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Good morning, everyone.

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We're about to start a panel discussion on what makes a good ham radio operator.

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Subtitle also, what are the weird pieces of lingo we use?

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Ham operators seem to love, love, love using a lot of really random speech and text patterns that have historical reasons for being used but don't really make sense in a lot of context today.

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So let's just go around.

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I am Eric, A-I-0-J.

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I'm Justin, K-E-A-M-Y-F.

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I'm Grant, W-4-K-E-K.

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Sorry, I don't have the video yet.

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Good morning, good afternoon.

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I'm Richard, Victor Alpha Seven Original Gangster or November Three Romeo Tango Hotel.

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Great, great.

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So let's just, you know, start going around and, you know, sort of in a nutshell, you know, what do you think of when you think of like what's being a good ham radio operator?

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Rich, do you want to take it off?

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Sure.

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For me, I think I've been in this hobby 20 plus years now.

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I think it's an overarching understanding of being polite to other operators.

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Far too often, if you spend a lot of time on HF, very specific to frequency, you'll hear a lot of really, really inappropriate behavior by hams.

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Some of them have a lot of very expensive gear, pumping out a lot of very high power.

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They love talking, looking over people, screaming at you.

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You know what, just be polite and understand that you're talking to people literally all over the world.

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You're talking to people who may not be as skilled as you are, may not be as well resourced as you are.

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And understand that we are still, after being in this hobby for a long, a brotherhood, a sisterhood.

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And I think we need to spend a lot more time treating other hams like the brothers and sisters they are.

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Yeah, that's a great answer.

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One of the things that probably annoys me the most about bad, bad operation is just the assumed, oh, well, I've been in this for a while.

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I know a lot, or I've spent a lot of money, or it's even worse.

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So obviously, I'm the expert in everything I say is 100% right.

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And I mean, there's just a lot in this hobby.

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I mean, it changes every day.

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As we've seen in the talks this weekend, there's always new things to explore, there's always new things to learn.

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And just like I think a lot of hobbies, you get people that have been in it for a while and assume that they've learned everything and they're the master and everyone should listen to them.

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And obviously, that's not very welcoming to new hams for sure.

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Justin, do you want to chime in?

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Yeah, so one thing I would say is always kind of the term always out there for hammering is kind of the good practices.

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I'm kind of coming from the view of the newer ham.

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I'm still quite early, although I just got my extra.

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I've only been on the air since March.

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But one important thing that I always try to think of is think of those who are listening, who may not even be able to broadcast back because you'll have your people on shortwave listening, or especially in more local communications on repeaters.

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Many of them have something like echo link or broadcastify in place for your standard person can listen in.

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So you're setting that example.

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If they hear people talking about maybe things that might put them off from amateur radio, then it might kind of taint their view of it.

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And as well as making sure everyone else has their kind of time to talk.

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Because when it comes to amateur radio, you kind of got to control yourself, especially when there's a situation not like a network.

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Making sure you can come back to yourself, but allow other people to talk as well.

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It looks like we lost just for a minute.

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He's coming back.

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Possibly.

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One thing I'll say also while we wait for him to pop on is that...

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All right.

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All right.

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Sorry about that.

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The Discord decided to apparently restart and apply an update right now.

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So that's awesome.

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Yay, automatic updates.

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I think we're back on the air.

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Do you want to continue?

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Just Esther, who were you talking about, Rich?

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Yeah, what I was saying is that ham radio has really taken off as far as the different things you can do with ham radio just in the last five years alone.

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The abundance of much more affordable ham radio gear coupled with the proliferation of single computing has really opened up a ton of new things that hams can do.

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And I think what we have to be careful of as ham hams as we get older is to not get into the trap of the people before us who say, oh, that's not ham radio.

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No, that's ham radio.

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No, that's not ham radio.

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You know, how many times have you heard in the past 20 years of hams saying, well, if you don't know more, Sergeant, you're not a real ham.

