[01:54.290 --> 02:00.410]  Good morning, everyone. We're about to start a panel discussion on what makes a good ham
[02:00.410 --> 02:07.670]  radio operator. Subtitle also, what are the weird pieces of lingo we use? Ham operators
[02:07.670 --> 02:14.350]  seem to love, love, love using a lot of really random speech and text patterns that have
[02:14.350 --> 02:18.750]  historical reasons for being used but don't really make sense in a lot of context today.
[02:19.490 --> 02:32.960]  So let's just go around. I am Eric, A-I-0-J. I'm Justin, K-E-A-M-Y-F. I'm Grant, W-4-K-E-K.
[02:32.960 --> 02:38.400]  Sorry, I don't have the video yet. Good morning, good afternoon. I'm Richard, Victor Alpha
[02:38.400 --> 02:43.140]  Seven Original Gangster or November Three Romeo Tango Hotel.
[02:45.940 --> 02:52.120]  Great, great. So let's just, you know, start going around and, you know, sort of in a nutshell,
[02:52.120 --> 02:55.880]  you know, what do you think of when you think of like what's being a good ham radio operator?
[02:56.320 --> 02:57.840]  Rich, do you want to take it off?
[02:58.620 --> 03:08.980]  Sure. For me, I think I've been in this hobby 20 plus years now. I think it's an overarching
[03:10.000 --> 03:19.100]  understanding of being polite to other operators. Far too often, if you spend a lot of time on HF,
[03:19.100 --> 03:26.010]  very specific to frequency, you'll hear a lot of really, really inappropriate behavior by hams.
[03:26.750 --> 03:34.180]  Some of them have a lot of very expensive gear, pumping out a lot of very high power.
[03:34.180 --> 03:39.960]  They love talking, looking over people, screaming at you. You know what, just be polite and understand
[03:39.960 --> 03:45.560]  that you're talking to people literally all over the world. You're talking to people who may not
[03:45.560 --> 03:54.700]  be as skilled as you are, may not be as well resourced as you are. And understand that we are
[03:54.700 --> 04:01.580]  still, after being in this hobby for a long, a brotherhood, a sisterhood. And I think we need
[04:01.580 --> 04:05.560]  to spend a lot more time treating other hams like the brothers and sisters they are.
[04:07.860 --> 04:14.420]  Yeah, that's a great answer. One of the things that probably annoys me the most about bad,
[04:14.420 --> 04:20.500]  bad operation is just the assumed, oh, well, I've been in this for a while. I know a lot,
[04:20.500 --> 04:25.680]  or I've spent a lot of money, or it's even worse. So obviously, I'm the expert in everything I say
[04:25.680 --> 04:31.000]  is 100% right. And I mean, there's just a lot in this hobby. I mean, it changes every day.
[04:31.000 --> 04:35.060]  As we've seen in the talks this weekend, there's always new things to explore,
[04:35.060 --> 04:39.400]  there's always new things to learn. And just like I think a lot of hobbies, you get people that have
[04:39.400 --> 04:43.100]  been in it for a while and assume that they've learned everything and they're the master and
[04:43.100 --> 04:47.580]  everyone should listen to them. And obviously, that's not very welcoming to new hams for sure.
[04:50.540 --> 04:55.380]  Justin, do you want to chime in? Yeah, so one thing I would say is always kind of
[04:55.380 --> 05:00.740]  the term always out there for hammering is kind of the good practices. I'm kind of coming from
[05:00.740 --> 05:05.120]  the view of the newer ham. I'm still quite early, although I just got my extra. I've only been on
[05:05.120 --> 05:10.200]  the air since March. But one important thing that I always try to think of is think of those who are
[05:10.200 --> 05:15.300]  listening, who may not even be able to broadcast back because you'll have your people on shortwave
[05:15.300 --> 05:20.060]  listening, or especially in more local communications on repeaters. Many of them have
[05:20.060 --> 05:26.040]  something like echo link or broadcastify in place for your standard person can listen in. So you're
[05:26.040 --> 05:30.860]  setting that example. If they hear people talking about maybe things that might put
[05:30.860 --> 05:36.780]  them off from amateur radio, then it might kind of taint their view of it. And as well as making
[05:36.780 --> 05:42.280]  sure everyone else has their kind of time to talk. Because when it comes to amateur radio,
[05:42.280 --> 05:47.220]  you kind of got to control yourself, especially when there's a situation not like a network.
