that is the whole thing . Antenna that's a 40 . What ? 40 through 10 , 40 through 6 yeah , no , no , I gotta say .

And I knew that I had my backup battery standing by on my toolbox ready to go , but I forgot to throw it in the truck , and wouldn't you know that my POTA battery was about half dead because I hadn't charged it from the last POTA . And so , yeah , eric and I are going strong , we're working a heck of a pile up and the battery dies .

And literally midway a WB four radio goes dead . And Paul's like , oh man , it's like a 10 volts , this thing's not going to come back on at all . And I'm like , lo and behold , plug back in back on the road . So yes , just bring an extra friend with a whole bunch of equipment .

And when you put these bigger planes together , they have wing tubes which go through the fuselage , it together , they have wing tubes which go through the fuselage . It keeps the wing steady . That's what the wing goes into , brings all this crap . He's all ready to go . He left the wing . Oh oh no , not the wing tube , the wing bolts .

So when you put it in , you bolt them in , yeah , and they're not like it's not like a screw , it's like a special bolt and he totally forgot it . He's like I'm like , how come you not flying ? He goes , I left the bolts at home . I I'm like , are you kidding me ? He goes an hour drive . I said you can fly one of mine . He refused to fly , he goes .

Nope , I'm not doing it . I'm like , don't worry man . I went down there a week before that and I get all the way down and I forgot all my batteries . I get down there I'm unloading and I'm like where are the batteries ? I blame my son for that one . I'm like , zach , I told you to get all the crap he goes . I did Everything you took out , I goes .

Did you see the battery ? He goes . No , I'm like , did you think that ? Maybe he asked me if I had the battery ?

I know when this airs it'll be in october , um , but , uh , either way , you know , pay attention for the october streams because they're always a blast , we enjoy doing them and we may actually talk about , uh , you know what we just mentioned , so it'll work out good for October .

But with our episode today we're going to talk , like I said , not about Marco Polo and playing childhood pool games . That's not the topic there . So if you were tuning in this far and assuming we were going to talk about those , sorry . We're going to talk about portable loggers tonight Because we've all had a chance to really get our teeth sunk into , uh .

You know the new logger out there that , uh , you know people have been talking about . There's been a lot of youtubers and and uh videos out there about polo , um , but we wanted to kind of share our thoughts , uh , because we both come from both sides of the camp there . We've all been hammers users for a long time .

Um , we all cut our teeth on it , loved it , still love it . I mean it's not a bad app , it's still great , and you know . But the new one on the scene is Polo , and so we're going to talk a little bit about those .

We'll share with you if you've never heard anything about any of these loggers out there and you're a paper person and you're interested in getting into portable logging for you know , portable logging for summits on the air or poda or anything in between , and actually even we'll probably talk about a little bit the Polo app and even Hammers does a little bit of

field day and stuff like that , so you can use those loggers for those types of events . We'll talk a little bit about those and hopefully share our thoughts on them , and I think we'll probably lean a little bit more towards Polo because I think all of us really have a deep affection for it . I know I do .

I love the app now more than , say , hammers , but you know Hammers , in terms of getting up and running fast , it's a great app . So with that , so , like you know , obviously we all let's kind of level set here .

So you know , when we started in the logging side of things , did you guys all just dive into , you know , picking the latest one like hammers when it was on the market . Or would you guys start logging paper before when you started doing photo activations ?

So I downloaded it and didn't know how to work it and then I used it up until recently when I tried Polo and I loved hammers . It was easy to use , like I mean , it was very basic , simple , easy to export and it was a great app for you . You know me doing the poda stuff . It was , it just works and it worked on my ipad . Uh , it's a little better .

Both of them are a little bit better on on an ipad or a computer versus , or a laptop versus the phone , but it's easy either way . So if you didn't have your like , one time I did a act out park and , uh , I forgot my laptop I mean my ipad so I did it on the phone , which was cool that it was able to do that . So , but that's how I started .

