Top Five POTA Hacks - Elevate your POTA Experience

This is our weekly show where we discuss ham radio topics in New Hampshire , new England and beyond , and so we're thrilled to have you here , whether you are a regular listener or tuning in for the first time , and we appreciate you and thanks for joining tonight's episode , as always . So let's get into the show .

I'm your host , eric call sign N1JUR , and I'm with both my hosts .

I got the classic on . Paul and todd both have , uh , the , the custom . What is it ? The ?

We've got a little brain trust here that we've been putting together some cool , interesting topics . But one thing that I know when I drive around that I'm finding I'm doing more often than usual , is that you're driving in your truck or your car and you kind of scan around the horizon and you're always kind of on the lookout .

When you go buy a car that happens to maybe have a ham antenna or a couple of antennas , and you know you're kind of like , oh , is that a ham ? And you know you always want to do the tip of the hat type thing to . You know , give them the kudos that they usually deserve for for sporting the antennas .

But you know , maybe if you're like me , you might want to let them know like , hey , I see your antenna , but you know , putting a qsl card on their dash or their visor seems a little weird and passe and kind of odd . So I think we came up with a good idea here and we've got the solution for you guys .

So if you want to head over right now to GetHamcom , you can check out our little hams . And these little hams have a little disc on the bottom and that message on the bottom says you've been hammed . And so , hey , you're in a parking lot and you happen to scan the horizon , like I said , and you see a couple of vehicles with ham antennas on it .

You know you're going to want to go over , just like the jeepers do . They put them on their dashes . They put them on their uh , you know , door handles . Fill in your call sign .

There's a nice little spot that you can write your call sign in and a URL that they can go to , and this little buddy will sit there on their dash or in their window and when they get back to their truck or car they'll be like what the heck's that ? And you know , lo and behold , you know you get the ball rolling and you know you can start to .

You know , promote ham radio , get people interested . And you know these little things are going to ask people what you're doing . You know ham you're doing . You know ham radio already does that . Now .

You know , hey , we're always talking to aliens , so now you can hand them a little pig and you can say you know , get your ham on and , uh , you can head over to our store or just go to gethammedcom to find out more . You know , we're right now . We want , we're doing a little grassroots thing , so we want to get a lot of pictures .

So if you've got hammed yourself , you know , make sure you tag us in uh with the pound sign hashtag of get ham or got hammed , and we would love to see the photos . So keep it coming . We appreciate this . And if you want to run over to our store , like I said , pick up your own .

We've got them in small packs and very large packs and we always like to give them away to our show . So just keep an eye out for those . So , all right , as always , our feedback . We love feedback . We've got a couple of ways you can always reach out to us . You can do SMS show notes , have that link in there and you leave us one .

We'll happily receive one and I think we got one this week and we'll dive into that in a second . You've got the voicemail channel . You know this is our special 7.200 channel . You can check out that . Leave a message . Tell us what you think about the show . Leave a question . Tell us that we need to renew our warranties on our HF radios .

I don't care , you know , we're here to listen and that number is Anybody , nobody . Oh , we all forgot it . Failure , failure , all right , all right . Failure , failure , all right , all right . Well , as we're queuing it up here , that number is 978-233-1142 and you can go and leave us a voicemail message and we'll play it on our next episode .

So leave a review , like I said , ask a question , tell us whether you like the show or not . We're all standing by , uh to hear what you have to say and , as always , you know the , the old method . That's just a one step above the snail mail approach .

Uh , you can always send us an email , livefreeandham at gmailcom if you prefer , and I actually uh have a review , uh in uh doing good . That was sent via email , so it is still very possible and and as always , we will be coming up every month our live stream . We always have once a month , in addition to our regular episodes .

It's always a surprise , as we don't even know when it is sometimes . So you know , whatever that means to you is that you got to head over to our YouTube channel . You got to subscribe and you got to hit that bell to get notified when we do go live . Got to subscribe and you got to hit that bell to get notified when we do go live .

That way , you can be part of the fun and the action . And , uh , come join us at a live stream show , uh , in the near future . So , all right , last but not least , we got a little secret . You know , if you want to be one of the cool kids , as always , head over to our patreon page . We've got a link on the lip ring ham website .

You can pick it up there and as a subscriber , you get immediate access to a bunch of our shows . You get all the backstage kind of content . You get to hear therapy sessions live from Todd . You can hear all of his inner musings all out there in the open , and we just love it . We want to share that stuff with you . You have asked for it .

We're delivering . So if you want to get those that information , you can go over and subscribe to our Patreon . We also have a bunch of other giveaways discounts , early orders on our merchandise and much , much more .

And , as always , membership starts as little as three bucks a month and you get a whole bunch more that I haven't mentioned , but I'm sure is all available , and you can find out more up there on our patreon site . Wow man , we gotta shorten that a bit for sure . So all right , well with that let's dive into our first .

Thank you , Paul , and Todd and Eric , for your tireless effort to be good examples and ambassadors to our wonderful hobby . Your comments are inspirational . I am looking forward to the future adventures and fun . 73 , tim KC1 QDK . Thanks , tim , that was very nice . So what was that ? Our second , third , third .

As todd said , you know , bring it on , we want to get more , we want to see more . So you've got one way , and again , it doesn't even have to be sms text , you can also send us via voicemail too , as well . Um , and we'll make sure we play that uh on , uh , our next episode , and uh , we'll ridicule you for it either way .

But all right , okay , so with our next one doing good , good , doing good you do , that's good .

You know we all love to participate in some form of ham radio activities . So you know there's one great way and one outlet now that you can share what you've done with your club or a bunch of guys and gals got together and did , and you know we want to basically share and rejoice in those moments .