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Or spark gap traders are the only real ham radio.

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No, no.

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The only way ham radio is going to survive is as a hobby.

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The only way ham radio is going to survive and bring more people into it is to embrace all these new things that are going to be only partially ham radio related, but do things like connect to the internet.

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That's the only way we're going to attract new people to this hobby.

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So just keep an open mind when you see something new.

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And the first thing in your mind is, well, that's not ham radio at all.

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Just take a second and think about it.

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Yeah, of course, I see a lot of that with all the internet radio and things like that.

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I'm like, well, it's not, it's not radio.

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It's not radio.

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I was like, well, I mean, it's all, you know, it's all fine.

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Either the hobby can expand and reach into new areas and stuff like that.

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Let's change topics a little bit.

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You know, what's probably the, maybe we'll go to you, Justin, as a newer ham.

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You know, what did you find the most confusing in terms of like, you know, ham lingo, as you know, you started getting the hobby and everyone's immediately assumed, you know, every piece of, you know, our lingo?

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Yeah, definitely.

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What I would say there is when I got into it, those cue codes, that's always where everyone likes to start off.

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You're saying everyone's like QSY, QSL.

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Those, of course, meaning if you're going to change frequency and acknowledging a receipt in that order.

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But one thing I would say is, once you start listening to them, it's very easy to pick up on it.

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Once you kind of hear what they're saying, and then you can either Google it real quickly, or you can kind of just think about what they're saying.

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So if they say QSY and they see a frequency, they're probably switching over there.

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And as well, there's kind of your other terms that people might say, especially if you're a technician coming in and you're on a repeater, a lot of people might take a bite or break.

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That just means that they are letting the repeater reset because many of them have those talkout timers.

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That's one thing I kind of was curious what they're meaning there.

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And then I kind of realized they're just letting that repeater reset.

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Yeah, I think that's also some great, good operating tips, too, on repeaters and more or less on 2Meter and VHF and up.

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But if you're using a repeater, you definitely do not want to call CQ to look for contacts.

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It's sort of common.

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It's a weird thing, but we just don't do that, right?

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Instead, we say, oh, hey, this is K3K monitoring this repeater.

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And more than often, it'll come back and talk to you, but it's just not sort of accepted to just go on to the repeater and say, hey, K3K calling CQ on this repeater.

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And I don't really exactly know why we chose to do that, but that is just what we do, right?

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And there are a lot of just sort of gotchas.

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And I think it's important as experienced TAMs, if that happens, it's fine.

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I say, oh, hey, by the way, you should probably not call CQ.

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You should call monitoring instead of being like, hey, that's not how you do it or just being a jerk about it, which unfortunately, you can see a lot.

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Yeah.

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And I'll add on to that.

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One thing, Dave Kessler, K-E-0-O-G, he's one of the bigger YouTubers, ham radio YouTubers.

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Even he covered that topic.

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And on a repeater, sometimes calling CQ might be good for like a last resort because most likely if you do it, you will get that ham that tells you not to do it.

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But if you haven't made a contact and it's your first time on the air, then you just made your first contact.

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Although it might be for someone who's telling you not to call CQ.

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I guess technically a contact is still a contact and that's how you can get a conversation going.

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And he's actually been one of the people who wrote the book on ham radio.

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He's one of the licensed or the authors for the license manuals for the ARRL.

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Yeah, very, very cool.

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And Saito, is your audio working?

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Do you want to jump in?

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Yeah, I did want to say, I believe it comes to the fact when you're calling CQ, you're on a frequency , you're not sure who's listening.

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Meanwhile, on the repeater, you can assume there's people listening on that frequency.

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So I feel like that's why you would call CQ on listening frequency versus on a repeater.

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Yeah, that's a great point.

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Yeah, I think probably the most sort of frustrating thing, like the cue codes, you know , they make sense.

