The Evolution of Ham Radio: Balancing Tradition with Technological Advancements

So whether you're a regular listener or first-time guest , we are always excited to have you here and appreciate your support , and we appreciate your thank you for tuning in tonight's episode . Man , I'm tripping over my tongue today , all right well , so let's get into the show .

I'm your host , uh eric callsign n1jur , and I'm with my awesome co-hosts hey , it's paul n1oj god w1stj awesome , all right . Well , hey , before we usually get into a topic , we like to touch on a few things to catch our listener base up . Obviously , always , our storefront is up on livefreeandhamcom forward slash shop .

However , we're sad to report that the hostile takeover T-shirt has ended so by the time this podcast airs . So you won't be able to grab that any longer . But keep your eyes out for some future stuff coming or always coming up with new ideas and creating new shirts .

And you know , as always , I want to thank and we all want to thank you know those have purchased shirts from us in the store . I know Steve KO for AFL I think it's a call from him radio clubhouse just put one last the shirt for the hostile takeover , so that should be in his hot little hands in the next couple of days .

So we appreciate him supporting Live Free and Ham , as always , and say , hey , if you haven't picked up some stuff , I want to say we went to Ham X literally last week and I saw three people wearing Live Free and Ham stuff . So it makes me happy inside to see you guys wearing our stuff and wearing it proudly .

So keep on doing it , even if it's as simple as picking up some stickers or hats . They are the best things to show the love to the show . As always , everything you guys buy on the store helps continue to support and keep the lights on for the show , and so we , you know we always love feedback , including , obviously , our shirts .

You know , and you are maybe the texting type , we now offer the option to review us via SMS , so if you're a texting folks , you can hit the link down in the description , both in our podcast and as you guys suck . Yes . Any any bad , bad feedback will go directly to Paul .

You read , you know in a future episode , but you can use that link to tell us how much you love us to share . You know what's going on and you know we'd love to hear about it and we will definitely read it on our next show . So with that we are going to dive into our Doing good Good . Doing good you do , that's good .

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

So you know , we know um , you know hrcc is spinning up the salted ham segment in his podcast and we're against that process altogether . We want to be able to show the good in ham radio and we're tired of giving the light to those bad actors . So this is an opportunity .

If your club , if you guys gather and a bunch of guys and gals get together to do a podo event and you had an awesome time , we want to hear about it . There's no need to let that stay hidden . We want to share it with folks . We want to spread the word . We want to make ham radio great again , as they say .

So with that , you can always send us an email to livefreeandham at gmailcom and we will make sure we read that . But you know , I'm digging deep into the basket and I have seen zero in the inbox and you guys see anything , anything , even getting spammed , nothing .

If you want to hit us up on the air and we happen to be in a poda and you want to interrupt us to say , hey , I've got a awesome do good segment , we'll stop and listen . That's , that's I mean , we're committed , we want to hear about it . So you know , there's no excuse .

You know , if you can do it via cw , you can do it via aprs , although be short , um , you know any mode . Figure out how to send us something and we'll share it on our next episode . So outside of that , you know , I think you know there's almost more we can do .

I mean , I know there's some cool stuff coming up in the future for us in our club , but you know , I want to hear about everybody else's . I don't . You know , I assume you guys are in the same boat a double points if they send it via win link oh , dude , yes , we will invite you on personally and you can be on one of our live streams .

How about that ? I am throwing out the gauntlet . If you could be a win link and we share it on the next one and we receive you a link , then we will have you on our next live stream , how about that ? And I will hold myself and these guys will hold me to it . So you heard it here , all right ?

Well , so with that we've got a little bit of another segment that we always like to do , because now that Todd is back and you know summer is almost over we're going to be rolling into the usual . And now for something a little extra with Todd W1STJ . All right , well , you've heard it here .

We are picking back up a little something extra with Todd , and he is in full view , in full form here , so we are ready to rock and roll .

I just memorized all the questions I'm like great .

You know , I think our last episode I helped him get to a certain point , two out of three wasn't bad when I stepped in to fill in for him . So you know , you could definitely I'm sure you know take the crown there , todd .

Say that three times fast .

C employees of the VE or is it D ? Friends of the VE ? Or is it D ? Friends of the VE ?

C only those of amateur extra class operators . Or is it D Only those of general , advanced or amateur extra class operators ?

And so , if you're on the journey to studying for your technician , general or extra class , like Todd , hamstudyorg is an excellent resource for getting your ticket and it's a great update . As Todd said , it's a tool you definitely want to get into your study sessions there .

And so we also want to say you know , if you recently received your license or upgraded , let us know . Send us an email at livefreeandham at gmailcom and we'll recognize you on the next episode for all the hard work you put in and effort , um , and we're definitely going to make sure we met you on the show .

So , all right , well , with all of that , we always have a little fun there . Uh , at todd's expense . There I was studying , but you know I want to make a suggestion .

I didn't even get the start because I set everything up . My SWR on Transmit was like 1.3 , like the best I've ever gotten it on my Buddy Pole Pro . I was all excited and then I heard nothing , nothing . The whole band nothing . No one . There was no . Huh , it was plugged in everything and my swr on the receive side was at nine . And so then I switched .