So I say , bring on the good deeds and share your story with us . And there are many ways , like we mentioned earlier , but I'm going to touch upon here that you can go and share a story and I've got one today and I'll allude to that in a second .

But again , it doesn't matter what it is , whether you had a firsthand experience with a total stranger explaining ham radio while you're activating a park , teaching a student , a family member , a neighbor , the joys of ham radio , the list goes on and on .

So this week's episode I got um an email from an old friend a long time ago , when I was in my youth days , so that that would put me back in like 1991 . How old were you , uh , paul , and what were you ? Still in diapers at that point , or come on now .

You know , very first off , apparently in the what I'll call the 2024 W1LF debacle , my QRZ page got trampled with the new club call for Liffrey Ham and in resetting all of that mess , all of my QRZ information to get back to our original call got wiped and I didn't pay attention to it . I thought it would all be good .

And so he sent me a nice long , stern email saying what gives man ? You know , you're on live free and , ham , you've got your own YouTube channel . Why can't you update your QRZ page ? That's the least you could do for us . I'm like , what are you talking about ? And so , lo and behold , it brought me to my QRZ page .

And , yeah , my QRZ page was blank and I was like , so I had to go back through , added all the links in there .

I sent him an email back and him and I have been corresponding a little bit , you know , but we were sharing some of the stories and he brought up , uh , you know how we had our live stream uh , on , uh , I think ham radio scary , or ham radio can be scary , and uh , you know he mentioned that . You know he didn't feel I was a narc .

You know , even though all my guest hosts , you know , even though all my guest hosts , you know , said I was that , uh , the pumpkin patrol was a great , great thing that we did in town . Um , and it was actually very , very , very useful because he told the story that I totally forgot that .

Uh , you know , one of my mentors , um , you know who started the pumpkin patrol with the police station , um , you know , the police were very like , kind of nervous about , like , having these hams out doing this stuff and the the story goes , as I'm told , about having these hams out doing this stuff .

And the story goes , as I'm told , is that these hams that were getting ready to go out to do the first pumpkin patrol had stumbled upon the teens who had cases , the spray paint to basically deface a building in town to show their angst to the town and the police and whatnot .

And lo and behold , that kind of started the pumpkin patrol in town to reporting that to the police and the police were able to save the city from the defamation of whatever . And whether there's a stretch to that truth or that story , I still think it's a good story . I remember them very much telling me that as a youth , so it was a good memory .

They no longer associate themselves with the police as much as they did before , but they kept the name Check them out . You can check them out at part or wb1goforg . They have some great stuff going on there and it's a great group of guys and gals to plug in with them .

And I say thank you for sharing that story , alan , and appreciate you giving me gruff and crap from my QRZ page because apparently everybody else fell asleep at the wheel , including myself . That's the example .

So with that , you know there are a couple of ways you can get to submit your own doing good story . As always , you can always go over and leave us a voicemail at nine , seven , eight . You can always go over and leave us a voicemail at 978-233-1142 . And we've got a webpage forum that you can go over to livefreeandhamcom .

Forward slash , do good , all one word and fill in the forum and we will make sure . Speaking of dogs walking by , there goes Watson , you heard his name . So , yeah , you can leave your review there or leave your story there and we'll be reading it on the next episode .

And , as always , as we throw the gauntlet down , because we know there are a few of those diehards that are the type A people if you're a dedicated ham operator , you can head over to your Winlink client and send Paul an email via Winlink to N1OG and if he gets it , we'll invite you on our show , our next live , and you can tell the story there and hang

out with us and you know it'll be a blast . So cool , all right . Well , now to our favorite X session here . Hold on a second .

They make them very confusing because I'm getting them all confused there's a couple yeah , like guys , like the grouch over there that come up with the questions , did you do some of these questions ? Is that one of your gigs ?

So the one thing I know is when I get to the section five questions , I'm gonna have to take my time and read them and make sure I'm not getting confused , because there's some of them are so similar it's like one word difference well it's been taking me well .

So just you know , I'm just saying .

All right , each episode we pick three questions from the extra class . This is one of them . We're going to test his knowledge and hoping he gets closer to his upgrade . So if you would like to follow along , you can head over to hamstudyorg . Great little app .

It's always a great resource to help you prepare for your test and it's recommended by three out of four volunteer examiners . Boy , holy crap . The ARL was unavailable for comment at the time of survey . Without further delay , I hand it over to our quiz master , paul . Take it away .

C Resistance divided by the reactance of either the inductance or capacitance , or D Reactance of the inductance multiplied by the reactance of the capacitance . See what I mean , say that three times fast yeah .

Using the version of the power equation with voltage and impedance terms and considering that at resonance reactive impedance of the inductance equals that of the capacitance , all for reactive and resistive power .

The correct answer has the word or in it , or the correct answer is the only one that starts with resistance .

Further goes on to explain there , but well , this is question number three . Oh no , it's four .

In that case , hamstudyorg is a great resource for you getting your ticket and , as always , like we say every time , and we mean it if you recently received your license or upgraded , let us know .

We want to recognize you on the next episode for your hard work and effort , and you can always email us at livefreeandham at gmailcom or leave us a voicemail letting us know that you got your ticket for an upgrade and we'll share it on the next show .

Well , we're down to the regular show notes here , so , in usual format , let me ask paul , how has your ham radio week been ?

I like the second cut a lot better , granted , you know , I shortened it down , I got rid of the majority of the hike , but you get the summit , you get the activation . I gave a little bit of commentary in there .

Very nice , beautiful beach , got some awesome footage on the beach , made 44 , 45 contacts and we left early this morning , picked up my wife's new kitten and came home . So that was the end of the ham radio week Nice .

You know , I don't know how he's going to handle four or five other dogs , but only time will tell right .