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I mean, a lot of the sort of terminology that's used in ham radio originates from, you know, Morse code CW usage, you know, where, you know, you're trying to literally save time and save the amount of time as you're tapping your finger, of course, back in the day.

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You know, so I mean, I think there's a good reason for all those abbreviations.

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And of course, it's, you know, now in our modern tech society, I think there's still value in that.

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But one of the ones that really my personal pet peeve is when people type hi hi instead of ha ha, which in Morse code is much, much quicker.

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I hate that so much.

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Yeah, in Morse code is much quicker to type an I than it is an A.

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Totally understandable.

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On a keyboard, it is literally the same word count.

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Yeah, oh man, it just annoys me to no end.

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It's like, just just stop.

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You don't, you don't look any more important.

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I don't know what it, you know.

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Now, what's some other sort of weird lingo that people might not be familiar with?

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Struggling to think.

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I do think there's some terms that are, you know, not misintentioned, but probably outdated.

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You know, XYL was sort of a three letter code that, you know, historically has meant, you know, young lady, as in, like, typically the ham operator's spouse.

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And I don't think there's ill intention in it, but it's just a little outdated today, you know.

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And I personally just kind of cringe a little when I hear that.

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So Mr.

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Radar had a question.

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What's the what's internet lingo-gations on the air?

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LOL or BRB?

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Look, you know what?

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This is my opinion, and I'm sure everybody has a different opinion.

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But I don't hate it at all, because it's become part of general language now.

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And you see everywhere, not just on the internet anymore.

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There are definitely going to be some older old hams who hate it because it's new.

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But you know what?

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Language over time.

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I don't have any problems.

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Anybody say LOL or BRB or things like that in ham radio, because it's, it's, it's, it's extended in real life now.

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So go for it.

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The more and more you use regular language, which in ham radio, the more realized it'll become.

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If someone gives you grief over things like that, you know what?

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It's probably not even worth your time to engage with them.

156
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Just keep being you.

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Don't, don't let some ham who's been doing, doing this for years, and the skin there, that they're old, away from, from, from bullying you.

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Because you see a lot of that in radio, especially with some of the older people.

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They do behave like bullies, because they've been stuck in there for such a long time.

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And I hope is that other, and say, you know what?

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Time changed, either.

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I want to see more hams interject into conversations like that, saying, look, you know what?

163
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It's time for you to just, you know, lighten up a little bit.

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We could use a little bit more of this hobby.

165
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Yeah, I think it's a fair point.

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It's a bit of a, I think almost a loaded question, because that is very much more of a societal question, right?

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Some people are okay using things like LOL and BRB just in person, or, you know, even, you know, a video conference chat.

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And some people are like, no, that's not proper English.

169
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And I don't think that's ever going to be solved.

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That's probably not hobby unique.

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But I tend to agree with Rich's, you know, comments like, yeah, it's totally fine.

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I mean, it's all about your audience and their comfort level and your comfort level with them, you know.

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Certainly, if you're on a repeater, and it's a bunch of people, you know, I think it's, you know, the level of comfort of in conversation in general is much different than if you're just, you know, making conversation with, 2000 miles away.

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I would, the only thing I'd add to that is I would definitely caution about that if you're doing anything, long distance, also known as DX, another piece of lingo there, distance, just because, you know, if English is not their primary language, sometimes,

175
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you know, those acronyms and things like that can be confusing, you know, if they're not used to that.

176
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So that's my point.

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Oh, new challengers appeared.

178
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Well, welcome, Baloo.

179
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I don't know if we have audio from you yet.

180
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We do have a question in chat about if there's a trick to memorizing cue codes.

181
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Yeah, I don't think there's, you know, any real trick.

182
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There's really probably only a handful that get used a lot.

183
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I mean, if you go online, you find like list of cue codes or ham radio cue codes, you'll see like, I don't know, like 20, 30 of them.

184
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But there's probably only like, I don't know, five or six that get used commonly, you know, like, you know, in some only really in like contests and stuff.