I said , okay , let me go down to like 15 or 17 . I tried it , nothing . So I don't know what was going on . So I didn't even start it .

Uh , it did , despite him thinking that there was an antenna problem . The reliance bug out mini did a fantastic job . We got 32 contacts and and it was great um we got .

But it was still fun to sit here and participate in that and I fired up the amp for the boys and got them a little extra power so that they could break through the pileup . I forget who we were even trying to get that night .

I've , uh , I've done a lot of video editing and , uh , hopefully we'll have a couple new videos , uh coming out this week . So stand by on my channel for that nonsense .

Todd and I went there and hung around with a bunch of great guys and people and folks and got to shake hands and say hello to a lot of our subscribers , so that was always awesome to see people that you know we we see , subscribe to our channel and as part of the live free and ham community . So you know it was .

And I'm like all right , I'll watch your booth . Like I can't tell people like to the in-depth degree all your products and everything's going on . But you know I understood most of them . He had his uh , you know uh , rf choke tester . Yeah , go ahead .

People are like , oh , I'll have to come back at 2 . So hopefully you got a couple of good sales from that . And again , if you haven't watched that video , head over to our channel . You can check that out .

Mark does an awesome job with all of those equipment and we also have a 10% discount too as well with him that you can use the affiliate codes in our links below . So check that out for sure . But you know my hammer new week outside of hammocks was a kind of an interesting mix , like I I . Long story short . My daughter had to go to .

I had to drop my daughter off the Boston Logan to , you know at four in the morning . So what did I do ? I packed all my radio gear and said I'll drop you off at 5 o'clock and dropped off at 5 . And I waited around for an hour for the park to open at like 6.30 and watched the sunrise and the park I worked with .

It's a beautiful park which was Castle Island in I think it's Walpole is where it is but it literally overlooks the bay and so I have all these large cruise ships Coming in and I took a lot of video and I started To set up a res antenna , which I got For an eval , which was awesome because the antenna Set up perfectly good , nobody bothering Me , you know ,

it was all fun . And I made the stupid Mistake of plugging my battery in the Night before into a charger that wasn't Plug into the wall but didn't pay attention to that . So I literally made three contacts before my radio decided to shut down because it was getting 11 volts , you know , and not able to stay on and I couldn't figure out why .

And then I realized I must have charged into a charger that was plugged in .

And so if I had solar it probably would have saved my uh bacon there , um , because it was a beautiful morning and , you know , good weather and I probably could have activated for a good two hours because I really had nothing to do that morning and you know .

So , you know it was short lived but still fun and I learned a lot , you know , for the four or five contacts I made with the the res there . So that'll be on my channel soon . And you know , outside of that , yeah , we're back in the swing , we're back in the saddle , as they say .

So I'm looking forward to talking about all right well , with that , you know , um , we kind of been , um , we've been busy on , obviously , with vacations and stuff , and so you know , we're kind of recording this right around labor day , weekend and so uh , it is labor week and it is for us .

Yes , exactly so by the time this airs it'll be a little bit after labor day weekend , but uh we got one more day left . All right , happy labor day . You're working , a working man after that um you know , we um we .

I was , um , I flipped on the the youtubes , as they say in the morning with my morning cup of coffee and I saw a certain um , you know individual making comments uh on , uh , you know , coffee and ham radio's uh live stream . That I thought , you know thought was kind of interesting because if you're interested we'll leave the link in the description below .

But it was a Coffee and Ham Radio's episode where they were talking about all the latest and greatest ham radio equipment and stuff and a certain device kind of came up . So when that came up I kind of paid no attention to it and was still kind of watching in the background .

Then I saw a certain host from Live Free and Ham making comments about how he wouldn't let his cell phone and RF crossovers . Church and state needs to be separate , and it kind of triggered my thought . I'm like , oh , wow , hey , that's Paul , he's commenting , and they left that comment up and TO made a comment around it .

You can always go back to that video and check it out . But it kind of made me think a little bit . I'm like , hey , where is this kind of process going in the ham radio world ? Where are we going towards ? What's kind of the end goal ?

Are we getting more towards , like application software , sdr based kind of tools and devices where , like the hardware isn't like a traditional , like you know , dx10 or um , you know , uh , you know a , a 705 or anything like that it's like ? Are we getting towards more of a place that you know is ?

Is ham rating going to be more software based , that , no matter what the device is , as long as it has some RF communications in it , we can use it to , you know , make connections ?

So it kind of got me thinking , so I passed off the guys I'm like you know let's first , you know , talk about the big thing here , those that may not know or may not be aware .

There's a new device and if you're interested in seeing this because our podcast listeners get the added advantage of not seeing any of this whatsoever you can head over to our YouTube channel and check out this episode . The big device that kind of came out is the Comjot CJ1 . And I don't know when it did and I only heard about it on Coffee and Ham radios .

This is sort of like the RFinders device if you've seen that in the past . But the big catch to this device is that it's open source . You know it's a mix of both cell phone , because it uses all the providers , and it's an Android-specific device that does RF and it does 2 meters 440 aprs .