For sure it's motivating me to finally finish off a lot of the other videos that I've been sitting on . I'll be able to get back in that rotation as well and uh , you know it's all good uh with podo there . So , uh , 44 is a good number , especially , I think , when there's solar flares too , so bands were a little challenging , but all good either way .

So with that , my friend todd , how is your ham radio week or non-ham radio week been ?

I've been working on a pretty intense case and um , yeah , so it's not happening , but I am like dying to get out there and do one . So but I did find out today I talked to my brother-in-law and we do a , we do a family vacation with his family and our family and a couple of my nephews and we , my other brother-in-law and his wife , so we all go .

We went down , like one year we went to Big Bear , another year we went down to Florida , this year we went to North Carolina . Well , this year we're talking about going to Yellowstone .

He had like it was just like no one there and it was . He said it was awesome . But what's cool about it is we're going to be staying inside the park , which means for a week , wherever I go , literally if I'm in the park , right , like I can honestly , like if we're staying at a cabin or a hotel , I don't even know where we're staying .

Or even if I have an RV , wherever I'm at , it's going to be POTA land . So I'm planning on doing a lot of POTA on the off time and I don't have to go anywhere . So I mean , literally I could just walk outside . So I was kind of excited about that .

And of course you know him and my wife are giving me crap about it , making fun of me , but it's going to be a cool vacation . I can do POTA like at any .

Like you know know , when I was in north carolina it's like I had to get all my crap drive set up like I mean , if we're in a cabin I'm just gonna set up my , leave it all the time you gotta pull a ryan and do it for me , yeah , so I'm kind of excited about that .

Um , I'm also , uh , you know , working on trying to figure out when I'm gonna to have time , but I want to start doing YouTube and get some videos in there Not as , not as intense as you guys , but , um , so I've been looking at , um , how I'm going to do that and I might go back to an Apple computer , uh , to do that .

So I've been doing some research and stuff and they're just so damn expensive . But the way I look at it is , if you use the Apple computer , it's kind of like a phone . You don't like it . After a couple of years you return it , you get up . I mean , if you , you like it , but you want to get the upgraded version , um , you can return it .

And I I've been looking at it . They say like , uh , the new , the new laptop , it's like the Mac book pro and the Mac book air . I don't think I'll need a Pro , but let's say I get the Air and I find out that I really get into this YouTube , you know making videos and stuff , and I need to get the more thing you can turn it in .

But the other thing that's nice is like these computers . People are using them for , like you know , an average of five years , five-plus years , before needing to kind of upgrade because you know they're they're so good right out of the box and that they've got like the latest and greatest . So I don't know I'm it's a lot of money but I really need .

I don't think I'm going to be able to do all the video editing that I want to do on my ipad . Um , I think I'm going to need the computer for that and well , but start small man , start small . Yeah , I know , I mean , yeah , I'll probably do one or two , but I really need a . I think you , I'm going to need like a laptop .

So the question is is when I'm going to be doing this editing . There's a lot of my downtime , so , like , if I'm at court , gotta wait an hour or two . Nice to have a laptop can mess around with it . You know , if I'm at a training that I've already been to five times , I could do that . I'm at a staff meeting , I can do it .

I'm just thinking of like times that I'm just bored out of my mind , wishing I was doing something else . You know now I do my studying a lot when I have to go to those , uh , those things .

But um , I just think it would be easier for me to get more stuff done , because my problem is I come home from work and I'm not physically tired , I'm just emotionally drained . I don't feel like doing anything , especially sitting at a computer and editing and that kind of stuff . We'll see , I'm going to keep looking at it .

I've been watching some YouTube videos and stuff like that .

The , um , the weed whacker , with the metal blade on it , and then I took the lawnmower over it and there's still shit like stuff , and then this tree fell on it , so I finally got cut off , so I've got a huge . I'm waiting for the first snowfall , because I got a huge bonfire to burn and it wasn't supposed to .

It was all gone beginning of the summer and now it's like it's huge again and I can't burn because we're in red flag things and I really want the snow to come down . So once the snow's on the ground , I can torch that thing well , now you should dig your trench for the cable .

Actually , uh , I got a thumbs up approved , although her last response was like you're crazy , why did you backlight it ? But you liked the frame , so at least I got the points for the frame .

Um , so the backlight she thought the val light was a little excessive and I'm like , well then , I better not turn it on to the rainbow or led or any of the uh , you know cloud scenes that the govi light set chain light set offers .

But now I can take all of my I just forget what the heck they're called oh , mesh tastic devices , charge , them all on a stand in one location , all the batteries that go with that , all of my recording equipment batteries , all my ham radio stuff is all in one spot .

So I now , when I empty out my bag and I come back from Rapoda , I just drop batteries in and drop , you know , connectors everywhere and everything's all good . So I can go to one place and I've got it locked in my brain .

Now , paul , I'm just telling you now you hear it here that when I leave I know everything's all hooked up , it goes right in my bag and my battery's charged and my camera batteries are working and you know so forth and so on .

So so I think I've got that nailed down , um , but you know , we'll see how it tests out and proves itself and so , yeah , I'm proud of that one . Finally , and like I said , I I've got another project that I'm building a 100 amp hour battery .

I , uh , if todd , you know , todd's aware of a , a nice little uh , uh , modular , like click lock system , sort of like the milwaukee stuff . But uh , this one's out of those and I found a nice little case that's going to be a really cool battery setup . So I'll have that on my channel soon .

But I'm learning how to uh wire up batteries and get all of the solar chargers and , and , uh , you know , distribution blocks together and kill switches and the whole nine yards . So that's been a fun little wiring project to get my hands dirty with . And and uh , hopefully we'll have up on that channel , but uh , yeah , I haven't had played much radio .