185
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Like, you generally don't hear QRZ being called a lot and except if like you're working a pile up or something like that in a contest.

186
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QTH is probably the one I hear the most, which is me shorthand for location, you know, it'd be, you know, if you're in the old CB days, it'd be, you know, what's your 20?

187
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I don't do that on the handbands, by the way, that will definitely anger people using any of the CB lingo.

188
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So I would not I recommend not using any 10 codes, you know, no 10 for a good buddy or anything like that, or that'll definitely rile up the old hams.

189
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Yeah, I'll add on to that, especially how you said not using 10 codes, especially once you get into the more, I guess you could say, emergency comms with stuff like Skywarn.

190
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If you're in a spotter group, and they're taking check-ins for spotters, it's pretty important, especially in those scenarios, to make sure you're using the kind of set and stone phonetics.

191
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Everyone kind of has their funner version of phonetics that they'll usually have for their call sign.

192
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I actually don't have one for, I haven't thought of one for me yet.

193
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But in those more serious scenarios, it's much more important to kind of listen to what the net control station is saying, and follow their instructions, because they're expecting to hear what they have asked for.

194
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If they can get more check-ins from spotters, right when a condition might change to yellow, then it allows for more efficient communications.

195
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And that's where it's more important to make sure you're following those good practices, like proper phonetics.

196
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Yeah, definitely.

197
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I think more important than memorizing any cue codes or anything like that, yeah, knowing the NATO alphabet is way more useful.

198
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And yeah, I do expand on that in any sort of, you know, more formal net, which is just a fancy word for on-air meeting.

199
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Yeah, definitely short and to the point is better.

200
00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:16,720
You know, a lot of times people try to ramble on, if it is like a spotter net, you know, that's like, they just need the information, and they want to get out and go on, you know, do their job, right?

201
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:30,560
So, now, obviously, if it's a, you know, weekly club meeting on air, and it's just sort of more of a, you know, weird, or just a normal sort of conversation, also in ham parlance called a rag-chew, which is a term I personally don't like.

202
00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:35,340
But, you know, rag-chew just means to have a casual conversation.

203
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:37,300
It's another term you'll see.

204
00:19:39,300 --> 00:19:52,120
It's always great when you see a ham on the radio going like, okay, this is tangerine, tomato, pineapple, Z, H-I.

205
00:19:52,260 --> 00:19:54,640
Yeah, M as in Mancy jumps to mind.

206
00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:56,500
Learn the phonetic alphabet.

207
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:02,020
Oh, here's a good question in the chat.

208
00:20:02,020 --> 00:20:07,020
Do you guys have any stories of people actively trolling the ham spectrum?

209
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:09,800
I have one.

210
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:11,920
How do I?

211
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:14,480
Yeah, go ahead.

212
00:20:16,780 --> 00:20:17,680
Yeah, I know.

213
00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:25,500
I was once looking at SCR of 20 Meter Band, and I hear a station in the data portion speaking.

214
00:20:25,500 --> 00:20:35,460
So, it's like, I go there and some Russian station, I recorded, some of my friend recorded it, but it was like this weird Russian saying thing, bunch of stuff, bunch of stuff.

215
00:20:35,620 --> 00:20:39,500
And a bunch of Russians later got on and tried to speak over this person.

216
00:20:39,500 --> 00:20:42,940
So, it was pretty interesting seeing that happen.

217
00:20:50,520 --> 00:21:18,300
About 15, 18 years ago, yes, there was a guy who was not licensed and initially put up a big vertical, much like the one you have in the background of your room there, in downtown Toronto, and was broadcasting on FRS1 at 100 watts, and would bank at the entire city in FRS1 traffic where ham and hams would just take over FRS1.

218
00:21:18,300 --> 00:21:22,260
And eventually, he moved over to 46.552 and did the same thing there.