[05:55.740 --> 06:01.400]  Making sure you can come back to yourself, but allow other people to talk as well.
[06:08.940 --> 06:12.180]  It looks like we lost just for a minute. He's coming back.
[06:13.300 --> 06:14.020]  Possibly.
[06:14.540 --> 06:16.900]  One thing I'll say also while we wait for him to pop on is that...
[06:59.570 --> 07:02.670]  All right. All right. Sorry about that. The Discord decided to
[07:02.670 --> 07:07.870]  apparently restart and apply an update right now. So that's awesome. Yay, automatic updates.
[07:08.190 --> 07:12.050]  I think we're back on the air. Do you want to continue? Just Esther, who were you talking about,
[07:12.050 --> 07:12.550]  Rich?
[07:15.350 --> 07:21.610]  Yeah, what I was saying is that ham radio has really taken off as far as the different things
[07:21.610 --> 07:27.950]  you can do with ham radio just in the last five years alone. The abundance of much more affordable
[07:27.950 --> 07:38.390]  ham radio gear coupled with the proliferation of single computing has really opened up a ton of
[07:38.390 --> 07:44.170]  new things that hams can do. And I think what we have to be careful of as ham hams as we
[07:44.170 --> 07:48.730]  get older is to not get into the trap of the people before us who say, oh, that's not ham
[07:48.730 --> 07:54.010]  radio. No, that's ham radio. No, that's not ham radio. You know, how many times have you heard
[07:54.010 --> 07:59.050]  in the past 20 years of hams saying, well, if you don't know more, Sergeant, you're not a real ham.
[08:02.970 --> 08:09.770]  Or spark gap traders are the only real ham radio. No, no. The only way ham radio is going to
[08:09.770 --> 08:12.790]  survive is as a hobby. The only way ham radio is going to survive and bring more people into
[08:12.790 --> 08:21.050]  it is to embrace all these new things that are going to be only partially ham radio related,
[08:21.050 --> 08:24.550]  but do things like connect to the internet. That's the only way we're going to attract
[08:24.550 --> 08:28.470]  new people to this hobby. So just keep an open mind when you see something new. And the first
[08:28.470 --> 08:33.630]  thing in your mind is, well, that's not ham radio at all. Just take a second and think about it.
[08:35.110 --> 08:38.470]  Yeah, of course, I see a lot of that with all the internet radio and things like that.
[08:38.470 --> 08:42.210]  I'm like, well, it's not, it's not radio. It's not radio. I was like, well, I mean, it's all,
[08:42.210 --> 08:48.390]  you know, it's all fine. Either the hobby can expand and reach into new areas and stuff like
[08:48.390 --> 08:56.930]  that. Let's change topics a little bit. You know, what's probably the, maybe we'll go to you,
[08:56.930 --> 09:00.830]  Justin, as a newer ham. You know, what did you find the most confusing in terms of like, you
[09:00.830 --> 09:05.810]  know, ham lingo, as you know, you started getting the hobby and everyone's immediately assumed,
[09:05.810 --> 09:10.750]  you know, every piece of, you know, our lingo? Yeah, definitely. What I would say there is
[09:10.750 --> 09:15.570]  when I got into it, those cue codes, that's always where everyone likes to start off. You're
[09:15.570 --> 09:20.950]  saying everyone's like QSY, QSL. Those, of course, meaning if you're going to change frequency and
[09:20.950 --> 09:27.370]  acknowledging a receipt in that order. But one thing I would say is, once you start listening
[09:27.370 --> 09:32.110]  to them, it's very easy to pick up on it. Once you kind of hear what they're saying, and then
[09:32.110 --> 09:37.690]  you can either Google it real quickly, or you can kind of just think about what they're saying. So
[09:37.690 --> 09:42.090]  if they say QSY and they see a frequency, they're probably switching over there. And as well,
[09:42.090 --> 09:46.630]  there's kind of your other terms that people might say, especially if you're a technician
[09:46.630 --> 09:51.430]  coming in and you're on a repeater, a lot of people might take a bite or break. That just
[09:51.430 --> 09:57.350]  means that they are letting the repeater reset because many of them have those talkout timers.