I alluded to Paul . Uh , you know the sweepstakes man . Whoever decided to have the exchange that way just needs to be dragged out into the woods and beaten profusely . What , like , what is your thought process of ?

Like , okay , numbering score , and then , if it's numbering score , the , the type of class you're in , which is a one letter identifier , a um signal report , which is always five , nine anyway , and then a specific code or check .

You have to use the word check and then you have to use the year you were licensed , the last two years , a year , and then your call sign after and that's the , that's the exchange . All the time and I'm like what , what's your like ? What's your thought process ?

That like , granted , you try to make it more difficult for people to remember , because what happens is you get these guys who are , you know , trying to work the 85 , you know sections , to get the cup from arl , and they hate to get interrupted by someone new who's like uh , what contest were you in ? What's the exchange ?

Uh , I can't remember when I was last licensed . And then they go into , like their law , like they're having a big rag chew with this person , and he's like what year were you licensed ? Let me look it up . And they go look it up . He's like you're licensed in 2024 . So you know why is this such a hard time ?

And so , yeah , I just I was like this is a long contest , yeah , so I threw a few of those out there and got bored with it really quicky and said it's not for me .

So , yeah , that was my ham radio week and , uh , you know , I'm glad , uh , I at least played a little radio there , and , uh , looking forward to , uh , you know what next week brings , because we've got some cool stuff on the horizon uh , which I'm going to keep under locks for now , but , uh , we can talk in future episodes about , and so , all right , well

with that . As we alluded to at the beginning of the episode , we were going to talk about poda hacks . I mean , that's . This is this kind of the season that a lot of youtubers are in . They're talking about new ways to , you know , make your ham radio experience easier , whether you do poda or you do you know anything related to your ham radio .

How can you improve your situation , whether you improving speed , performance and setup or teardown , or little things that make your life a little easier . So we're going to talk about our top five hacks that we all share .

We probably share some of them and some of them may cross over , but ultimately we're going to share what we know and what we love to do when we're out activating a poda or maybe hunting if you got a couple hunting ones , um , uh , and so that covers everything gear you know , setup you know , tear down whatever sky's the limit , and so we're going to start

with number five and work backwards , and one's going to be our best hack that we think uh that we want to share . We're going to go in a roundabout here and and paul's going to keep all of this in , uh , the notes for the show .

So , uh , if you ever want to go back , you can obviously go back and watch the pod or listen to the pod again , or you could just check the notes section out , and all of that stuff will be listed there and and hopefully , uh will be useful to you and maybe you'll glimmer a nugget of uh you know , pote of truth out of the some of that stuff .

So how about , uh we start ? Who wants to start first ?

Uh , I've got a , uh , a cabela's aluminum folding table . Um , it's , it's , it weighs next to nothing . Um , it's , it's , it weighs next to nothing . Um , it's bulky , it's big , you know . So like to to do a long track from my vehicle with it .

It's not ideal , uh , you know , I mean yesterday I think I did , maybe , maybe a quarter mile walk from my vehicle , uh , carrying , uh , two chairs and my table and my radio bag and all of the other accoutrements . It is doable . I would say that's my number five , having a nice foldable table .

Right , yeah , the cabela is like camping , little tiny table okay , cool , yeah , no , I I think that's definitely a must , especially if you're doing potas , although sodas you know , you're not bringing anything , you're just trying to find the closest nearest rock so that all that all works . So , all right , cool . So tables there .

So , uh , what , what's he taught ? What's your number five there ?

Uh , because sometimes you'll see on the POTA app it'll show you like the dot and it's like in the middle of the woods and there's no roads or anything . So you got to kind of put either the coordinates in or get on , um , get on a map and kind of see where the roads are and kind of figure out where you're going to go and just have that prepared .

So you're not like in the general area and you have no idea where you're going to go , because you're like , wait a minute , this is , you know where is this park ?

Um , so if you don't know where the park is , kind of prep that out and you can do that before , even , like you , even if you drive by the area I've , I've driven by areas and not going to do a park , but know that I'm going to do it and just scope it out a little bit and then kind of know .

And another way I do that is , if I don't , if I can't find a place to do it . I'll , I'll reach out to someone who like the latest activator and send them an email and say , hey , where'd you activate ? And so it's just kind of like prior , you know , if you know where you , if you don't , if it's a new park , you've never been there .

You want to be prepared of where you're going to go and what you need to set up . So , would you say , you do it like 24 hours in advance , like a couple hours in advance , like the night before , kind of deal . What's your mo ? Yeah , I mean . Yeah , I mean it would be like , yeah , maybe the night before .

Or you know , if I'm I'm going to go and eat , like the afternoon , you know , maybe in the morning , do it . And you know , just take a few minutes to to set it up . Um , and , like I said , sometimes I like I have a list of places I want to like parks I want to do , and I know the general area .

But if I have , if I'm driving by there , I might want to you know , if I have some time , scope it out and see where the best uh spot would be , instead of just trying to show up and be like , oh , now , what you know , because you might find . You might find , like , you don't need a table because there might be a picnic bench or something .

I'll use like google maps or any of the map things where you can kind of stretch it out and see and simultaneously use the poda app to see where the park , at the park , boundaries are and then compare and try to say , okay , where can I get a , where can I get the road ? Or use the poda app .

You see where the roads are that might come into it , you know , and sometimes you got to hike into them , so then you know . Sometimes you got to hike into them , so then you know you got to be prepared for a hike and you don't just show up there thinking you're going to pull into a parking lot and be in the in the park .

Sometimes you have to , like , walk into it . So , uh , you know , and I do that a lot when I travel . So when I travel um down south , I will sometimes go to the park and the park might have a website . So I'll investigate that too . Look at the website , see what it's at and then go from there so great cool , all right .