219
00:21:22,260 --> 00:21:27,480
But he would go back and forth, he would just stomp over anybody else he'd hear talking.

220
00:21:27,660 --> 00:21:45,080
And I'm not saying I was involved, but a few hams after months of this got tired of it, triangulated his position, and may have stuck a piece staple into his coax one night at two in the morning, climbing his tower.

221
00:21:45,860 --> 00:21:47,440
That's just what I heard.

222
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:53,060
And I do know that he came back the next day and fried his face, so he never ever did again.

223
00:21:54,420 --> 00:22:00,480
I'm not sure, it might be ruining the reputation of the friendly Canadian there, but you know.

224
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:03,080
That's just a story I heard.

225
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:11,840
Yeah, I mean, I think there are some... if you look online, there are definitely some well-known people that have caused interference in the ham bans.

226
00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:20,020
Some guy, I think out of New York or something, had a 1.5 kilowatt amp and a Yagi, and would just routinely trash over the bans.

227
00:22:20,580 --> 00:22:23,740
You know, the high-profile ones like that, the FCC in the U.S.

228
00:22:23,740 --> 00:22:27,480
does go after them, and they will issue you very, very large fines.

229
00:22:27,780 --> 00:22:29,040
They don't mess around.

230
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:34,320
If you've pissed off enough people, the government's getting involved.

231
00:22:34,740 --> 00:22:37,000
Yeah, it usually doesn't end well.

232
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,120
And most of the time, they're not even hams, but sometimes they are.

233
00:22:42,120 --> 00:22:43,740
That's a great point, Eric.

234
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:49,180
Go online and search for FCC Interference Action Ham Radio or Hampshire Radio.

235
00:22:49,180 --> 00:22:58,800
Just read some of the recaps that the FCC published, some of the behaving hams and some things they've done.

236
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:04,240
And you'll just read crazy stories about some of the stuff these people have done, including some pretty crazy fines.

237
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:08,900
I've seen fines, $20,000, $30,000 type fines, confiscation of it.

238
00:23:08,900 --> 00:23:16,940
So like you said, if you piss off enough people for enough time, the FCC will come looking.

239
00:23:16,940 --> 00:23:17,880
It's the same thing in Canada.

240
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:24,740
History Canada will eventually come and find you if you cause enough mischief out there on the airwaves.

241
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:30,240
Yeah, I don't know if I'd want the Royal Canadian Mounted Police coming at me asking for my radio.

242
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:31,240
It seems like it'd be bad.

243
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:39,820
On the other side of malicious intent, there's a lot of people, including businesses, that are just ignorant.

244
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:40,880
They have no idea.

245
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:43,000
They buy this bow thing, they turn it on.

246
00:23:43,100 --> 00:23:46,360
Hey, housekeeping gets a radio, front desk gets a radio.

247
00:23:47,060 --> 00:23:53,580
We've had a local hotel, they were using, they were tromping on our repeater for two or three months.

248
00:23:53,580 --> 00:23:56,820
And we didn't realize it because we have a tone.

249
00:23:56,820 --> 00:24:01,180
But once you go in reverse, it's like, hey, these guys are on our input frequency.

250
00:24:01,180 --> 00:24:05,720
So us as a group, we were like, hey, we didn't get mad.

251
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,160
We were wanting to educate these people.

252
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:12,560
So the whole club finally found out who it was.

253
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:19,280
And club president went down and talked to him and said, hey, we understand you got some new radios.

254
00:24:20,340 --> 00:24:23,640
You are interfering with our communications.

255
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:28,280
I will help you program your radios so you're not breaking law.

256
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:34,040
And I think that is a great example of positive ham culture.

257
00:24:35,820 --> 00:24:41,980
Yeah, how many times have you had people going absolutely hog-miled over people doing something like that.

258
00:24:41,980 --> 00:24:47,420
And instead, just be calm, be gracious, just walk them through what they're doing.