[09:57.670 --> 10:01.530]  That's one thing I kind of was curious what they're meaning there. And then I kind of
[10:01.530 --> 10:04.230]  realized they're just letting that repeater reset.
[10:06.510 --> 10:12.890]  Yeah, I think that's also some great, good operating tips, too, on repeaters and more or
[10:12.890 --> 10:17.570]  less on 2Meter and VHF and up. But if you're using a repeater, you definitely do not want to call
[10:17.570 --> 10:23.350]  CQ to look for contacts. It's sort of common. It's a weird thing, but we just don't do that,
[10:23.350 --> 10:28.770]  right? Instead, we say, oh, hey, this is K3K monitoring this repeater. And more than often,
[10:28.770 --> 10:33.830]  it'll come back and talk to you, but it's just not sort of accepted to just go on to the repeater
[10:33.830 --> 10:40.810]  and say, hey, K3K calling CQ on this repeater. And I don't really exactly know why we chose to
[10:40.810 --> 10:45.290]  do that, but that is just what we do, right? And there are a lot of just sort of gotchas.
[10:45.290 --> 10:50.310]  And I think it's important as experienced TAMs, if that happens, it's fine. I say,
[10:50.310 --> 10:54.230]  oh, hey, by the way, you should probably not call CQ. You should call monitoring
[10:54.930 --> 10:58.090]  instead of being like, hey, that's not how you do it or just being a jerk about it,
[10:58.090 --> 11:03.190]  which unfortunately, you can see a lot. Yeah. And I'll add on to that. One thing,
[11:03.190 --> 11:10.310]  Dave Kessler, K-E-0-O-G, he's one of the bigger YouTubers, ham radio YouTubers. Even he covered
[11:10.310 --> 11:16.250]  that topic. And on a repeater, sometimes calling CQ might be good for like a last resort because
[11:16.250 --> 11:21.130]  most likely if you do it, you will get that ham that tells you not to do it. But if you haven't
[11:21.130 --> 11:25.750]  made a contact and it's your first time on the air, then you just made your first contact.
[11:26.730 --> 11:31.950]  Although it might be for someone who's telling you not to call CQ. I guess technically a contact
[11:31.950 --> 11:37.290]  is still a contact and that's how you can get a conversation going. And he's actually been one of
[11:37.290 --> 11:42.490]  the people who wrote the book on ham radio. He's one of the licensed or the authors for the license
[11:42.490 --> 11:52.480]  manuals for the ARRL. Yeah, very, very cool. And Saito, is your audio working? Do you want to jump
[11:52.480 --> 11:59.320]  in? Yeah, I did want to say, I believe it comes to the fact when you're calling CQ, you're on a
[11:59.320 --> 12:02.240]  frequency, you're not sure who's listening. Meanwhile, on the repeater, you can assume
[12:02.240 --> 12:06.000]  there's people listening on that frequency. So I feel like that's why you would call CQ
[12:06.000 --> 12:16.090]  on listening frequency versus on a repeater. Yeah, that's a great point.
[12:16.090 --> 12:19.630]  Yeah, I think probably the most sort of frustrating thing, like the cue codes,
[12:19.630 --> 12:22.670]  you know, they make sense. I mean, a lot of the sort of terminology that's used
[12:22.670 --> 12:28.770]  in ham radio originates from, you know, Morse code CW usage, you know, where, you know, you're
[12:28.770 --> 12:32.450]  trying to literally save time and save the amount of time as you're tapping your finger, of course,
[12:32.450 --> 12:37.390]  back in the day. You know, so I mean, I think there's a good reason for all those abbreviations.
[12:37.390 --> 12:42.290]  And of course, it's, you know, now in our modern tech society, I think there's still value in that.
[12:42.650 --> 12:48.190]  But one of the ones that really my personal pet peeve is when people type hi hi instead of ha ha,
[12:48.190 --> 12:52.630]  which in Morse code is much, much quicker. I hate that so much. Yeah,
[12:52.630 --> 12:55.590]  in Morse code is much quicker to type an I than it is an A.