That always is a big plus , especially like where the markers aren't like exactly where the park is and you , you want to see what the drive-through kind of scenario is . Um , if it's at all possible , you know , to get you know the street view stuff .

I am notoriously a dumbass when it comes to flipping my batteries to actually a real charging wall ward or my camera batteries or anything in the mix of in between , and I've always just been like my bag's ready , so I'll grab it off the shelf and I'll run . I very much have to dip it in the shelf and I'll run .

Um , I very much have to tip it in the bud . I'd say , if you get a place you can put , you know where you put your bag , uh and all your podo gear .

If it's not in your vehicle , you know to basically set up a small little you know shelf and and you know get uh your your battery charging devices and everything all kind of just you know mounted permanently was double side tape or whatever .

Where it's a simple like you just take the barrel connector , you take the power pole connector and you just plug it in and walk away and let it do its thing . Um , you uh will save yourself uh many a headache and me be speaking . You know firsthand experience .

Yes , I have plugged into chargers that weren't in a nice , good , good , well-setup environment and plugged them in thinking they were charging the night before and , lo and behold , they weren't charging because they weren't plugged into the wall .

So , yeah , that's just my advice Set yourself up for success and that's a good place to start , because a well-charged battery is a good place to have a good activation .

It's free , but let me tell you that there are times where there's going to be something that may be off in your logs , and having a good bit of software to fix it it just makes things so much easier .

Several times I've been in situations where I've had to split my log due to , you know , the park being in two states and I'm trying to get credit for both states , uh , or or even , like yesterday , during the course of logging , my tablet messed up and so , like I've already got the next guy on , on and he's given me my signal report already and he's waiting

for me to respond and the tablet's not entering the last contact . So I did what I had to do I wiped it and entered the next guy in and just moved on . Well , it happened to be that I had video , so I went back to the video and I I was like all right , here's the guy's call sign . I know it was between this time and this time .

So I just created a new entry in adif master and I , and I made sure that that guy got credit for hunting me very cool .

You will be much happier , like Paul said , using it it's free ? Yeah , totally well worth it . All . Right , paul Todd , what do you got for your ?

And the reason I do that is because you never know when you might have time or you drive by a park and have to stop , um , I mean because when I didn't do that , I all of a sudden , like unexpected time would come up and I'm like , oh , my god , it's beautiful , let's go . And then , oh shit , I don't have my radio .

So I have my quota bag and when I go home I lug it out , bring it inside , but I leave it right by the door and then in the morning it's right there and I shove it back in the car . I don't , I don't want to leave it .

I mean , the spring , in this time of year , it's not so bad , but when it it's too hot or too cold , um , you don't want to just leave it in the car .

But yeah , that's my hack just have it with you and , um , you can grab and go and , uh , you never know when you you might be able to activate and it might be a time where you know if I get out , if I'm , if I'm working and I get out of a meeting that's away and I'm driving back and I'm supposed to be back at I don't know , say three o'clock and

it's the meeting gets out at noon , I might take a long detour to get back to the office . Right , you know um , but yeah , I mean , you never know um and sometimes you can't do it . I mean , obviously , if you , if you're going somewhere and you get the whole car packed or whatever , but if not , sometimes I'll just throw it in the truck .

But uh , it's probably a good , a good idea , so that that would be my thing Bring your bag with you .

Um I yep , it's sort of like uh , todd's , the todd's yours aren't see-through , but mine are like smaller see-through , so you can actually see the contents inside . I use them for parts storage for all my FTA digital stuff , all the connectors I might need for the radio that I have in the bag , any sundry cable connectors .

We all need the cable charger to charge if you need lightning to USB or you need USB-C to USB-A . I keep all of those cables and whatnot in those little bags and I just throw them in the front pocket . They smash down really lightly and I never have to touch them .

I always make sure and this is the one tip that I always learn from Thomas Witherspoon K4SWL . He always said never I'll put in the the word bastardize your other bags . Make sure every bag has the same set of stuff in it . That way you don't go into another bag and steal a connector .

And if you have to , you know , make sure you keep a little list and I don't have those lists , but I try to keep all my bags separate , um , and all the connectors appropriately , so things don't uh , you know , ever get lost and the only time they do is when I'm actually using them out in the field and I forget to .

You know , I let someone borrow a connector or whatever at least I can go back to the bag and review , you know ?

I've got a big kind of bin I guess they call it like the large toolbox , got a little tray but I've got like my first aid kit in there . I've got my tool . I have a tool , all my tools , so my wife and kids don't steal them . Or in this tool , what do you call it ? Those round where you roll them up to a roll thing .

I got that in there , just stuff that I don't want anyone touching but I need and it's good to have tools and stuff in your car . So I got all that crap in there and then I've got it comes with . You can get a milk crate is what I call it and that snaps on top and you can interchange them any other way and I've got that .

Now what I can do , what I was thinking of doing , is like okay , baseball , I get the milk crate , put all my baseball shit in it , I'm going to baseball , take the other one off , plop that one on . But they also sell a toolbox one with sliding drawers . They also sell a parts one .

You can either get a half size or a full size and you know you can arrange it so you can put your tool . So I was thinking of like doing that for um , the ham radio .

I was thinking about getting two small ones , like two single ones , because that would make one top and um put my RC stuff that I need those parts for , and then the ham radio for the other things . That way if I'm doing and something breaks and I don't bring the toolbox or whatever , I need a part , I have it .

So similar to what you're doing , but I like the way that you can stack and interchange and then you can move things around as needed .

They're partnering with another first aid , like one of the big first aid guy , like bags that they you know companies that are out there , I can't remember their names , but that's supposed to be coming out soon . So , because I was going to build like a first aid one for my you know my- truck .