And then , just recently , I'd say , my last five or six activations I've been , I tried the polo out and we'll talk about that later on .

Um but um , what I will say , the the biggest upside to hammers over polo is when you're out at a park with no service , polo takes an hour to freaking load and if you don't have , uh , some type of , then the park references don't load and you know the QRZ lookups don't work .

And and at least with hammers , you know what I would do is I would come back out of the field where I'm sitting here and I've got internet and I would go through my log and I would update everybody . And so it would .

It would look them up and it would input all their information , and then it's beautiful , it would look them up and it would input all their information , and then it's beautiful and it's perfect , and it's .

I send it up to myself through email and I don't know , maybe there's a way to do it in Polo that I haven't figured out yet , but I can , I'll relieve that pain from you and show you how to do it .

You know , uh , and and I think at one point , uh , I I did get a little bit of internet connectivity , so you know , like the hot spot was functional and and so I did have a couple people where their info was in there , but I , there was no quick , intuitive way for me to like update everybody , and so I'll look to you for that okay , well , so we'll talk

a little bit about that .

Um , my handwriting is worse than a doctor's , so I know for a fact that I would uh need to have some type of uh , you know , keyboard type entry or whatever . And so hammers was my start . Hammers was really good , yeah , exactly so . Hey , if the for our podcast listeners , paul's holding up his chicken scratch on a paper and it's sort of like mine .

Um , I think with hammers , when we first started with it it was it was enough to get most most folks going in terms of park reference information . If you did have a cell service or you had like a data plan on a tablet or something like that , you could get the benefits of doing call sign lookup and and through qrz and and updating .

Uh , the benefit to that was always um , if you're like a visual person like myself , um , you could look at the map and from that qrz lookup data , you could see where the points were in terms of how far you might go or whatever . Now it didn't give you any of that range information , but it was .

It was kind of cutting edge for a lot of the loggers , I think when it first came out , um and I don't know you guys agree with that I mean when you first started poking around stuff , I mean nobody was putting hrd on a laptop , right not that I know of no , I , I , I found , I found it .

It's not like I mean , if you've done any log , even if it's your first log , you'll figure it out . It's like put the call sign in , put the . You know it has all the boxes . It's very simple and it works great .

Uh , when you're doing poda activations and you know anywhere , or if you , if you're when I was if you want to activate , like using my flex , and I don't have my computer , my log on the computer and I start making contacts , you can use either one of them as just a regular log . So I've done that too . When I was working I messed around on HF .

Now we're going to touch base in a little bit some of the cooler functions now that polo kind of brings to the scene that hammers doesn't have , which hopefully eventually will come around , maybe , I don't know . Um , I haven't been in the ham hammers camp in a while .

Um , so , you know , with that I kind of uh , you know , realized that , uh , I'm not looking back , I still have hammers on my phone , but uh , are they ? Are they both free ? I ?

So if anyone from Verizon is listening to this , get your freaking shit together and get me some service . But you know , like I said , they're both great . And , like I said , I've switched to Polo and we'll talk about why I like it better . But there's no reason .

If you're like one of these guys that doesn't like change or whatever , then stick with Hammers because it does work .

So if you're familiar with how poda used to be um k , as all of the park designations , you know polo hammers has gotten to the point where it's now updated database wise , so you're in sync with the , the database list that the you know , um , the poda part , the parks organization or podas organizations putting out and that stuff is current .

I don't um so I know like . So when . If you've never been in hammers before , let me kind of give you a quick like layout and then we'll kind of dive into polo , because it'll at least help you set like a foundation if you're thinking about going one way or another .

Hammers , like we said , it's all very small , it's very um , it's footprint , it runs on many multiple devices , the .

The big thing with hammers is that you probably have to have a little bit of information to add to it to get a , you know , a log set up , and really all that is is you're going to need to obviously know the park number you're at and the park designator , because you're going to have to manually enter that in because there's no real lookup in hammers .

Is that correct , guys ? You have to know that .