[12:55.590 --> 13:00.030]  Totally understandable. On a keyboard, it is literally the same word count.
[13:02.450 --> 13:07.750]  Yeah, oh man, it just annoys me to no end. It's like, just just stop. You don't,
[13:07.750 --> 13:11.170]  you don't look any more important. I don't know what it, you know.
[13:14.330 --> 13:18.510]  Now, what's some other sort of weird lingo that people might not be familiar with?
[13:27.270 --> 13:32.350]  Struggling to think. I do think there's some terms that are, you know, not misintentioned,
[13:32.350 --> 13:38.950]  but probably outdated. You know, XYL was sort of a three letter code that, you know, historically
[13:38.950 --> 13:44.330]  has meant, you know, young lady, as in, like, typically the ham operator's spouse. And I don't
[13:44.330 --> 13:50.130]  think there's ill intention in it, but it's just a little outdated today, you know. And I personally
[13:50.130 --> 13:55.950]  just kind of cringe a little when I hear that. So Mr. Radar had a question. What's the what's
[13:55.950 --> 14:02.510]  internet lingo-gations on the air? LOL or BRB? Look, you know what? This is my opinion,
[14:02.510 --> 14:09.750]  and I'm sure everybody has a different opinion. But I don't hate it at all, because it's become
[14:09.750 --> 14:17.350]  part of general language now. And you see everywhere, not just on the internet anymore.
[14:17.590 --> 14:25.890]  There are definitely going to be some older old hams who hate it because it's new. But you know
[14:25.890 --> 14:33.490]  what? Language over time. I don't have any problems. Anybody say LOL or BRB or things like that
[14:33.490 --> 14:42.330]  in ham radio, because it's, it's, it's, it's extended in real life now. So go for it. The
[14:42.330 --> 14:47.730]  more and more you use regular language, which in ham radio, the more realized it'll become.
[14:47.730 --> 14:51.710]  If someone gives you grief over things like that, you know what? It's probably not even worth your
[14:51.710 --> 15:00.930]  time to engage with them. Just keep being you. Don't, don't let some ham who's been doing, doing
[15:00.930 --> 15:07.230]  this for years, and the skin there, that they're old, away from, from, from bullying you. Because
[15:07.230 --> 15:11.470]  you see a lot of that in radio, especially with some of the older people. They do behave like
[15:11.470 --> 15:19.950]  bullies, because they've been stuck in there for such a long time. And I hope is that other,
[15:19.950 --> 15:27.910]  and say, you know what? Time changed, either. I want to see more hams interject into conversations
[15:27.910 --> 15:32.550]  like that, saying, look, you know what? It's time for you to just, you know, lighten up a little
[15:32.550 --> 15:37.910]  bit. We could use a little bit more of this hobby. Yeah, I think it's a fair point. It's a bit of a,
[15:37.910 --> 15:42.130]  I think almost a loaded question, because that is very much more of a societal question, right?