And what's great is like I , I can move it around , I can take it out of my jeep , throw it on the garage .

I mean when I go to the flying field most of the time I need all the space to put all the planes and I just take the whole thing out and leave it on my garage and then I mean in my driveway and then go to the field and come back and then put it back in so I'll leave a link in the show notes to what todd and I are talking about .

The dual side of it is not only does it protect the radio when I'm putting the radio down on top of it , but I wrap the radio in it , so it gives an extra layer of protection when I'm putting the radio in my bag .

And you remind me , I've got to put it in my bag because I have the two extra ones I'm not using . They're just sitting here and I'm like I've got to put that in , and every time I forget , and then I go to do an activate , I'm like oh , oh , where's that freaking mouse pad I should have put in ?

So if I'm doing 20 meters , you know I'll have it set up for 20 meters so I can quickly just add it on , plug the thing in , not pull those things . I leave them on there and I know exactly what to do .

You know , if I change it to 10 and what I normally do is start on the band that I last did , so if I start on 10 , because the time before I ended on 10 , I'll start the next activation on 10 . And then if I move to 20 , I'll leave it on 20 . But then I'll , when I look , when I pull it out , I know that I'm starting 20 .

You know what I mean . So , like it's , it's sometimes , if you take that thing off , that little screw thing , and you put it back on , if you don't put it on the bike , what , bye , bye , it's gone . Well , yeah , I mean , yeah , I've got a bunch of them .

But I'm just saying if you take it off the coil sometimes it's not and you put it on the coil you don't get the same . I just find that if you leave it on there and you did an activation , or if you did a couple , like within the week , you're going to be getting resident and getting a better swr a lot easier than if you actually had to redo it .

So it's just like a time-saving thing for me , sure .

the day . It's kind of like a hack , but it's not really a hack .

I was always dependent on that stupid cell phone not ringing and when , you know , for whatever reason , you know I'd get a call , the data connection would sever , and so I just basically said , screw this and and bought a tablet with the , you know , the data connection on it and it's improved my logging um , and has been great for the benefits of being able to

take my data and get it back up to the cloud after I'm done with activating .

Because you know it is one of those things when you get old and you suffer from crs like me , you don't always remember when you get home to do something with your logs because you're like , yeah , I got home , I'm just kind of , you know , basking in the glory of me making so many contacts that I didn't bother to think that I should upload my freaking log

to . You know , get the credit for it and then three or four days later roll around the you know . But the benefit to that is now I'm able to you know , know basically upload the logs to my shared cloud service and then get home and then slurp them in and go from there . So the data connection helps a lot that's .

So , paul , what is your number two , now that we sort of let the cat out of the bag a little bit ?

I've got a PowerPole kit , my Reliance NFED Halfwave antenna . The whole kit is in that bag . The green is the antenna , the red is PowerPole , the yellow is charging for those . Those bags , uh , for the bigger bags , uh , I've got a red one which is all of my power stuff .

It's got , uh , you know , several different cords with power pole connectors on each end . Distribution block , uh , my watt meter , uh , I also throw my microphone in there , because microphone kind of goes with all the power stuff , um . And then I've got the blue bag is all my computer stuff for when I'm doing digital .

It's got the you know digi rig and all the assorted cables that go along with that and so on and so forth . Anyways , you know , different antenna systems . I have , uh , you know , different bags for different things . But 100% I love being able to grab my bags out of a bin and know I'm grabbing the right color . So it's got what I need .

The only difference is depending on the radio which .

of thing for each he toes a trailer behind his truck . Oh , he's running off time to get the assistant . This is the current photo bag for those that can see . So that's the explorer for those on our podcast . Paul is lifting up his explorer backpack no , that is not an explorer backpack .

Okay , so that's the upgraded version from the trashed explorer backpack that you want to get rid of yeah , the explorer bag is going to be a giveaway when I schedule a live stream .

That way , I know , doesn't matter which orange bag I grab , one of them has a tuner in it . Um , but yeah , so typically , like when I'm going to a park that I don't know , I've never been to before I always bring more than I need .

Like yesterday , in that bag still is uh , um , all of all of the , the same stuff that I would bring for powering the 891 and just doing single sideband on the 891 , my bluetooth keyboard for logging , assorted charging cables , you know . So that way the tablet doesn't die and whatever you know .

But yeah , I mean I carry a lot more stuff than I really should , and yesterday I had to walk back to the truck because my Tinkara mast fucking snapped in half .

And that's's the power bag , the antenna bag and and the logging . Like you know , with my Bluetooth keyboard , that that , that stuff . Right , I can grab those three bags and I I can go and I can be good .

It didn't really work too well , but what I do is I with the LTE as soon as I'm done with the POTUS , so I don't forget I um , I upload it right away . So if I have that , you can do that on the iPad , though right . Yep , so , um , yeah , so I do it . Uh , yeah , I mean you just basically , uh , you download , you know you .

So from the logging software you just put it into a file . I have it . Podalogs is a folder I have on my iPad and I just upload the ADIF what is that , what is called ADIF file , and then I go to the pod app and I just pull it from that file and bring it over there and it works really well .

It like uploads very quickly and you can do it right after you're done . Um , so that's what I that's , that's what I've done . But I mean again , is it something you need to have ? It just makes life a lot easier . And it's also kind of cool , cause you know when you're doing the , the portable , uh , what do you call it ?

The mobile loggers you can , um , you know , you can see the map of where you're meeting and where you're kind of reaching and stuff . So I like to look at that live and see what I'm doing and it , um , it also , you know , pulls up all their information , you know . So you can you know who you're talking to and stuff . So , but but you know simplicity .