Now , if you've got um qrz capabilities and a data you know connection out to the internet for the device you're on , you can easily do qrz lookups .

So the one thing I loved about it was is that if I made a contact I typed in a call sign , it would give me the call signs first and last name , you know roughs , location and stuff like that , um , and then it would , uh , put it on a map that I could see in real time as I started to make contacts .

And that was my , my kind of candy for the app , because I'd be like oh , this is really cool , I can see all of like where I'm reaching , how far my antenna is going , which I took to the other side of the coin , where it's like oh , it's like , oh , I can play around with my ground radials and see if I go one direction or another , and what I end up

finding out was is based off the time of day , it was more like , oh , I'm always going to be east coast or , you know , dx is going to be some more than just whether I put my ground radials in a certain direction . But yeah , I thought that was the very cool option and , as Todd , you alluded to , in hammers the ADF export was always wicked easy .

So if you had a , you know , a simple , you know option to be able to go to your , you know , dropbox or Google drive or whatever , you could send your file there and then come home to your computer and , you know , upload it to the POTO website . So it really made activations wicked easy .

Now , we all know that hammers went through a lot of pains too and crashes , and everybody used to hate hammers for a long time , which hasn't been that way in a while . But there used to be a lot of pitchforks and torches with hammers and crashes .

Pitchforks and torches , uh , with hammers and crashes , um , but that kind of , I think that impetus speared a few people on to come up with a better logger or at least a , you know , improved logger , because hammers had gotten long on the tooth , as we all know , it was a good logging app and it did its job , um , but there was nothing on the scene to

replace it . So now polo shows up . Um , when did you guys kind of hear wind of Polo ? And you know , when did you decide to like make sort of a toe in the water attempt ?

But once I started using it I was like , wow , this is , this is what I like . And one of the things that I do like is I like looking at hammers . For me and I know , like eric , you never had this problem , but a lot of times we'd be at the same spot doing a double activation . It wouldn't log all my on the map . I'd get maybe three .

We have like 40 contacts . I got three on the map . What's going on with that ? Then I would check . They were all checked green and they all updated the map . It sometimes didn't work . It worked for Eric , it wouldn't work for me . It could have been an Apple thing , who knows . But with Polo it works all the time .

And what I liked about Polo is and hammers , the map .

It's either you're logging or you're looking at the map right , like on Polo , I can be logging and then you have a quarter screen or at least on my iPad it is and then you could be looking at the map , you could look at spots , you could be looking at your you know the info , so there's different things you can see .

So I could actually have the map log in , do all the stuff and still see the map live coming up of where I'm making contacts and where my , my range is . Instead of clicking back and forth , I can just have it out in front of me and you can pick what you . You don't have to see the map , but if you want to , it's there .

So that's what I like and I've never had a problem of it not logging my contacts on the polo map . So that was a big . That was a big thing for me is like it just works smoother , um , and there's a lot of other things , but , pa Paul , I'll let you go .

So when Polo first came out , I believe that Mike Delhover K-Murder , who has this awesome German last name , I love it I think he was the first one to do a video on it , and so I downloaded it right away and I played around with it and it was really cool , even in the initial beta testing , um , you know , and it was cool to kind of get in on the beta

before it was actually released . Um , they've definitely made a lot of fantastic improvements . Um , like Todd said , if you've got it on a tablet in landscape mode , it is great that you've got that kind of sidebar and you can click through those tabs while not losing your contact entry field and your log . But yeah , I found out because of Mike .

And it'll show you the parks that were within your area , right , like so you know the close , yeah , and it'll say like you're , you know , this park is like you know , and I mean I'm at the nashville railroad trail . It's a long trail so you could be anywhere . It said it was 10 miles away but that's where it's like pointed on the pota map .

In massachusetts I was on the nashville side , but you know you have a list . You just click that . All the information is there , um , and then basically you just type in what frequency you're on and you're good to go . It puts the grid , it just auto populates everything . So I find it it's a lot quicker to set up um , to get going .