[15:42.130 --> 15:47.850]  Some people are okay using things like LOL and BRB just in person, or, you know, even, you know,
[15:48.050 --> 15:52.570]  a video conference chat. And some people are like, no, that's not proper English. And I don't think
[15:52.570 --> 15:58.430]  that's ever going to be solved. That's probably not hobby unique. But I tend to agree with Rich's,
[15:58.430 --> 16:03.270]  you know, comments like, yeah, it's totally fine. I mean, it's all about your audience and their
[16:03.270 --> 16:08.430]  comfort level and your comfort level with them, you know. Certainly, if you're on a repeater,
[16:08.430 --> 16:11.450]  and it's a bunch of people, you know, I think it's, you know, the level of comfort of in
[16:11.450 --> 16:17.130]  conversation in general is much different than if you're just, you know, making conversation with,
[16:17.550 --> 16:22.930]  2000 miles away. I would, the only thing I'd add to that is I would definitely caution about that
[16:22.930 --> 16:29.230]  if you're doing anything, long distance, also known as DX, another piece of lingo there,
[16:29.230 --> 16:33.430]  distance, just because, you know, if English is not their primary language, sometimes,
[16:33.430 --> 16:36.810]  you know, those acronyms and things like that can be confusing, you know, if they're not used to
[16:36.810 --> 16:45.550]  that. So that's my point. Oh, new challengers appeared. Well, welcome, Baloo. I don't know
[16:45.550 --> 16:53.740]  if we have audio from you yet. We do have a question in chat about if there's a trick to
[16:53.740 --> 17:00.220]  memorizing cue codes. Yeah, I don't think there's, you know, any real trick. There's really probably
[17:00.220 --> 17:04.700]  only a handful that get used a lot. I mean, if you go online, you find like list of cue codes
[17:04.700 --> 17:10.020]  or ham radio cue codes, you'll see like, I don't know, like 20, 30 of them. But there's probably
[17:10.020 --> 17:16.540]  only like, I don't know, five or six that get used commonly, you know, like, you know, in some only
[17:16.540 --> 17:21.360]  really in like contests and stuff. Like, you generally don't hear QRZ being called a lot and
[17:21.360 --> 17:26.760]  except if like you're working a pile up or something like that in a contest. QTH is probably
[17:26.760 --> 17:32.880]  the one I hear the most, which is me shorthand for location, you know, it'd be, you know, if you're
[17:32.880 --> 17:37.420]  in the old CB days, it'd be, you know, what's your 20? I don't do that on the handbands, by the way,
[17:37.420 --> 17:44.820]  that will definitely anger people using any of the CB lingo. So I would not I recommend not using any
[17:44.820 --> 17:49.160]  10 codes, you know, no 10 for a good buddy or anything like that, or that'll definitely rile up
[17:49.160 --> 17:57.040]  the old hams. Yeah, I'll add on to that, especially how you said not using 10 codes, especially once
[17:57.040 --> 18:03.220]  you get into the more, I guess you could say, emergency comms with stuff like Skywarn. If
[18:03.220 --> 18:09.220]  you're in a spotter group, and they're taking check-ins for spotters, it's pretty important,
[18:09.220 --> 18:14.100]  especially in those scenarios, to make sure you're using the kind of set and stone phonetics.
[18:14.100 --> 18:18.280]  Everyone kind of has their funner version of phonetics that they'll usually have for their
[18:18.280 --> 18:23.100]  call sign. I actually don't have one for, I haven't thought of one for me yet. But in those
[18:23.100 --> 18:27.240]  more serious scenarios, it's much more important to kind of listen to what the net control station
[18:27.240 --> 18:33.020]  is saying, and follow their instructions, because they're expecting to hear what they have asked for.
[18:33.020 --> 18:38.220]  If they can get more check-ins from spotters, right when a condition might change to yellow,
[18:38.220 --> 18:44.000]  then it allows for more efficient communications. And that's where it's
[18:44.000 --> 18:48.440]  more important to make sure you're following those good practices, like proper phonetics.
[18:50.380 --> 18:54.120]  Yeah, definitely. I think more important than memorizing any cue codes or anything like that,
[18:54.120 --> 18:59.420]  yeah, knowing the NATO alphabet is way more useful. And yeah, I do expand on that in any
[18:59.420 --> 19:04.980]  sort of, you know, more formal net, which is just a fancy word for on-air meeting.
[19:05.580 --> 19:10.080]  Yeah, definitely short and to the point is better. You know, a lot of times people try to ramble on,
[19:10.080 --> 19:13.580]  if it is like a spotter net, you know, that's like, they just need the information,
[19:13.580 --> 19:17.680]  and they want to get out and go on, you know, do their job, right? So,
[19:17.680 --> 19:22.820]  now, obviously, if it's a, you know, weekly club meeting on air, and it's just sort of more of a,
[19:22.820 --> 19:28.100]  you know, weird, or just a normal sort of conversation, also in ham parlance called
[19:28.240 --> 19:33.580]  a rag-chew, which is a term I personally don't like. But, you know, rag-chew just means to have
[19:33.720 --> 19:37.300]  a casual conversation. It's another term you'll see.
[19:39.300 --> 19:48.020]  It's always great when you see a ham on the radio going like, okay, this is tangerine, tomato,
[19:48.020 --> 19:52.120]  pineapple, Z, H-I.
