Everyday Ham Podcast: Amateur Radio Conversations
Welcome to the Everyday Ham Podcast, where three friends dive into the world of amateur (ham) radio with a casual, lighthearted twist.
From discussing what we're working on, current events, and lessons learned to sharing our gripes and off-topic banter, we bring a mix of fun, relatable conversations and radio expertise.
Whether you’re a seasoned operator or new to the hobby, join us for engaging chats that celebrate the quirks, challenges, and joys of being on the air.
Everyday Ham Podcast: Amateur Radio Conversations
The Good, The Bad, and The Junk – Swap Meet Scores & DXpedition Drama
In this episode of Everyday Ham, James (K8JKU), Rory (W8KNX), and Jim (N8JRD) dive into the highs and lows of ham swaps, sharing their experiences from the Livonia Amateur Radio Club Swap & Shop. They break down the best strategies for scoring great deals, avoiding overpriced junk, and navigating the chaos of a busy swap meet.
But that’s not all—this episode also tackles a hot debate in the POTA and DX community. A recent Costa Rica DXpedition sparked controversy when operators skipped formal park number exchanges, leaving some POTA chasers frustrated. Was this a case of bad operating, or are people missing the point of a DXpedition? The guys share their takes on POTA etiquette, fast-paced activations, and why every ham should embrace the "work them how they work you" mindset.
Plus, Jim takes his first steps into the world of DMR radio, Rory shares his contesting victories, and the crew discusses the best upcoming swap meets and why every ham should attend at least one.
Short show intro audio clip
Short outro audio clip
All right, everyone. Welcome to Episode 3 of the Everyday Ham Podcast. I am James Mills, k-a-j-k-u. I'm joined here with Rory Locke W8KNX and Jim Davis N8JRD. How's everybody doing.
Speaker 2:Can you believe it? This is our third episode already. I'm excited.
Speaker 3:I can't believe we made it this far. I'm excited.
Speaker 2:I can't believe we made it this far. We made it this far and we're going to keep going. Our last podcast, where we took some time talking about the strange things going on in the Yaesu world which I know Jim has a little bit of an update on that for us tonight we're at 3,000 views on our YouTube upload and 107 subscribers on YouTube. So that is impressive for what was our second episode and as we move forward, we hope we keep some traction going. We hope you like what you're hearing as you listen or watch our podcast. Make sure you comment, like and subscribe. We try to respond to every comment. The last podcast episode had quite a few comments on the things we're talking about and we definitely want to keep that traction going.
Speaker 1:And the good news is I think we still like each other, so we should have an episode four, hopefully in the pipeline here, as well, we have not broken into an argument mid-podcast yet. No, no, but you guys have been carrying the weight on answering comments, so thank you also.
Speaker 3:No one's breaking the band up yet. That's good, yeah. And one thing I'll note about the comments is I think each of us have been signing it, so if you are looking for a response from somebody, look for the call sign at the end of those comments. That's one of the things that we're going to try to do, since there's three of us here, so you'll know, kind of, who you're chatting with on YouTube and if you disagree with us, you can let us know.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's fair, everyone's fair.
Speaker 2:So, jim, what came up? We finished the podcast last week and, like the next day or maybe the day after, yezu popped some new news. What's the story there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good that we well, our timing was kind of interesting there. We were a little bit ahead of the curve on the hamcation down in Florida there. But I was happy that we kind of sparked some thought on where yesu's direction was with these radios because, uh, I, I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming guys, uh, a ftm 510 dropped at the hamcation down there and I think of all the things on my bingo card that was not one of them. I said, well, maybe we'll see a replacement for the 300, which appeared to have disappeared, or maybe we'll see some other radio that they bring out. But but the 500 was not one that was on my radar at all, and the reason being the original 500 has been out just a little less than two years. So it seems pretty unbelievable that Yaesu has already made a revision to the top level mobile device that they're selling. But it's there and the FTM 500 has effectively been replaced. So a couple of things on that and we won't spend too long, since we spent a lot of time last time talking about Yaesu.
Speaker 3:But I do want to point out a few things so that we follow back around. The FTM 510 came out and it looks functionally the same. If you are just staring at a picture of the head unit or looking at the microphone or even the body of it, it looks exactly the same. What do you get for the 510? Well, you get the ASP feature right. And so we talked about well, if the 300 was discontinued, maybe they're going to bring out the 350 that's going to have ASP.