Like you turn it on , click poda , type in your park number and what frequency you're on and , boom , you're ready to go . It's that quick and everything is auto populated and you don't have to write a title , you don't have have to save it and it's all ready to be . You know , as soon as you're done , you can export it right then and there and it's .

It sends it right to the pod app , to the uplog , the uplog section , and that's it . So I that's what I thought . It was just awesome that it just everything is just done for you and it's accurate so , paul , go ahead , describe a little bit .

But like I know there's some like little tidbit features in there that I can see in your eyes going like I gotta talk about this .

cell service that make Polo great . And so I go back to hammers , because hammers just freaking works . You know , it's simple . I don't need a cellular network . I could just yep , this is what it is , this is what it is , this is what it is , and go .

But I will say to Todd's credit , right that , yes , 100% , if you are in a location that has cell service , 100% hands down , it beats hammers day in , day out , every day , because you've got the cell spotting and you know the QRZ lookups and the map and the layout is fantastic . Everything's very intuitive .

Entering park to parks is a lot simpler , you know you . Just you don't even have to do the U ? S , you just type the number comma . Type the number comma and it'll give you the separate entries for each of those parks . You know so , as long as you've got cell service .

When I get park to parks , like if you get park to park they've got two parks and there's two operators , you're just like you know , and I would always get screwed up , I find it with polo just being able to like crank in as soon as they give you , just type it in that number and then comma , next number , and it just auto populates it and you're good to

go . And I know , eric , you were saying , and I I didn't realize this , but you can talk about how it if you tap , tap it , you said it'll just know Added in .

Now we , we , it pulls from the , the entry and the spotting page that that's the associated park with it .

Now we , we , I wanted to step back a little bit because one thing you guys forgot to mention in polo that I thought are really cool , that obviously when you log into the app itself you're gonna get into um , it does a database check every once in a while .

So , and the databases again , we probably weren't clear enough in the beginning is that polo isn isn't really per se just parks on the air . It does Florida and Fauna , it does field days , both of them it does a generic log . It also does Soda's database .

So when you go into the app and you set things up , you can say , hey , I want Soda , poda , flora and fauna , whatever , and then it goes out and gets those databases . So it always , you know , every once in a while does a check .

And that's kind of what Paul was alluding to is that if you don't have a cell phone connection , that database has never been updated or last updated . The app just slogs . It's slow . I mean , I've been witness to that and it's one of those things that you have to kind of now in your mindset of .

When I go out to activate a park before I leave I have to go update my tablet , you know , with all of the database from the app for the 5-10 minutes . It's sort of like in the apple world where you know if you don't back up your ipad , it constantly tells you over and over again you need to back up , you know , because you're 17 days out .

So I always make that just kind of a process . So I've sort of done that , although when I went with paul and activated I didn't do that . So you know , once again , I'm a bad example of , you know , being consistent well , that's why .

So I had to get my first contact and ask the guy could you mind spotting me ? I have no service here . But at that point , you know , I don't think I mean I would not , I would probably never even be able to get on . You know , it wouldn't even open up , probably , is my guess .

But when I'm in polo , when I go to create a new entry or a new log , I can select a soda .

If I'm at a soda , I can a poda , and if it's a two for poda , I can put the two parks in there based off of the , the grid square I get , and if it happens to be a worldwide flora and fauna park at the same time too , I can put all of that information into the log file even before I start logging .

So when I go to actually start the log , all that data is already there . Start the log , all that data is already there . Now the piece that I really like , enjoy a lot , is the qrz lookup , um of the , the park . So like when you go or not , the qrz , the database lookup .

So when you go to select by your grid square , it says here , these are all the parks in the area that I think you might be around , which is awesome , because if you don't , if you're in a park that like has a couple different numbers and you can't remember it , or you're in a park that like has a couple different numbers and you can't remember it , or

you're like me and you get dyslexia and you reverse the number and you're like , why isn't this park ? Right , you know ? And you go to upload the log and it's wrong and you find out you reversed the three and a six , the the not like , say , I can't say how , ask me why .