[19:52.260 --> 19:54.640]  Yeah, M as in Mancy jumps to mind.
[19:54.960 --> 19:56.500]  Learn the phonetic alphabet.
[19:59.680 --> 20:05.480]  Oh, here's a good question in the chat. Do you guys have any stories of people actively trolling
[20:05.480 --> 20:07.020]  the ham spectrum?
[20:08.520 --> 20:09.800]  I have one.
[20:10.600 --> 20:11.920]  How do I?
[20:13.640 --> 20:14.480]  Yeah, go ahead.
[20:16.780 --> 20:24.640]  Yeah, I know. I was once looking at SCR of 20 Meter Band, and I hear a station in the data
[20:24.640 --> 20:29.920]  portion speaking. So, it's like, I go there and some Russian station, I recorded, some of my
[20:29.920 --> 20:34.640]  friend recorded it, but it was like this weird Russian saying thing, bunch of stuff, bunch of
[20:34.640 --> 20:39.920]  stuff. And a bunch of Russians later got on and tried to speak over this person. So, it was pretty
[20:39.920 --> 20:42.940]  interesting seeing that happen.
[20:50.520 --> 20:59.900]  About 15, 18 years ago, yes, there was a guy who was not licensed and initially put up a big
[20:59.900 --> 21:06.420]  vertical, much like the one you have in the background of your room there, in downtown
[21:06.420 --> 21:15.540]  Toronto, and was broadcasting on FRS1 at 100 watts, and would bank at the entire city in FRS1
[21:15.540 --> 21:20.560]  traffic where ham and hams would just take over FRS1. And eventually, he moved over to 46.552
[21:20.560 --> 21:25.860]  and did the same thing there. But he would go back and forth, he would just stomp over anybody
[21:25.860 --> 21:34.780]  else he'd hear talking. And I'm not saying I was involved, but a few hams after months of this got
[21:34.780 --> 21:42.380]  tired of it, triangulated his position, and may have stuck a piece staple into his coax one night
[21:42.380 --> 21:48.480]  at two in the morning, climbing his tower. That's just what I heard. And I do know that
[21:48.480 --> 21:53.060]  he came back the next day and fried his face, so he never ever did again.
[21:54.420 --> 22:00.480]  I'm not sure, it might be ruining the reputation of the friendly Canadian there, but you know.
[22:01.160 --> 22:03.080]  That's just a story I heard.
[22:04.080 --> 22:08.840]  Yeah, I mean, I think there are some... if you look online, there are definitely some well-known
[22:08.840 --> 22:14.100]  people that have caused interference in the ham bans. Some guy, I think out of New York or
[22:14.100 --> 22:20.020]  something, had a 1.5 kilowatt amp and a Yagi, and would just routinely trash over the bans.
[22:20.580 --> 22:25.120]  You know, the high-profile ones like that, the FCC in the U.S. does go after them, and they will
[22:25.120 --> 22:33.060]  issue you very, very large fines. They don't mess around. If you've pissed off enough people,
[22:33.060 --> 22:37.800]  the government's getting involved. Yeah, it usually doesn't end well. And most of the time,
[22:37.800 --> 22:40.120]  they're not even hams, but sometimes they are.
[22:42.120 --> 22:48.380]  That's a great point, Eric. Go online and search for FCC Interference Action Ham Radio or Hampshire
[22:48.380 --> 22:57.800]  Radio. Just read some of the recaps that the FCC published, some of the behaving hams and some
[22:57.800 --> 23:02.280]  things they've done. And you'll just read crazy stories about some of the stuff these people have
[23:02.280 --> 23:07.980]  done, including some pretty crazy fines. I've seen fines, $20,000, $30,000 type fines, confiscation
[23:07.980 --> 23:16.940]  of it. So like you said, if you piss off enough people for enough time, the FCC will come looking.
[23:16.940 --> 23:21.220]  It's the same thing in Canada. History Canada will eventually come and find you if you cause
[23:21.220 --> 23:27.560]  enough mischief out there on the airwaves. Yeah, I don't know if I'd want the Royal
[23:27.560 --> 23:31.240]  Canadian Mounted Police coming at me asking for my radio. It seems like it'd be bad.