Speaker 3:Guess what? They did that in the 500 first. Maybe that was the move. Maybe that was the move. Maybe folks were clamoring for that audio enhancement. But the big killer feature on the FTM 510 is paying for the SPU1, the ASP feature. They added SuperDX, which the other FTM 500 did have a DX enhanced feature. But SuperDX appears to be something a little bit more than that. And they claim to have added a little bit more power output on VHF. Now, when we talk 5 watts in relation to 50 total, I don't know if I believe that that's going to make much difference as far as a selling feature. But I'll pause here. There's a couple of things that got added. Does anything there? Fire you guys up?
Speaker 1:I mean it's still got the big knob, so you know.
Speaker 3:It does still have the big knob.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you need that 5 watts to get over the hill, so I don't know. That's a good thing, okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay, okay, did they take?
Speaker 1:anything away from the 500 to the 510.
Speaker 3:Yeah, see, this is the, this is the. The real question that nobody really asked initially was hey, well, it must just have a few extra features. Right, we get all the things that we got in the ftm 500, don't we? And that would have been a natural expectation. But the answer is no. Uh, there are a few things that did change. Uh, moving to 510.
Speaker 3:Probably the biggest thing that I was surprised by was them just killing Bluetooth off completely as a built-in feature out of the box. Right, you can still go and buy the Bluetooth add-on unit. But most folks, as far as Yaesu is concerned, believe that the Bluetooth implementation is just a fair implementation at best. There's a fair, limited number of devices that actually integrate well with the A2's Bluetooth. So I'm not sure that it's going to be a big change.
Speaker 3:But for me, seeing something like Bluetooth, which was a big bullet point feature on the first one, disappearing in favor of the ASP, well, that's interesting. But what makes it more curious for me, and perhaps a little bit less exciting for my palate, is the price increase. We saw a pretty dramatic price increase on the FTM 510. The MSRP went from $649 to $749. When they first announced it there was speculation, it would be $799, but we're down to $749 now and basically what we know is that the FTM 500 is available somewhere around $500 most of the time, but we saw basically a $100 MSR price increase for this particular model. And I'll tell you the last thing that I think is really interesting about this no one talked about this, so if you haven't heard this yet, I hope that it's late. Breaking from the everyday ham, wide receive was nerfed dramatically in the FTM 510.
Speaker 1:Which is interesting in a mobile radio. Very interesting in a mobile radio.
Speaker 3:Did you guys hear this?
Speaker 2:No Do you have offhand what they cut it back to. I'm curious.
Speaker 3:I do. So we used to get from basically all the way up to 550 megahertz, I'm sorry, all the way up to 1 a thousand megahertz on the FTM 500. So you went from, basically, you know, down in the FM spectrum all the way up to a gigahertz, which is a pretty broad receive. Of course there's some band areas that are blocked for cellular reasons. No surprises there. Just like any other radio, the FTM 500 caps out at 550 megahertz. So you've lost almost half of your wide receive if you go buy an FTM 510 instead of an FTM 500. And for me that's the most mind-blowing part of this is how did we? We lost such a significant amount of receive on this thing? It just is really surprising. And there was no hubbub about this at all. You had to go to the back of the manual and compare the two if you wanted to find out that that had sneakily been removed. That's interesting.
Speaker 2:It's a very, you know, I would love to have, and I'm not a technical person at all, I play radio and that's what I enjoy. I'd love to have someone explain. Is this a cost thing? Is it a technical thing? Are other things in the radio? Did they need space for something else? Is that why the Bluetooth was deleted? Was that why the wideband receive was deleted, or for what reasons? It's interesting because you kind of have the same comments about your ICOM 9700 being limited on receive. For what is a high-end radio? The 510 is arguably a high-end radio at this point, at least based on the price point they have priced it that way?
Speaker 2:yep, to have those frequencies removed. I wonder which is the reason. Or is the demand not there so they can get rid of it? That's a bummer. I listen all over the frequencies. I like to scan.
Speaker 2:I've always been a person to check out all the frequencies from as low as I can go to as high as I can go To lose that upper part. If you really think about it, there's probably not much analog there, so you're probably not losing much. A lot of the stuff once you get north of 500 and 600 megahertz is P25 or other digital modes, so you're probably not losing anything, but there could still be some analog stuff up there. That's interesting. I know they updated the firmware for the 500 recently, as I did mine last night and I actually have it here on the bench. The 500 usually lives in the car but I had to bring it in the house so I could figure out how to actually use it. So it's sitting here on the bench next to me, actually turned on, and it sure is a nice-looking radio now that I'm actually staring at it and not driving trying to use it. So offhand, do you know what did the new firmware for the 500?