But um , the the the thing is is that you just tap , you keep , it's literally , literally just all about the tap . So once you've got yourself set up , you're in the log and , like you guys had mentioned , some of the features in there I think are worth mentioning that differ between that and hammers , because we all love the hammers real-time view .

But that is 100% , and Polo is the same way . It's 100% geared off of your data plan . So if you don't have a data plan , you ain't gonna get an updated map . Um , but in polo there are a couple features that I really love that I'm willing to share with you guys , I don't know .

I'm curious to see what features you like once you're in the log that you know you think are cool that it may not be in hammers that are in polo any .

I , you know , I I've never really noticed because you can't see on hammers , you can't see , you can't have like the list . Does it even have spots on hammers ? I didn't even think , yeah , it does Probably not .

You know if I , if I hunt first or I don't , or if I do a thing I'm going to go hunting , I already can see who I've already worked , cause you know you can . You could forget it If you have a lot of contact you don't know , but it automatically strikes them out . So you know you've worked them .

Or if you hear them calling you and you see like , oh , that guy you know , you can just say hey , uh , you know , n1 OG , I already worked you about 20 minutes ago , thanks for hunting . And then we went on to the next guy . Yeah , so you're not just like the poor guy is not just trying to work you , he's already worked you .

But yeah , I think that's kind of cool . I like that too and I like the way I can mix it up , like if I don't really care , I can watch the map and see , but I'm still in the log simultaneously like the split screen .

my favorite park and I wanted to show him a good time . And so I'm getting all set up and I get my logger going and literally Polo didn't load until , like I mean , I think Todd had made like five contacts already and it's still I'm waiting for it to load .

And so I said , screw this , and I closed it and I opened Hammers and wouldn't you know I hadn't used Hammers since I had changed my call sign . And yeah , well , yeah , so you need internet access to modify all that stuff because you got to do the QR Zed login and everything . So I literally had to just say , hey , todd , canrich and easy to use , polo is .

But everywhere I go I love to be where I don't have cell service , because that's the point of radio for me . I want to get away . So on that end , it's got a big heavy downside .

So now that I've got my ipad that has its own service , I think it's it's more likely to connect than if I was doing a hot spot , like from my phone to the , yeah , to the ipad , you know . So , um , and that's why I was able to get on it . But we were , I mean , there's very little , I mean it was like maybe one or two bars .

You know that we were , you know like we were , we were , we were really on the edge of , uh , losing it . But , like I said , if , if it , if it didn't work , you know , I would have done with paul , I would have just gone to hammers , but I haven't changed my call sign . So what a long time ago . So I'd be good to go and he'd still be out .

But I did email him . The I did right , I emailed it to you . Yeah , so we got it all done so okay .

But I like stats a lot with the purpose of like , how am I progressing , how am I getting better , how am I able to , like you know , manipulate a pile up to get better , you know , in terms of turning more queues . Now I don't use that more than just kind of a fun thing to do for myself , to see how I challenge myself .

But polo hammers doesn't have this . Hammers , when you log in hammers , it just puts the date , it puts a time stamp on it . So you have to calculate from the first log for the first log entry , the last log entry , roughly see how far you've gotten , how many you've made , uh , in terms of contacts to activating the park or for the overall duration .

Polo took that to the nth degree and put in two of my wonderful favorite features . One is your queue rate , meaning that if you're a contester , you know what that is . I'm not a contester , but a q rate basically is when you made your last contact to the next contact . How long was that duration ?

And so where we had talked earlier about paul and I in our what was your ham radio week , we were talking about how we were drinking from the fire hose when I saw our q rate and I was watching on my uh polo app , our q rate was like , about you know , 30 seconds to a minute and then we were in the huge pile up and that's when I was like , oh well ,

we can knock that down and we dropped that from a minute to actually it was like 35 , 40 seconds to almost 15 , 20 seconds a contact and that queue rate just helped us get move faster , move faster through , you know , all of that pile up and at the same time it also logs your overall duration .