[23:32.280 --> 23:38.600]  On the other side of malicious intent, there's a lot of people, including businesses,
[23:38.600 --> 23:43.000]  that are just ignorant. They have no idea. They buy this bow thing, they turn it on.
[23:43.100 --> 23:50.200]  Hey, housekeeping gets a radio, front desk gets a radio. We've had a local hotel, they were using,
[23:50.200 --> 23:55.720]  they were tromping on our repeater for two or three months. And we didn't realize it because
[23:55.720 --> 24:01.180]  we have a tone. But once you go in reverse, it's like, hey, these guys are on our input frequency.
[24:01.180 --> 24:08.160]  So us as a group, we were like, hey, we didn't get mad. We were wanting to educate these people.
[24:08.160 --> 24:15.500]  So the whole club finally found out who it was. And club president went down and talked to him
[24:15.500 --> 24:23.640]  and said, hey, we understand you got some new radios. You are interfering with our communications.
[24:24.560 --> 24:28.280]  I will help you program your radios so you're not breaking law.
[24:28.280 --> 24:34.040]  And I think that is a great example of positive ham culture.
[24:35.820 --> 24:40.820]  Yeah, how many times have you had people going absolutely hog-miled over people doing
[24:40.820 --> 24:47.120]  something like that. And instead, just be calm, be gracious, just walk them through
[24:47.120 --> 24:50.780]  what they're doing. Because all these people want to talk. They don't know anything else,
[24:50.780 --> 24:53.920]  but other than the fact they just want to communicate with each other. So you would
[24:53.920 --> 24:57.540]  use the time, use your knowledge, use your experience to be nice to other people.
[24:59.020 --> 25:04.380]  New friends. And you never know, you know, like a hotel, if you could come back six months later
[25:04.380 --> 25:08.440]  and say, hey, do you think maybe we could put an antenna on the roof there for something?
[25:08.500 --> 25:16.700]  Yeah, they may say, it's easier to make friends than it is to make enemies. So why not just use
[25:16.700 --> 25:20.840]  your knowledge and try and help some people understand what they're doing and why they
[25:20.840 --> 25:21.980]  do it differently.
[25:24.220 --> 25:25.020]  Definitely.
[25:27.800 --> 25:31.440]  Yeah, and it's definitely complicated, I think, by the fact that they're... I mean,
[25:31.440 --> 25:36.300]  the FCC has actually gone after some companies for marketing radios as like, yep, you don't
[25:36.300 --> 25:41.120]  need a license, just bubble pack radio, open this up and transmit. And the radios are not
[25:41.120 --> 25:45.220]  actually designed for that. And they were operating in bands that needed licensing,
[25:45.220 --> 25:49.680]  whether it's business band or, you know, on handbands, things like that. So, you know,
[25:49.680 --> 25:54.360]  the government has gone after those as well, which is good. But it certainly doesn't help,
[25:54.360 --> 25:57.820]  right? And just complicates it. And, you know, people, you know, just, you know,
[25:57.820 --> 26:01.460]  novices who don't have a lot of experience with Zoom, oh, well, the more power, the better,
[26:01.460 --> 26:04.740]  right? That's all that matters, right? I just need the most powerful radio, I'll put as much
[26:04.740 --> 26:10.900]  power in the air as I can. And really, that's not the solution. I mean, you know, as you start to
[26:10.900 --> 26:14.660]  learn more, like adding power is probably like the least effective amount of thing you can do.
[26:14.660 --> 26:19.070]  It's much more about improving your antenna system and, you know, reducing noise, all that,
[26:19.070 --> 26:23.550]  that stuff far more effective than just like dumping more power into the problem.
[26:24.170 --> 26:28.110]  And so you do catch a lot of interference and stuff like that. And you can certainly catch,
[26:28.110 --> 26:32.690]  you know, electronics these days have a lot of noisy components. So, you know, if you're in a
[26:32.690 --> 26:36.830]  dense area, it's it can be very common, you know, to have like, oh, you're in something your
[26:36.830 --> 26:41.330]  neighbors, you know, if they still have a plasma TV, yeah, that's gonna be cause lots of interference.