It does win link over rf , but there's a lot of great features in it , um , which kind of got me thinking like , okay , let's talk about the first thing here , like I guess I know paul made a comment and you know I'm with him 100 , you know what's your thoughts on this device and you know kind of where it stands , and then let's kind of bring that out a

little bit bigger and talk more about , like you know , software in general in terms of ham radio . So , you know , go ahead , talk a little bit about your comment there on , you know , cars .

And I say it all the time right , ham radio makes me feel dumb every day , and that's all right , right , because there's always something new to learn and I love learning new stuff and I love , you know , kind of putting it out there . Hey , you know , check this out , who would have known ? But yeah , no , I was doing like you .

I was sitting there having my coffee and watching you know what's new on coffee and ham radio . And I said why would anybody want a cell phone that is that doubles as a radio , like one ? I mean I , I hate , absolutely hate carrying this big brick around everywhere I go .

But you got to do it because in today's day and age , if you don't have your electronic leash and somebody tries to get ahold of you , all hell's going to break loose and the world's going to fall apart , right ?

You know , splice it however you want , and so I'm like my job , I'm in IT , and so I'm tethered to that damn little smartphone , like you said , all the time , and it's a device I love to hate , and if I don't have to use it , I don't use it , and if I do use it , I use it for work or for my social media channels and stuff like that .

But that's really the extent of it . So when it comes to RF , I struggle because it's like I would love to carry one device that would be perfect for me , but I also don't want to carry this device with an antenna that's literally six inches or five inches sticking out , because it becomes what are you carrying ? Why are you carrying that ?

And I don't want to spend half my life having to explain all the time . Yes , exactly hey how you doing why are you saying cq in your phone ? What does that mean ? Like you're talking to someone specific you know , or roger , or what's this , and one day you are call sign like you know .

That's that to me it's just like it's so foreign and so like backward .

I mean I put my phone in my back pocket or my front pocket or throw it on the .

I mean people would be like what kind of phone is that thing's old school , right , because remember we used to have phones with huge antennas like um , I mean , I , I get the idea behind it Like , oh , that's kind of cool , but I don't know , I just think I would rather have a radio . If I want to be on the radio , I'll be on the radio .

If I want to be on my phone , I'll be on my phone . I mean it's kind of like an all-in-one I guess . But like I said earlier when we were talking prior , is if it was a hundred watts HF , well , then I might be .

Uh , I just I can't see dipping into my bank account for something that I'm going to play with for a little while and it's not going to be an everyday carry thing , cause I'm just not going to want to carry it every day .

There's the android less , or sorry , the google less version , or the non-google certified version , which is just a plain jane android version , which I think would be you know less , um , you know , phone like and it'd be more radio like , and then you've got the google certified one which gives you all like the google kind of stuff and everything else that you

know kind of makes it more of a smartphone so they've .

It's just the operating system and within that there is an app in there that is the RC controller . But what's cool about it is I can go onto Wi-Fi or I can go on a hotspot and I can pull things off the web .

If I needed to look up a like a yeah website or something , yeah , whatever yeah , if I need to look up a website or I need to look up a manual or find something out , you know it's all available to you . Not that I couldn't do it on my phone , but , like um , it imports stuff , updates online , so you don't have to do cards or whatever .

So I mean it's kind of cool . But again it's , it's nothing that like . It's not , it's not necessary . It looks better , like the screen is , is more colorful and clearer and that kind of stuff .

But I think for a phone and plus I go through phones like every two to three years , right , like my phone just dies , like the battery dies , I mean right , and is there a sellback ? Like on an Apple phone ? You know , I've been an Apple guy and I basically get a new phone and they're like oh , we'll give you $800 for it . Well , I paid $900 for it .

Yeah , yeah , 800 bucks for it . And then I pay , you know , $200 for my next phone for two years . So what is this Like ? After it died ? The battery's going to die in two years . Then what do you have to do ? You get to exchange it and do you get 800 bucks for it or you get another thousand dollar radio right .

I did not think about that side of things . The one thing that kind of like made me interested was like okay , here's the scenario that kind of plays out my head .

It's like all right , I've got an rf like device and it has a bluetooth capability that allows me to bridge to like a cell phone or something like that , because , let's say , it's like a guan cheng device that you know , there's a couple on the market that do that . Um , my cell phone has the data port out to the internet .

So if I wanted to update to apps or update to like uh , get a new database for repeater book or whatever , or or get the updated you know latest area that I'm in for somebody's buzzing it's the our finder calling Like , I could see how that data being all on one device , including like on the comm chat , would be perfect .

But at the same time , like I don't want to answer phone calls , like I don't want to confuse that either , like be like press the PTT and like make a phone call and like by accidentally tell the person that I have on the phone hey , you're a five nine and you know whatever . You know that just doesn't like .

Yeah , that that just kind of crossed over the data side of it in one device makes total sense because you've got APRS built in this device and I could see a total benefit to improving APRS .

The one thing we all know that APRS sucks , as is that the manufacturer's rollout of APRS Yezu , I'm talking about you is horrible , it's garbage and it's a hot dumpster fire .

So , you know , having something similar to be able to send a reply via APRS , you know , all in one device , whether it's through an iGate or through an RF side , that is pretty attractive to me . But , yeah , phone calls , no , we're done .

You know , just shut that side of it off and I think the device would be pretty good , not for the price point at that . You know that cost you know that cost .