So , like , if I want to , like you know , because we all hear the youtubers when they're like , oh , I go , I'm actually my favorite park and I can do it in 20 minutes and get it activated , or five minutes and get 10 contacts in five minutes , and and so I , I that's a little personal challenge for me as I kind of get out here and activate more in the

fall , you know , can I activate a park in , you know , rough conditions or even in great conditions , and do it less than five minutes or whatever , and so it keeps all of that stats .

Um , and I think you know the , the , the development of this app or this logger , was really thought out of , and I think they took I think they were clearly people that that went out in the field and said , ok , these are the things that we want while we're in the field and what would be beneficial to an app that you were going to log and and they just

made it work . You know , it's just , it's very clean , it's very like I said , if you have the Internet going , it's it's , it's perfect . You don't have the internet going , it's it's it's perfect . If you don't have the internet going , all right .

I I do have one issue with both of them and I , when we go to issues , I can tell you that I don't like on both of them . I wish they had . Okay , I'm gonna go for it well , let's .

You know , when we go out and do parks on the air activations like oh he , eric n1j , you are a super famous guy , you're a famous youtuber , blah blah , and I'm like I'm the small little fish in the pond in the comparison of the larger you know , audience exactly comparison n1og over here . He's his dog's more famous than him yeah , but that that's .

And in the screenshot , apparently , um , the , when you do a qrz lookup of the contact's name in polo , at the very bottom right above where you're typing the log , the contact call sign pops up a little um display and sometimes if it's a you know dx contact , it'll put the flag of the country there , which is a really cool thing .

If it's a park to park , it puts christmas trees in the log and stuff like that . But it also posts now , if you say if you , if you got polo , you can pull it open on your phone right now and type in in log file K8MRD and guarantee . The next thing you will see is his name and his call sign and then a link to his YouTube page .

Now that's all done by the developer . You have that , I do you have that .

So when you're typing in the new log that you open up activation , it says you've worked this person before , you've worked this person before .

So that for me is like an awesome indication because now I can be like oh , I worked this person before and if I had , you know , excuse me , um , qrz , look up over internet working , I'd be able to say sally or bob , you know , hey , how's it going , versus trying to go into my thick gray matter and try to remember what their name was .

And a good example was is I've got a hunter that has been hunting me forever . You remember Bruce , kilo alpha . Oh , shoot the kilo alpha nine , india , charlie pop . Yeah , kilo alpha . Yeah , kilo alpha eight . Or a kilo alpha nine , no , kilo alpha eight , because it's Ohio , india , charlie popper , remember Bruce eight .

Or a keel off , and not no keel off because it's ohio , uh , india , charlie popper , remember bruce . Every time he calls , I'm like , hey , bruce , how's it going ? And so I couldn't remember his name . When I saw his call sign pop up because I haven't talked to him in a long time , and I froze and I'm like what is his name ? What is his name ?

And I'm still trying to log the contact . And then I know paul's kind of sitting me . He's like why is he delaying ? I know , and then I finally at the , at the very end , thanks , bruce , I couldn't remember your name . And so , bruce , if you're a listener , I appreciate you . Sorry , I couldn't make the name to the connection .

But yeah , he's one of those guys that like would be awesome to know that every time that that pops up , hey , I've worked him before , and so forth , and so on .

You know , and you know they're following us around and they're , you know , like , especially like , if we go to do our polo in October , if we get another , you know , 70 degree , you know , afternoon day you might have to take work off , but you know , we'll go do another Polo and we'll convince Paul and and a couple other guys to talk from the other side and

we'll meet somewhere in the middle , like our master plan that we talked about before .

And I agree , I think , I think that little thing with you said , the YouTube , you know link and you know when you do a park to park , it puts a little like pine tree on it and you know it's just kind of cool and it just it's just very clean and it's very smooth is the only way I could describe it .