[26:41.330 --> 26:46.590]  So it's good to be friendly about that sort of stuff. And not just immediately go and put up
[26:46.590 --> 26:51.130]  200 foot tower without, you know, talking to your neighbors first, just because the first thing
[26:51.130 --> 26:53.770]  they're going to do is say, oh, well, this is causing problems, and I don't want to help you
[26:53.770 --> 26:59.670]  now. Right. So, you know, and now you just just as be as friendly as possible, I think is super
[26:59.670 --> 27:08.790]  important. Adding more power is a great way to blow things up. Yes, yes. There's a question about
[27:09.530 --> 27:13.730]  looking for resources for getting into DMR. I'm definitely not the person to answer that.
[27:13.730 --> 27:26.090]  I guess I can. DMR is one of those things that might be really hard to
[27:27.070 --> 27:31.550]  understand without just being able to go back and forth and ask your questions.
[27:31.550 --> 27:37.870]  I would join up with a group, the wireless village discord, the ham radio village discord.
[27:38.690 --> 27:45.930]  Very helpful folks. They'll help you get online. There's some quick basics you'll need to know,
[27:45.930 --> 27:53.490]  such as getting a hotspot, getting a radio. But after that, there's just a lot of little things
[27:53.490 --> 28:00.170]  that could take you days to understand when you could just chat with somebody for 30 minutes and
[28:00.170 --> 28:06.110]  have a working system. So I definitely definitely suggest going to a community and getting some help
[28:07.110 --> 28:14.510]  other than that. If you can't, YouTube is a great resource because just reading documentation,
[28:14.510 --> 28:22.190]  sometimes you don't get the things you need to know, such as a receive list. If you don't add
[28:22.290 --> 28:27.230]  a receive list, you might be able to talk out fine, but you won't be able to hear anybody.
[28:27.230 --> 28:32.330]  And a lot of documentation I've read doesn't even mention it. So it's great to get those
[28:32.330 --> 28:37.470]  little tidbits of information that could make or break your system from somebody that knows.
[28:39.750 --> 28:43.750]  It's amazing how far it has come even in the last couple of years. I had a couple of
[28:43.750 --> 28:49.390]  workshops I did a few years ago around monitoring systems, like trunk systems and DMR systems,
[28:49.390 --> 28:58.230]  things like that. And now, those little pie pie zero, because you can buy 75 bucks,
[28:58.230 --> 29:06.030]  and then you can buy the AnyTone DMR radio is under $200 now. Surplus Motorola. Yeah,
[29:06.030 --> 29:10.250]  there you go. There's one right there. And I think that's what's not like $150. It's not very
[29:10.250 --> 29:18.390]  expensive. It's really simple to get these things on the air and get started with. And I'm,
[29:18.390 --> 29:24.170]  for one, really excited to see all this digital stuff really take off because it's the next
[29:24.170 --> 29:31.390]  radio. And as neat as it is to say, you know, do more code and stuff, this is far more useful,
[29:31.390 --> 29:41.690]  far more practical today. Kind of on a little side note there, kind of going back to what we
[29:41.690 --> 29:50.010]  were talking about earlier. I said on the club net a couple weeks ago, hey, I have a new DMR
[29:50.010 --> 29:56.090]  repeater. Those with DMR radios who would like to know more about DMR, come on, get on the repeater,
[29:56.090 --> 30:04.830]  talk with us. We had a few less ignorant hams. I don't know. I'll just keep using the word
[30:04.830 --> 30:12.750]  ignorant. That brings me back to that South Park episode. We've had ham say no, club, don't listen
[30:12.750 --> 30:17.290]  to this guy. You do not want to get into digital radio. Digital radio is not where you want to be.
[30:17.290 --> 30:23.890]  It's not real radio. And it's just... that very deeply frustrated me. I just let it go.
[30:23.890 --> 30:28.590]  But there's definitely some pushback from the older ham community.
[30:30.130 --> 30:33.990]  Yeah. And I mean, I think there is maybe a couple of reasons for that. You know,
[30:33.990 --> 30:39.110]  it definitely is the bar of entry is much higher, especially, I think, with, you know, DMR.