But if I didn't , I didn't have to have it , I wouldn't have to carry my radio . And there's a lot of good HTs out there and there's a lot of not so good ones . But if you really want an HT what ? $300 , $400 , you can get a top-of-the-line HT and you still have a cell phone .

So I don't know , I mean it's a cool idea , but you're supposed to connect to that $300 HT . Yeah , I know . Well , maybe someday , maybe it will . But I mean it's a good concept , it's a good idea . I just don't know . It's not something I would want to . I guess I'd have to see it and try it out and give an opinion .

I wasn't a big fan , like , like when I , when phones switch from the keyboards , remember how they used to have the touch keyboards the t9 .

But I guess you'd have to try it and see if it would be something . But I don't think I would be willing to spend $1,000 just to try it and find out . I hate it .

No , it was blue , okay .

Why do I need a device that is a radio in addition to my phone , when I could just get a cheap radio and link it to my phone , and then the stuff that you're carrying in your pocket doesn't get any bigger , because it just is what it is .

But I do appreciate , at the very least , though , that they say that the Comjot is compatible with Verizon , at&t , t-mobile and any wireless reseller , such as Boost Mint . The Comjot is compatible with Verizon , at&t , t-mobile and any uh wireless reseller , such as Boost Mint , et cetera . Which all of those little ones ?

They they work off the big uh , you know groups anyway . But that's .

Like I saw RFinder come out with theirs and in my mind it really didn't take off as much and I got a chance to play with them when they were at HamX two years ago , but it wasn't like I was like , oh wow , I got to have this . It was , yeah , it's a good idea , but it's not fully flushed out in my mind . Like it needs to be really .

Like you gotta like make the RF if RF is important , because obviously the ham community that you're targeting , rf should be the higher of the two values versus the cell phone , being equal to that .

Like I think in the customization of the os and all of that stuff , it should all be very much like um rf centric and less about the cell phone and smartphone kind of capabilities . And so where the com jot's like offering a smartphone like interface with the google certified stuff or just a plain jane android . It's still kind of a smartphone .

You know functionality . It's not like really like you get when you install , uh say , windows versus a mac . You each get their own experiences because it's their own proprietary system , like I would . Again , I'm only going what I see , but I'm thinking like , okay , I'm just getting this flavor of Android or flavor of Google Android , and it's both .

It's RF and it does RF , but at the same time it also does regular smartphone things and like for me it's like I don't want that , like I just don't want more smartphone things , I want less .

You can tell like , okay , you're on a bow fang and you know you sound like you're farther away or it's a little crackly , you know it's not as good um , why don't you say that ?

Basically , you created it from two different kinds of companies a cell phone company , right , or tech company , and then a ham radio company who builds radios , and you combine the two . So what radio company was he worked for ? Or is it something that he just came up with ? Or did he take , you know , parts from different ?

I mean , how did he , how did they get created and what kind of radio is it ?

But when it comes to like the rf side , there's a couple rf chips and stuff like that in it . But again , those chips are also , um , we'll say , open sourced in terms of being able to do the rf components .

So like you have , like I don't know if you've seen or heard watched some videos on like the T-tower , like that is now becoming like a full , like two-way radio kind of style . So this is basically just an ESP32 that's running the APRS software but it does iGating , it does , digipeding , it does .

Now they even have a firmware that does like the two-way radio piece so I can actually use this on the two meter frequency with repeaters and like it's no bigger than you know the tv you know , yeah , exactly right , and you know it's pretty slick . I mean the apr stuff on it that I've played around with .

I've been pretty impressed with it in terms of it working and that's all open source too as well . But it's using this kind of same chips . That's in this comm jot , I assume . So the RF stuff is like not proprietary in the sense of , like you know , yezi or any of the other guys .

It's all the codecs that they're using , which are all open source , which really makes the thing work the way it does . So , like , whereas Paul was saying DMR like DMR uses a specific codec that allows your voice to be translated to digital , and so same thing with FM . So yeah , there's a lot of open source stuff chip-wise in there .

You get DMR , with VHF on 136 to 174 megahertz , uhf 400 to 470 megahertz , making it a versatile tool for ham radio enthusiasts . It's got built-in AES encryption that when you want your conversation to be private , it stays private . Supports a wide range of GSM , wcdma which is old school TDSCDMA , cdma , fdd , tdd and GPRS , as well as voiceover LTE .

You've got Wi-Fi on the 2.4 and 5.8 gigahertz 4-inch IPS display and a 1.3 megapixel camera .

It has the 480p camera in it which you're supposed to be able to take pictures and send them over the air to other Yezu radios . I looked at that . I went like I could barely see the photos . They're so freaking grainy . It's like my old iPhone 4 takes better pictures than the crap that came out of that camera . How many ?

That's like , is ham radio getting more away from hardware ? Like okay , I should frame , like so growing into ham radio ? We all have a radio at our desk , like we have a seven , you know five . We have a 7610 . We have a radio at our desk like we have a 705 , we have a 7610 , we have a 7300 , or we have a DX10 or a Flex .