And , like I said , if you got the internet , it's , it's the way to to go . But I'm not getting rid of hammers and the . My one issue with both of them is they're not cloud-based . So , yeah , if you , if you were on , like I use my ipad all the time , but if I don't have my ipad , I forget it or whatever , and I only have my phone .

It's like a fresh , like I've never used it before . So that's , that's kind of .

You know , if they're listening or watching this , you know , if at some point we get a cloud-based where it would just link to all devices the same info , it would just make it that much better okay , so that kind of dovetails my last question that I wanted to post on you , paul any kind of like , since we're talking about like the features that just rub you

the wrong way .

And as soon as I typed his call sign in , even though there was no internet , it said you know , oh , new band . And I thought that was really cool , that it was like oh , all right , it's telling me that I've already got him on a different band , but this is a new band . And yeah , so I did really like that yep , okay , cool , all right , so .

Well , so the last question I have want to post to you obviously we've been talking about Polo a lot in this can even , you know , tie into hammers too . What future features are like your top three ?

You know , if you have top three that you want like to say , hey , if the developer was listening to the show , maybe you know , I don't know if Polo's does does , if he doesn't great , maybe somebody will forward it on to him and say , hey , you know you should check the show out .

We'd love to , you know , give him more feedback on it , because it's a great app and good start um . But you know , for your feature , you know , improvements , what three things you know , if you have three um that you'd want to , to tell the polo developer that you say , I , we need to have this in order to make this app the app that replaces all apps .

Number two I do agree with Todd with the the ability to sync your data across multiple devices . The ability to sync your data across multiple devices because , yes , we don't always remember to bring that device out with us , you know . And so if I'm , if I'm on my laptop , right , I want to be able to sync it .

And so that you know everything is all good and I think , other than that man , like you guys are doing a great job , you know , keep up with it . I love the layout , I love you know . Everything else the ability to spot yourself if you've got internet connectivity , and all of the internet connectivity features are fantastic .

I just wish that it was just a little bit smoother for those of us that don't always have internet connectivity .

Oh man , that's my thought , that was my . That would be like you know what I mean , like you're done and you just say submit to you know , submit the poda , and hit the button and it does the thing , adi , and it just goes and you're not going on and it's just that would be . I mean , look , it's not that big of a deal , it's not really that hard .

But , like , for me , what I do is I I send it to my files on my ipad , I have a files for my poda activations and then , um , I then just go to the app , the Podo app , and then I just upload it from there . So it's not like it's a huge deal , but it still would be cool to just be able to push a button and say , hey , send to Podo .

I mean , that would be a game changer , because I think everyone because that's I mean people just want to get the logs in there , and especially if you do a multiple parks , like you don't want to come home and you know the last thing you want to do after a rove is sit down at your computer and manually update . You know , send the logs in right away .

So if I can get the app to do it automatically where it doesn't prompt you every time you open it up to say , go get the latest database because you haven't updated in a while , I it should just automatically .

If I say I want soda , flora and fauna and poda databases updated all the time , there should be a little switch in the settings that says toggle this and it goes up and gets it and if it can't find an interconnection , it then just waits and times out , goes to sleep and then when it finds another interconnection , it goes and does what it's supposed to do .

Um , so that that would be the one big thing .

Because I know when I first got there , when we were doing our dual activation , I opened , opened up Polo , and I accidentally , instead of hitting dismiss to go get the latest database update , I said go ahead , go get it and internet just choked and the only thing I could get to do was kill the app and restart it , and that's first world problem .

But at the same time it still stops me from getting to where I need to get to , to start logging . The other piece that I really would love to see is if in that stat section that it said I've worked so-and-so at this time , how many times I've worked them .

I'd love to be able to tap it , have a little window shade pop open that says these are all the parks you've activated this person at , and so kind of keep , because the data's already there . You already know if you might have worked them a park to park or if they were just a hunter contact . You know when the last time you worked them , by maybe date .