259
00:24:47,420 --> 00:24:49,300
Because all these people want to talk.

260
00:24:49,300 --> 00:24:53,400
They don't know anything else, but other than the fact they just want to communicate with each other.

261
00:24:53,540 --> 00:24:57,540
So you would use the time, use your knowledge, use your experience to be nice to other people.

262
00:24:59,020 --> 00:25:00,140
New friends.

263
00:25:00,140 --> 00:25:08,440
And you never know, you know, like a hotel, if you could come back six months later and say, hey, do you think maybe we could put an antenna on the roof there for something?

264
00:25:08,500 --> 00:25:14,040
Yeah, they may say, it's easier to make friends than it is to make enemies.

265
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:21,980
So why not just use your knowledge and try and help some people understand what they're doing and why they do it differently.

266
00:25:24,220 --> 00:25:25,020
Definitely.

267
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:39,900
Yeah, and it's definitely complicated, I think, by the fact that they're... I mean, the FCC has actually gone after some companies for marketing radios as like, yep, you don't need a license, just bubble pack radio, open this up and transmit.

268
00:25:39,900 --> 00:25:42,580
And the radios are not actually designed for that.

269
00:25:42,580 --> 00:25:49,100
And they were operating in bands that needed licensing, whether it's business band or, you know, on handbands, things like that.

270
00:25:49,100 --> 00:25:52,600
So, you know, the government has gone after those as well, which is good.

271
00:25:52,780 --> 00:25:54,460
But it certainly doesn't help, right?

272
00:25:54,460 --> 00:25:55,560
And just complicates it.

273
00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:01,820
And, you know, people, you know, just, you know, novices who don't have a lot of experience with Zoom, oh, well, the more power, the better, right?

274
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:02,900
That's all that matters, right?

275
00:26:02,900 --> 00:26:06,460
I just need the most powerful radio, I'll put as much power in the air as I can.

276
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:08,620
And really, that's not the solution.

277
00:26:08,620 --> 00:26:14,660
I mean, you know, as you start to learn more, like adding power is probably like the least effective amount of thing you can do.

278
00:26:14,660 --> 00:26:23,550
It's much more about improving your antenna system and, you know, reducing noise, all that, that stuff far more effective than just like dumping more power into the problem.

279
00:26:24,170 --> 00:26:26,530
And so you do catch a lot of interference and stuff like that.

280
00:26:26,530 --> 00:26:31,710
And you can certainly catch, you know, electronics these days have a lot of noisy components.

281
00:26:31,710 --> 00:26:41,150
So, you know, if you're in a dense area, it's it can be very common, you know, to have like, oh, you're in something your neighbors , you know, if they still have a plasma TV, yeah, that's gonna be cause lots of interference.

282
00:26:41,150 --> 00:26:43,430
So it's good to be friendly about that sort of stuff.

283
00:26:43,430 --> 00:26:54,250
And not just immediately go and put up 200 foot tower without, you know, talking to your neighbors first, just because the first thing they're going to do is say, oh, well, this is causing problems, and I don't want to help you now.

284
00:26:54,250 --> 00:26:54,730
Right.

285
00:26:54,910 --> 00:27:00,410
So, you know, and now you just just as be as friendly as possible, I think is super important.

286
00:27:03,290 --> 00:27:05,350
Adding more power is a great way to blow things up.

287
00:27:05,350 --> 00:27:06,350
Yes, yes.

288
00:27:07,790 --> 00:27:11,850
There's a question about looking for resources for getting into DMR.

289
00:27:11,850 --> 00:27:13,730
I'm definitely not the person to answer that.

290
00:27:13,730 --> 00:27:20,530
I guess I can.

291
00:27:21,210 --> 00:27:31,550
DMR is one of those things that might be really hard to understand without just being able to go back and forth and ask your questions.

292
00:27:31,550 --> 00:27:37,870
I would join up with a group, the wireless village discord, the ham radio village discord.