Well , we'll put Flex aside for right now , but we have , like a 706 yeah , radio with knobs and you know , a front end FEP and all of those like pieces that make up a ham radio that we know , and so like , is the hobby going that way ? Like , do we like , are we ?

Well , first , are we comfortable with that idea , like us getting more software based and less hard or dependent ? And two is , like , are like the manufacturers slowly getting to like the big three like yezu , kenwood and and icon ? Are they getting more towards like that ?

Like let's just put together a software package that you know resembles ham radio and RF , and like is that good or bad ? Like , well , I don't know what's your thoughts on it .

Okay , because because here's here's what I'm noticing and here's what I'm seeing is is there's a definite shift , and and I believe that it probably started with the 7300 , right where it was the first kind of SDR based mainstream radio .

But I think that the shift going forward is going to be a lot more SDR based and a lot less old school technology , radio based technology , radio based and and that's where we're going to we're going to get the , the integration into the entertainment systems in our vehicles and we're going to get the integration into our cell phones and everything else .

All right , go ahead , todd . Sorry .

So the ham or the RC stuff , the technology has just gotten so intense and made things so easy , like it's almost like it became not fun anymore , right , Like they've got stuff that you know they call it , uh , what they call it like smart flying , I don't know , it sucks .

It's like no matter what you do , the plane will only tilt so far to the right , so far to the right , so far down , so far up . You know the idea was is like oh , if you don't know how to fly , you you know this will reduce your chances of crashing . So I'm like , all right , I get it , I get why they came out with it .

But they also now have stabilization , which is , like you know , it's like the plane will fly straight . Even if you hit it left or right or if a gust of wind comes , it won't .

Now , what's good about that is , if you have a light plane , like a light foam plane , a cheap plane , and it's a windy day , it'll fly like a bigger plane because you're getting that assistance .

Me personally , I like to just fly the basic , like the motor servos , and control it , and if the wind blows it away , then I got to bring it back right Like manually flying it Unassisted , kind of like unassisted right , but I'll fly a lot . Drones are the same way .

When drones came , when they first started coming out with quadcopters , they were very hard to fly . They were very tweaky , it was hard to hover , you had to keep moving it . Now they've got all these gyros in them Like a one-year-old could fly it .

But if technology failed , all these people flying drones are going to be killing people because they're going to go all over the place because no one knows how to really fly it . And that's one of the that's one of the things that .

So my thing with ham radio is if we get all technology , then are people going to forget what ham radio is all about and how the radios work , or you know what's the purpose of ? Because if the technology fails , then none of your radios are going to work right .

Like if you have an sdr radio and the computer is freaking , someone gets a bug or whatever and the whole internet crashes . And then what then ? You ? You really don't . You have a useless , freaking paperweight . But if you have an old radio that's not sdr , that you can just get in and get on the air , then you know you're back to the old school .

It basically I mean right , I battery it up and boom right , there's nothing I need . I don't need the internet , I don't need a computer , you know on hand , I don't need to check anything on it , it just works .

And I guess that's going to be that's my thought of as technology grows , we're going to get away from just the very simple of how radios are and they're going to become more automated , and it just may take the fun out of it .

You know love to hate kind of thing . It's sort of getting that way with sdr . But I think with sdr one of the things at least , because I I spend a lot of time in software I mean I , I can't avoid it , I can't , you know , not do it , it's kind of the thing . And I do less hardware . Now I would like to get more into hardware .

But what happens is like you get this abstracted thing and so software becomes the replacement to how it talks to the device and the device becomes this black box . And you know there are going to be people that know how that black box works and knows how it works really well and how to manipulate it and how to add to it and how to change it .

And that's kind of still the same , I guess , way I look at it as the old approach to the guys who used to build the Hammerlin radios and all of their CW rigs and all that kind of stuff , because those guys knew how to put those stuff together , but then a lot of times they didn't use those to get on the air .

They were more interested in building the technology for someone or building the technology for themselves and then trying it out and then moving on to the next thing , when it came to no , I mean just to be clear .

I have some planes that are totally technology up and can do crazy things , which is cool , but if I want to go back to old school , I can turn all that shit off , right .

So , like I set up my planes where I can turn it off or turn it on , I can choose , like if it's , if it's a calmer day and I can fly my plane without all that stabilization , I can just flick a switch and it's off , and then if it's like 45 mile an hour winds and I still want to fly , I can put it on and I can actually fly .

You know , have fun . I wouldn't want it to be where ham radio got to the point where it's like you can only do it this way and if this breaks down you can't use it anymore , because I don't think that's what ham radio , the basis of it , is , the basis is that's for experimentation , yeah , and it's also for emergency communications .

I mean , we basically get on the air so we know how to operate a radio in case there was a disaster or something . It's not basically what we do .

And if there was a disaster and everyone had computers or it was all on your cell phones and the cell phones didn't work , then if , years from now , everyone's cell phone was their radio and there were no other radios out there and you couldn't buy , you know , you know a paperweight and stick on your shack and you just had your cell phone Everyone's doing HF

on a cell phone a cell phone thing crashes and you couldn't use it , you know . Then what do you do ? So I'm for both . I want the technology to happen , but I still want to be able to remember where it all came from and keeping it . So it's kind of like cars I hate .