So I could say like I've worked , you know N1OG on , you know 8-14 . And then I worked them at 9-7, . You know , and I see those two in that little shade sheet , I could basically , if I wanted to to have a conversation with them some way , to be able to say hey , last time we worked we were at this park , blah , blah , blah .

It's kind of good history and good information to kind of pass on to somebody . So I know that could easily be done because all the data is there just making it look functional , and so that would be my wanted feature on top of what we already had .

And then I don't know if I've got it set up wrong , but the QRZ lookup I thought I've got it tested right . I thought I confirmed that my QRZ lookups , but every time I've used it , even with a good data connection , it doesn't always populate the person's name , and so like I sit there and struggle and I'm like , well , why isn't that lookup working ?

I know qrz and the api is , you know , set up the right way and and it could have been just a bad connection between the api and qrz , but I don't know it's .

It's one of those things I would love to have , more rock solid , because I know when hammers had it , hammers would always tell me exactly who the person's name and I can just be like , oh yeah , thanks , charlie , and you know well , so here's a question for you , then do you ?

When I have cell service , I want to be able to know who I'm talking to , just because you know it's good information . So and that would be my last one , so I don't know overall , I think both of those loggers and you guys can tell me if I'm wrong both of them are great loggers .

So if you're going out to activate , pick both of those loggers and you guys can tell me if I'm wrong . Both of them are great loggers . So if you're going out to activate , pick both of them . Pick one Doesn't really matter . Start with one and go to the other one if you want to take the leap .

But we ask for feature enhancements and improvements because we're those hams that have been using it for a while and we want the app to perform when we're out there because we depend on it . So that's why we sound a little kaji and old man complain syndrome kicking in . But I think that's .

conversation , your , your your cue . So pull out the things it needs and plug it in and you're not going to have to log , you're just going to have to have it open . It needs to be listening to you . So , like , kind of like you know , for , like carlos , how awesome is that going to be ? Opens it up on his phone .

He's jumping out of an airplane he starts doing his he's already good , he's already logged everything . He's like I gotta record it and go back and like , oh yeah , I'd be all done , but it's gonna happen . I mean the stuff that ai is doing and is able to do .

I mean right now , like have there's apps now that you can actually record a whole meeting , right , just it'll listen to it and then it'll summarize it and put it into like a short summary that you can . You know , you know , use as your quote unquote notes and you know , I mean think of like how easy school is going to be .

The teacher's up there blabbing away for two hours . You hit record and then all of a sudden it brings up a paragraph of everything you need to know , and I can't see why a logger wouldn't be like that .

Both of them are well worth it . So if you haven't a chance , head over to the website . We'll post the links down in the show notes where you can download them and go up to their pages . Um , go , show those developers some love . Tell them that you heard , uh , here on live free and ham that you should download those loggers and give them a try .

Uh , we guarantee you won't be disappointed , no matter what . And if you haven't done a poda activation yourself , you know , play around with these apps first . Don't go out in the field and try them for the first time . That I speak from firsthand experience , but more so . Just play with them at home , play with them on your phone , you know .

Learn how to use them in and out , and then go out and try it , and I guarantee your experience would be that much better so any last bit of advice like that Good advice , very good advice . Cool , all right . Well , let's wrap this up as always . So thank you again for joining , live free and ham . As always , we enjoy everybody in the podcast community .

You know , remember , we have a discord . So if you want to continue this conversation conversation , you can head on over to our uh website at livefreeandhamcom at the very bottom is our discord link . Please join , come , hang out . We'd love to meet you , say hello .

Um , we're working on building the community a lot more and we're eventually looking to hopefully do some meetups and that type of stuff . So you know , come join , be part of the fun and let's continue on this conversation . Like we have suggested in other episodes .

Let's talk about Polo and some of the features and let's see if we can help these developers continue to build some great apps and make our activations that much sweeter . As always , you can find us several ways and connect with us . You can head over to our shop at livegreenhamcom , forward slash shop , pick up our merch , our hat .

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