I have a polo on my iphone and mom , story short , I wish I could actually upload directly from you know the podoapp on the browser , but they don't allow it on smartphones , so it's like I have to drag out my ipad . But yeah , having it on the ipad to be able to go straight there .

I can't wait till polo and all the other stupid loggers finally just get automatic upload built in and it's a done deal .

And then I like to see the stats and like where I'm at .

But again , there's always many ways to be able to skin a cat , as they say . So don't feel like you have to upload your logs immediately , but it's definitely a benefit for sure , especially with a good cell service . All right , so with mine this has kind of been a topic that all of us already have and we all use .

But this is kind of two , because they they kind of piggyback on one another . If you got an 891 and all of us here do , and we all love our 891s , you know that . You know , if you the first thing you buy , whatsoever with the 891 is run out , go to amazon , wherever , and get yourself an rj45 extension cable .

You know , plug that thing in the radio and you've got instantaneous mic hookup left and right . You know many hams early on when that finally kind of came into the scene . We're all doing it . I know I've had several questions from people on my channel and just in general walking by you know who may have not known about it .

They've been like oh , that's a wonderful idea , so do that to your radio . It it has been like oh , that's a wonderful idea , so do that to your radio . It will save yourself in the long haul and keep your mic from getting beat up .

But the addendum to that hack is also go out and buy yourself an extension splitter with two ports in it , because we all do , you know two op uh activations and you know you definitely need to have that capability because I don't know about you , but passing the mic and pa , paul and I did a video .

You know , doing Russell Abbott doing the mic back and forth was just like you just want to . Yeah , yeah , you want to strangle yourself because it's like it's like seconds to a large pileup that you're missing out with . You know having to go back and forth with a mic . So , so having that capability is definitely a plus .

Now just keep in mind the caveat A lot of people don't know that that those splitters are active . Active meaning that if Paul keys the mic , I don't have to keep my PTT on the other mic . They can hear my voice through my mic because the circuit completes on both sides . So just keep that in mind .

So if you've got a you know a wise cracking you know person on the other side , that's your second activator . That stuff's going to go right over the top of you , on top of you . So , uh , you know , just keep that in mind . This is an active so wait a minute .

Uh , kb9 vbr did it on a , an episode of hacks a while back and and said that too as well . I was like , oh then , yeah , that confirms it . So , yeah , don't be a smart ass as a second up there , that's all I have to give is a tidbit there , or yeah , I don't care , be a smartass , it helps , alright . So that's my number two there . Alright .

So now we are at the top of the heap , top of the pile here . What is your number one , paul , for rounding out our top five hacks for POTA tonight ?

I will throw the gray bag in the extras stuff that I take out with me just to have it , stuff that I take out with me just to have it . However , in the green rectangular antenna bag , I know that I've got a BNC to SO239 connector or adapter . Um , at least one . Uh , I think I've got a , a straight and a 90 degree .

If I don't bring my guying bag , but I happen to run into a situation where I need to guy something , I've at least got two aluminum tent stakes and 550 cord in my antenna back , if I can get by .

It's a system of redundancies so I can bring out the whole kit and caboodle and a big tote and leave it in my truck and then have just what I need , or what I think I'll need , in my backpack and then I can hike in . And then , god forbid , you forget something or you need to go back to the truck for something .

I mean , at least you're not going home , you know you're , you're , you're going back to the truck .

It saves me from bringing a big thing of coax . However , it's not that hard to strap a 50-foot roll of RG8 . It's not Podaflex , because that's Messy and Pelloni . It's the ABR brand .

I , you know I aspire to be you , my friend , like my redundancies are , you know , we'll say shameful , but you know I'm working towards getting to that level , I think , and you know I have to thank you for , you know , nudging me along as I , because you've been all you guys have been firsthand , you know , experienced of me forgetting something , antenna or

whatever , or heard my horror story . So , yeah , I applaud you for having some of those systems and just trying to get better with it . So it's good , good stuff there , cool , all there , cool , all right , any any add to that todd you want to throw in there ?

That , you know , maybe , uh , you know , moves the needle for you for him or for yeah , redundancies in general for you , not well ?

you're at and you're good to go um . I've had times . I think you know one time with you , eric is uh , you must have done that , or you were more prepared and you started activating and I didn't have a log set . I'm like whoa , whoa , whoa , slow down , slow down . So now you know , if I know I'm going out , you know right before .

I mean , it doesn't take long , but it can't make a difference .

I mean , if you think about it , when we did um , when we did the uh , the rove , when we , I think I put in like 10 , we needed 10 or 15 logs of like all the parks that we possibly were going to do , and then , yeah , so it was a lot easier than trying to sit there and go through and set it all up .

So that's something I do pretty much every time , unless it's like a sporadic one where I just show up because , oh , I just drove by a park and I've got some time . But if I'm preparing , if I'm planning to do a park , I'll have that set up before I leave .

So , whether it's hiking or field day or whatever , I stress comfort . Like you know , it's number one in my book , no matter what , because if you're not happy , you know sitting or you know whatever that you're just going to hate your , you know your activation .

It's just going to be one of those things that you just , you know , you're just not going to like . So I started like Paul uh , you know , for a long time I used to keep beach chairs and like other stuff , like folding chairs , in back of my truck and they always get banged around .

And I had a small little folding table that , uh , you know , it was a metal like kind of folded up but really fold up into like something portable that I used to kept in back of the truck and it used to always get banged up and moved around and that's what I use for most of my activations and it worked fine .

But I'd be like Paul , I'd have a metal table under my arm , I'd have my chair wrapped around my bag , I'd have my poda bag on my back , and if I didn , enough is enough . So I started doing some research and started looking into some products from Helinox and everybody knows Helinox .