New cars are great with all the technology and the stuff , but try to go fix a car . Engines never die anymore . But oh , your light is check engine light . Oh , that's a $700 chip . What For what ? To turn that light off ? Like you got to be kidding me and mechanics . Now you know I work with kids and kids that want to go to become a car mechanic .

They need to be smart in math and computers because a car is more a computer than it is a car . So it's not like when I was a kid and cars were just like it was an engine , you know , and you didn't have all the technology . Now it's more like a computer .

So I mean my Jeep is not really a real Jeep because it's got so much freaking buttons and technology . I mean I didn't even . I mean I knew it , but I was like cruising back from the Cape . It's got cruise control that will adjust .

If a car is in front of you , like it'll slow down so you don't have to like ram into the car , right , and you can , you could adjust the distance . It's like I had it far back . People cut in front of me . I'm like , all right , I'm gonna shorten this bad boy up .

And now you're like you're at a point where you can't get in there , so no one's gonna cut me in front of me but it's interesting you said that .

And I think the one thing that I think a lot of us would love to see , as my you know me specifically would be like I want more and I mentioned this and we'll probably swing in this now . It's like , like open source . I'm tired of the proprietary bullshit . This is so ridiculous for a hobby .

That is really like you hear from a lot of people saying , oh , it's like the older generation , oh , it's dying , there's just not enough new people coming in .

Yeah , fine , I understand where you're coming from and why you're really saying that , but ultimately it boils down to a lot of the people like myself are tired of dealing with the old proprietary like oh well , you run this operating system or you have this car , you can't do A , b or C because the manufacturer says you can't do that .

And that's sort of like how ham radio is today . I mean , you look at , you know , yaesu , you look at ICOM . They don't talk to each other .

And we ended up everyone went with the going to go with the small ones , and we ended up everyone went with the big tapes , right , not the small ones , right . Then you had like CDs . Remember they had CDs , like now , basically everyone's going to usbc for a charging thing , right , you had apple , android , you had all different kinds .

Every phone came out with a different charger and people , I think , just were like this is getting ridiculous , like I don't want to keep buying a new charger . And now you get a phone , they don't sell you a chart , you don't get a chart , you know , you just get the phone and because everyone has a thousand chargers out there already .

So I mean again , I I love the technology , I think it's really cool the stuff that comes out , but I don't want manufacturers to to forget about what ham radio is all about , and I think that's why I like the mobile stuff so much , because I like to just be able to pull out my bag and and set up and up and throw a wire in a tree and talk around the

world . I mean to me that's really cool and what more do I need for that ? Could it be better ? Yeah , of course it could .

You know we can , based off of our licensing , and you know and what provided to us , but for nine times out of 10 , like , in terms of listening to us as the community , they don't like , they just iterate Like , they just like . Okay , well , manufacturer a did this .

So we're going to come up with the same thing and you know , we're just going to sell that same radio and it's like well , why not think a little bit different ? Like , why not think a little bit like ? More like , oh , more like , oh .

How can we make this more open source with the idea that if you're a Yaesu guy , paul , and Todd's a Flex guy , we should all be able to have fun . I mean , we do , obviously , when we talk via RF , because that's really the only way we can communicate with one another .

Thank God they don't have that proprietary Like oh , I'm going to work with a Flex codec , dr Paul . Like that's ridiculous .

And then I get in there I'm like whoa , whoa , what is like what ? I can't get this digital guy and I can't get that . I can only get the YASU .

You know , screw all you people . I , we figured out how to do it . It's now universal . You get this , you talk to everyone . It'd be a sell you . You .

Northeast , I mean , I think Yesu Digital is probably , Fusion is probably more popular , but I'm sure if you go someplace else it might be DMR or whatever is more popular and Yesu is not . I mean , I'm just assuming that there's some places it's more popular .

So if I move , I got to go buy new radios because everyone's talking digital on this , this one and it can be . I mean I , I get it , they're trying to make money , they're trying to do it . But I think with ham radio , I mean we all have the same goal and we all just want to talk to each other . So why don't you just make it universal ?

Come up , sit together , have a sit down , have a couple beers and figure it out they don't drink beers and I come only likes wine .

Right , and so , yeah , I mean , like it would be fantastic if there was a device , whatever it was right , whether it was a Raspberry Pi or whether it was a stupid radio cell phone , like one device that you could do P25 , you could do M17 , you could do NXTN , you could do , you know , dmr Fusion , any of them , and have it all work seamlessly , where you

could just talk to anybody on any other device in any mode . Unreal , that would be amazing .

Paul only talks Fusion , so I got to have another separate radio for fusion well , right , like even our club .

It's kinda you know , is that even you know ? And that's why I think a lot of I mean , I don't know , I'm not , I don't go on digital that much . I think I did before I got into poda and stuff . I was messing around with that stuff more , but most of the time I'm just on analog . You know I don't have a lot of .

You know I put it on the mode on my radio in my car that it'll swap back and forth , like if someone called , if the , if it's a yasu repeater and it can do fusion and someone talks digital , it'll automatically just skip on , it'll tune into the digital . But I never hear anyone talking digital unless you're . You know . Know I always hear people .

You know I never hear anyone talking digital . It's more of like hey , you want to go to digital ? Sure .