293
00:27:38,690 --> 00:27:40,330
Very helpful folks.

294
00:27:40,330 --> 00:27:41,950
They'll help you get online.

295
00:27:43,070 --> 00:27:49,190
There's some quick basics you'll need to know, such as getting a hotspot, getting a radio.

296
00:27:50,010 --> 00:28:01,370
But after that, there's just a lot of little things that could take you days to understand when you could just chat with somebody for 30 minutes and have a working system.

297
00:28:01,370 --> 00:28:08,610
So I definitely definitely suggest going to a community and getting some help other than that.

298
00:28:08,610 --> 00:28:21,250
If you can't, YouTube is a great resource because just reading documentation, sometimes you don't get the things you need to know, such as a receive list.

299
00:28:21,470 --> 00:28:27,230
If you don't add a receive list, you might be able to talk out fine, but you won't be able to hear anybody.

300
00:28:27,230 --> 00:28:30,250
And a lot of documentation I've read doesn't even mention it.

301
00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:37,470
So it's great to get those little tidbits of information that could make or break your system from somebody that knows.

302
00:28:39,750 --> 00:28:43,290
It's amazing how far it has come even in the last couple of years.

303
00:28:43,290 --> 00:28:50,510
I had a couple of workshops I did a few years ago around monitoring systems, like trunk systems and DMR systems, things like that.

304
00:28:50,550 --> 00:29:03,370
And now, those little pie pie zero, because you can buy 75 bucks, and then you can buy the AnyTone DMR radio is under $200 now.

305
00:29:03,650 --> 00:29:05,390
Surplus Motorola.

306
00:29:05,510 --> 00:29:06,650
Yeah, there you go.

307
00:29:06,650 --> 00:29:07,370
There's one right there.

308
00:29:07,370 --> 00:29:09,230
And I think that's what's not like $150.

309
00:29:09,230 --> 00:29:11,150
It's not very expensive.

310
00:29:12,190 --> 00:29:17,390
It's really simple to get these things on the air and get started with.

311
00:29:17,390 --> 00:29:25,130
And I'm, for one, really excited to see all this digital stuff really take off because it's the next radio.

312
00:29:25,410 --> 00:29:34,890
And as neat as it is to say, you know, do more code and stuff, this is far more useful, far more practical today.

313
00:29:37,470 --> 00:29:42,950
Kind of on a little side note there, kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier.

314
00:29:43,930 --> 00:29:50,690
I said on the club net a couple weeks ago, hey, I have a new DMR repeater.

315
00:29:50,890 --> 00:29:57,550
Those with DMR radios who would like to know more about DMR, come on, get on the repeater, talk with us.

316
00:29:57,890 --> 00:30:03,230
We had a few less ignorant hams.

317
00:30:03,230 --> 00:30:03,890
I don't know.

318
00:30:03,890 --> 00:30:05,510
I'll just keep using the word ignorant.

319
00:30:05,510 --> 00:30:07,690
That brings me back to that South Park episode.

320
00:30:09,810 --> 00:30:13,630
We've had ham say no, club, don't listen to this guy.

321
00:30:13,630 --> 00:30:15,570
You do not want to get into digital radio.

322
00:30:15,570 --> 00:30:17,290
Digital radio is not where you want to be.

323
00:30:17,290 --> 00:30:18,770
It's not real radio.

324
00:30:19,150 --> 00:30:22,610
And it's just... that very deeply frustrated me.

325
00:30:22,610 --> 00:30:23,890
I just let it go.

326
00:30:23,890 --> 00:30:28,590
But there's definitely some pushback from the older ham community.

327
00:30:30,130 --> 00:30:30,430
Yeah.

328
00:30:30,430 --> 00:30:33,830
And I mean, I think there is maybe a couple of reasons for that.

329
00:30:33,830 --> 00:30:39,110
You know, it definitely is the bar of entry is much higher, especially, I think, with, you know, DMR.