They have a great portable chairs , tables , I mean everything you can kind of think under the sun and so I kind of felt them out a little bit , ran a couple of their chairs , because I was looking for the portability , but I also wanted some strength in it because these things are going to get beat up and so they kind of bubbled up to the top both on

people that have used them I've seen them in the field , use , kb1 , icl , john uses them as well and so I bought the Helinox table and I also bought the chair .

And in my truck , on one of my saddle bags that I have on the side of the bed , I've got two little hooks and those things in the bags because they pack down to literally just probably about four inches wider , longer than paul's , like you know , colored bags in terms of the size , in terms of how they pack down . So I'm like all for it .

So basically , I can hang them off the smallest saddle bags . They stay up and off the bottom of the bed so they don't get wet or damaged , and I can set all of that up in literally probably five minutes and the chairs are super comfortable . Um , the table is super strong .

Um , I've , you know , decked all the table out with all , yeah , literally about another four more inches off the side of Paul's bag .

As you see in for those that are on the podcast you'll have to watch the video , but , yeah , the Helinox chairs if you've used them you sat in them they're very comfortable in terms of activations and stuff and they pack down super light and that's kind of what I'm thinking , you know , and that's kind of what I'm thinking you know , and that's what's replaced

exactly what I have , uh , long term . So you know , the nice part about the helix table is it all folds up in a small little bag but I can put all of my stickers on the top of it and the stickers don't get ruined , so it's like I get to customize it still . So it looks a little bit , you know , like a photo table , but uh , all good stuff .

And you know , I'm definitely gonna start start using that more in the spring , summer and you know , you know whatever's left until winter kind of sets in here .

But yeah , those are the two big things I bought recently and I love them and you know they have saved a lot of space and weight and make activations much , much easier , for sure , going forward well , I'll tell you , I , uh , I absolutely love my pod rockers , right yeah , those are comfortable they're .

It's a roll up uh oil canvas but it's a , it's an actual military antenna bag and I keep the uh the Wolfer recoil complete setup in that and the uh M pass 2.0 complete setup . So I had thrown that in the truck .

So I went back to the truck and what I did was I used the uh the m pass uh ground spike and uh loading coil with the uh the 17 foot whip and then and then I ran , I ran my radial into the ocean there you go , redundancy yeah , all right todd so with your uh , you know uh number one , I think right , yep , yeah , do you already give your ?

I mean , are these , are these well-made chairs like ? Are they gonna last a while , or are they ?

That's some expensive stuff it is yeah like . I don't , I've never , I've never seen one like , so I can't say . I mean , I I'm assuming it's not just the name and it's like pie , I think it's . It's well , how bad , well quality stuff is it ?

Is it light , like lighter it's very light lighter than what , super lighter than like our rocker chairs that we got with the oh way way like I mean literally we're talking fractions ounces yeah , and it's uh , and they sell it at rei , right , you can ?

So black friday's coming up , so I would say , check black friday deals on those yeah , I'm at the rei shop and it says they sell them they don't have them in store , at least in our neighborhood oh yeah , the one over in bedford doesn't have it , but yeah , I um I went up to uh trading post up in maine to check out all this stuff .

I had to squeeze everything in tight to make everything work . That table is nice and big and I can spread out very easily .

Sorry , when that happens , that's where I drum you know , I'm , yeah , I'm , I'm , uh , I'm kind of excited for winter field day . So , since I missed uh regular field day , I think I'm going to Paul talk to you . I think we're going to do it like the whole night , like the whole thing .

Marvin just told me , m0met , the ham radio guy , he's actually bringing his . If the snow doesn't show and it's just grass and dirt , he's bringing his trailer . He'll have his full communications trailer tower and everything he's doing .

He's doing winter field day with us yeah , I guess he said his club isn't going to be doing , um , you know , field day , winter field day . And so he's like , yeah , I'm just going to come up that way . And he's like , if it snows I'm not bringing the trailer , but I'm coming up anyway .

So between paul with his setup , you know I'm gonna need a shelter or something . Yeah well , you probably want to get one , one of those , uh , ice hut . So there's not the one I bought . Please don't buy that one . That was a bad mistake .

Last year I walked into Paul's little igloo thing . He was in shorts . It was like 80 degrees in there . The dog was sweating .

Hopefully , they , you know , you learn something yourself a little bit . Uh , you know , maybe a new one that you haven't done in your own setups . But , as always , you know , hey , let's keep this conversation going . We're gonna have this posted over in our discord , uh , under our shows episode .

So when this goes , uh , live , you know , you can head over there to our discord site . Um , and , you know , participate , let us know what's going on uh , with your , uh , you know , poda hacks . Do you have a couple that we might have missed on or that we don't want and share ? You know , feel free to share with that .

We're always interested in learning new stuff ourselves .

I think it's good to have a stack of those , um , just to when people come up because we've all been there and people say , hey , what are you doing ? I think it's just good for ham radio and it's good for poda .

You know , the more people you get involved and , uh , if they have something they can put in their hand and they can look it up , you know they throw it around . They might look it up and get on their phone and go to the website and see what it's all about .

So I like to have those in my bag , just as when people come around , so they know what we're doing .

We'd love to have you guys there . If you don't know how to get to our Discord , you can always head over to livefreeandhamcom and a link is down at the bottom . It's always in our show notes too as well . There's no reason why you just can't click it and become part of discord and hang out with us .

We we've got people hopping in all the time , so it's great to see new faces , and we're going to have to make a little segment here and as new people pop on , because I know we've had a couple of those that have joined recently and and I don't have it up right now so I can't tell you who it is .

But yeah , we thank you guys for joining in and hanging out , having some fun . So with that , let's get into how you can get ahold of us as we wrap the show up .

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