But I think we talked offline a little bit that we mentioned the we'll call the Chinese radio side of things and I think one of the things that I really am seeing from the Chinese radio market that follows kind of what we're talking about like get your head out of your ass and , you know , start doing more open source kind of things the Chinese radio market

sort of adopting that a little bit , where a lot of their radios are interfacing with other Android phones and iPhones to be able to do APRS and other related type programming activities of the radio via your phone , which is a good step , because how many of us have five different programming cables and five different versions of RT systems or Yaesu or whatever to

be able to program our radios ? Or , if we're lucky enough , we have a bunch of radios with SD cards in them where we can flash an SD card . It's like that battle that they're solving quickly . I mean .

Granted , we all know Chinese radios are a gateway drug to get us into the hobby for a lot of folks and some love them , some stay with them forever , others grow up and move on . That's really fine , but a bottom line is is that it ?

You can't ignore it , because you know , I know in our club I'm seeing a lot more of a resurgence of it from a lot of individuals , a lot of older individuals too , which is awesome to see . They're embracing something that you know is a little different and out of the ordinary and not like the mainstream , and so that warms my heart first and foremost .

But two , it also helps them move forward because , like I just saw an email floating around like hey , how do I take my baofeng version , whatever it is , and do aprs on it ?

I want to learn how to do aprs on it , and so like that to me is like okay , I don't care what the radio is , but use a radio that allows you to do APRS on it , and so like that to me is like okay , I don't care what the radio is , but use a radio that allows you to do a lot more than you know limits or ties your hands , and I think that's

kind of where we're . You know where I feel like I can sum up this a little bit is that some of the bigger manufacturers , they tie our hands a little bit . They say you know you got to play in our sandbox and we don't want you to go to yezu or we don't want you to go to kenwood or we don't want you to do whatever .

Um , and it's , it's frustrating because it's like the hobby as a whole , it's all about rf . You know , that's really what it is , right , guys . I mean it's rf , it doesn't matter , rf doesn't speak . You know english only . Well , it sort of does , but you know , I mean just in general .

I mean I know a bunch of Spanish stations I hear from time to time on RF , but you know , all that being said is like it's not , like you know , you have to only do this one thing . It's like it doesn't matter what the radio is you talk to . I can talk to an ICOM halfway across the world and I'm still talking RF to them .

So like , why can't we embrace open source ? Why can't we say let's create an environment that says , hey , all of us play happily in this space .

things . But man , I don't know , I think , uh , I think combining a radio and a cell phone is a neat idea . I don't think it's for me . I don't think it's for me .

I don't think it's worth the investment of $1,000 to play around with , in my personal opinion , but I think it's a neat thing , and if somebody feels like sending me one , I'll give you my address .

You know , it's just , I got HTs , I got a cell phone I use most of the time I'm on . I'm not using my HT anyway , I'm talking in the car , right , so what a thought .

Like you had a traditional HT and it was a little bit bigger screen , it was touch screened , it was Android based and it was still RF only you know but had that data component . Would you buy it ? And it was a thousand bucks ?

The other time I'm in my shack , and it's because I'm doing a net right , I , I don't know I . I just I mean when do when do I use an HT ? Oh , I use an HT when I'm at a , let's say , a mobile .

I mean I would , I would trade my 400 and get another 300 , honestly , but I mean I don't know when , when I bought the 400 , there wasn't a 300 . And then when the 300 came out and Eric , you told me this is what you want for your car , cause I bought the 400 with the idea of getting the nine 91 a and moving the 400 to the car .

The 1f is out there calling it . Yeah , the one f , you know , maybe that's something it'll be . I'm gonna wait for you to get yours and play around with it and see if I like it and then I'll decide . I I'm more of the person that I I like to play with the stuff first and see if I like and if it's like something I need .

I'm not someone that wants to . Oh , the new thing came out . You know , the new phones come out what'd you say ?

Yeah , maybe they come up with That'll be that I need to have that . Okay , well , then that'll be , but for right now , I mean I'm pretty .

So if you had a 7300 replacement that was more we'll say Android-like , that was newer of , we'll say Android like you know that you know , looked , um , that was newer of the 7,300 and you know it was instilled in the decent price point , like less than sub 1200 or whatever .

Would you , would you trade out to have more software , specific uh of a radio than traditional hardware radio like the 7,300 , or would you kind of you know which way would you go ?

I could overclock my phone and I could , you know , make it so that I could run apps that weren't supposed to run on my phone and do things that weren't supposed to be done on the phone , and so in that aspect it was really neat and it was a ton of fun to play and experiment with . And that's kind of where I get my love in radio is .

I love to experiment and play with things , you know , testing theories and seeing , well , how far can I push this piece of hardware until this piece of hardware just doesn't work anymore ? This piece of hardware just doesn't work anymore .

And so I mean I think that's what I would end up doing is I would , I would find a used one and I would abuse the hell out of it and I would hack it and modify it , and then , once I got it exactly as I wanted it , I'd leave it be , because six months down the road something new is going to come up and I'm going to have to go through it all

over again .

Now , if a radio came out that was along the lines of open source , meaning that the radio and hardware were kind of abstracted from each other , so the radio is just the radio components to be able to get rf out to then the wigglies out through the antenna , and it doesn't matter what that looked like .

And the operating system did all of the fun , like waterfalls and filtering and crossover into APRS and being able to do digital HF and all of those things that I would hope for . I would probably buy it . It wouldn't have to be Android or Apple specific , although I don't think Apple would be on that bandwagon whatsoever . Apple is just not in that .

That's not their , their space . They're just not going to do . Android is the you know hackers kind of you know platform , which you know serves it really well .

So I would say that the two things that would really have to swing me into a place where I'd be like , okay , software has a place in ham radio is that open source would have to be predominant across all platforms , no matter what the manufacturer is , and we alluded to it earlier .

But I don't care if I'm a Yaesu guy or an ICOM guy next week or a Kenwood guy the week after . I want my radio to do all of the same things because , fuck , we're talking RF . That's simple . I mean , like that's the end goal .

Rf is where it's going , and adding the internet capabilities to go out to the internet well , that's a plus , that's a convenience for me . So I think if those benefits were there in the device and the device didn't have the limitations because I was pigeonholed to a specific type of mode or whatever , then you know I'll probably buy it .

I mean , I don't like . I mean , like I said , flexes . They're expensive , we all know , but flexes have a capability that are open sourced . I love my flex and being able to talk to the API and do whatever the hell I want with it .

Like I could tell the radio to switch bands and and tweak all the stuff that I need , and I don't have to have it run on a windows machine . I can run it on mac , I can run it on a linux machine , I can .

It's independent of you know whatever who is talking to or from , and so I think that's like kind of where I'd hope this like whole iteration would go in the next five years . Like I'd love to see the cell phone stuff take off , but I don't want cell phones in my radios .

Like I think we're all in agreeance there that like I talk enough on a phone , I barely talk enough on the phone , but when I do I don't want to talk . You know anything except RF , and so you know , do not put cell phone . But having data , yeah , I think that's a plus .

I like I'd like that's a benefit to pull down software apps and updates and plugins and stuff like that for convenience factor . Anything besides that if , if an emergency hit , like we all talked about , my RF still works , my cell phone bye-bye tower's gone . You know , there's , it's , it's all . Like you know , whatever I don't care .

Oh hey , the cell phone serves , serves off . Eh fine , I'm fine , I'm running an RF over a wind link , you know no big deal , or whatever be the case . So that's where I think the hobby is hopefully going in . The next you know five , ten years is that you know we're less proprietary and more open source and all playing in a nice sandbox .

But you know , I don't see that between manufacturers . I don't think that they're going to want to . I mean , we obviously see that in other areas of you know stuff and other hobbies like Todd mentioned with flying and other sources that you know you're not going to get that , but you know it's an interesting conversation , so you know .

You know , we should still be able to have the , the basic stuff , but then we should have the opportunity to to go in and go with the technology and see where it takes us , just not to forget what ham radio is all about and not make it so it's almost like almost not real anymore .

So you're like you know what , like I have to have that radio , because that radio has that feature and I really , really want it . And for me , like the id 52 is on that list and , and the reason for that is that auto repeater finding function , like if everybody had that built into their radios , holy shit , look out like what a game changer that would be .

You know , when I , when I drive up and down the East coast , you know I , I'll , I'll have New England repeaters programmed in ahead of time , I'll have Florida repeaters programmed in ahead of time , but all throughout the way , like I'm on the calling frequencies and I'm hoping that there's somebody there .

You know , wouldn't it be nice , as I'm coming through New Jersey , I could hit a button and go , hey , you know what , just find me the local repeaters , just find them you . So I think , I think , yeah , there's definitely advantages to the technology but like , start working together .

people , you know like we , we we're not looking for a lot we're not asking for for the world . We don't need these uh you know , dual receivers and four receivers and whatever nonsense you know that you could throw into an SDR giant radio . Just give us the no nonsense and and let us customize it the way that we want .

I mean we shared our opinions and obviously when we talked about the integration with car radios , a few of you chimed in . But you know , head on over to our Discord , you know , be part of it . You know , have the conversation , check over the show's channel and talk a little bit over there .

We'd love to hear your input and you know we want to keep this conversation going because we're hoping , you know it'll . It'll kind of move the needle more towards that open source kind of approach . Like the hobby is a place that rf is free and available to everybody that has you know , at least the ham radio world a license to use it . Um , you know .

So therefore the hardware that talks to that stuff should be just about the same as well , and that will only in will only bring more innovation and bring more customization and really just make the hobby that much more open for , obviously , the younger generation , younger than us , and those folks that are our age that want to tinker and play around in that space .

So , outside of that , I want to say just again thanks for being part of this community . Remember , if you haven't subscribed , what have you been doing ? So , as always , like we always say , there are several ways you can connect with the show . You can head over to our shop at livefreeandhamcom forward slash shop , pick up some merch .

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You know he was wearing a live free and ham uh shirt and I stopped him and I said thank you for wearing this shirt and he pinged me back and said you know , anytime next time you're down at the Cape or whatever , come by and I'm taking him up on that offer .

You know we'll go down and work some poda and we'll grab some beers , good craft beers , down there at the Cape there . So with that , you know , like I said , wear the merch , wear it proudly .

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