Speaker 3:give us. Yeah, so one of the big things right that I have positives, some things that I thought were negative and I have some matched-up things that happened between the 500 and the 510. And actually that's the last big comment that I want to make on this 510 release was they went back to the drawing board on PMG, right. The primary memory group there where you're able to monitor a number of channels kind of simultaneously and it's supposed to be a smarter way to listen to many repeaters or other signals that you might want to hear and be able to respond to them effectively, right, or other signals that you might want to hear and be able to respond to them effectively, right. They changed how that behaved in the 510.
Speaker 3:And thankfully that was a software-specific update that even us lowly FTM 500 buyers were granted from Yaesu. So I was happy to see that one of the killer features that they're saying, hey, this is what the 510 does, that's new and awesome came back and got populated onto our FTM 500. So we did get the PMG update and that's a pretty nice feature. I need to play more with that before I make any commentary on whether or not I think it's awesome, but it's nice to see that they didn't leave us behind, those folks that just me, six months ago just bought the FDM 500, being a top tier mobile unit, Nice that they're still getting those updates.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't expect the flagship to be revisioned this quickly. No, no. Are there a lot of good deals right now on the 500? Maybe if you're interested in the more wide channels?
Speaker 3:have you seen?
Speaker 1:pricing being favorable.
Speaker 3:That's an interesting thing, and as with all, I think, as with all things, ham right.
Speaker 1:Never goes on sale.
Speaker 3:It never goes on sale. But what happens is we have all the hams that are clamoring for the newest right, and so what I did see right around the FTM 510 drop was a number of 500s go up on the normal classifieds, facebook, qrz, craigslist. I actually found one on Craigslist, if you can believe that, and yes, there were people that were selling their 500s off. I wonder if that was for replacement purposes or if that was just coincidental in its timing, but there was a fairly decent amount of them that became available very soon after that 510 dropped and the prices for used ones especially were down in the mid 400s low 400s which for me and the prices for used ones especially were down in the mid-400s low-400s, which for me. It's a killer radio for that price. If you can find a FTM 500 used for $400 in good shape, it gets my steal, the N8JRD seal of approval. It's an excellent radio. It will be a good radio for you for many years, in my opinion. So I think that that's where it's at.
Speaker 3:What I did do was, before we got on here, I did go check and see is the FTM 500, the OG version, still in stock at any of these places? It is becoming sold out. The FTM 500 is sold out at DX Engineering as of this afternoon. It's available only in a couple of HRO stores and it appears to be sold out on some of the other sites. And this goes back to the FTM 300 discussion that we had and we won't spend much longer on this.
Speaker 3:But, simply said, it seems strange that Yaesu would compete with themselves on this 510, right. So I suspect when the 500 supply dries up from our general retail we're going to be 510 only, and that does come with that hefty price tag increase. So I think once the dust settles you'll be paying about $100 more for a radio that maybe doesn't bring $100 more functionally to the table. But what I do see and I'll reiterate this from last time is that Yaesu seems to be driving their base price point up to make themselves a more premium brand and I think that they're bringing themselves up to ICOM pricing for some of the flagships or Kenwood Pricing, right. Yaesu has traditionally been, of the big three makers, one of the more affordable options and I think they're trying to bring those prices more in line with some of these other Japanese builders of radio. So that's the FTM 500. That's the Yaesu update for you guys. It's pretty mind-blowing to me.
Speaker 1:I did not expect to see one so soon, but I'm still happy with my two ftm 500s, so maybe, uh, speaking of looking for deals here in michigan, we're hitting swap season. Uh, so we three were at the lavonia amateur radio club swap and shop, which was a great event. Um, and rory, I know you, you love a good swap meet. So what's your plans this season?
Speaker 2:So way back, way back it's only been, you know, 20 years, but way back. When I got licensed, the first swap that I went to was the Livonia Amateur Radio Club swap and that would have probably been 2002, maybe 2003, not sure. And that was when they held it at the Kostik Center in Farmington Hills, a pretty large community center there, somewhere around 11 mile and middle belt I think, and it was an excellent size swap and it was large enough at that time. They had a couple rooms of the facility. They had a couple vendors. I bought my first mobile antenna there. It was a good time. I remember it. I don't have that antenna anymore. I broke it and things went sideways with that antenna. But that's what happens when you're whatever, 16, 17 years old and you're trying to get on repeaters. But over time the Livonia Swap changed locations and moved from one place to another. They've been at the Livonia Senior Center, they've been at the I think it's an American Legion or VFW in Livonia and all those spaces it seems like you know were fine. They were good Ample parking, ample room. But something's happened in the last year or so to where the interest in this swap has increased again. So last year when they were at the hall in Livonia.
Speaker 2:It was tremendously difficult to even get around in Livonia. It was tremendously difficult to even get around. There was a point where I was wandering around with my friend, bob KWX, who we were chit-chatting and talking to some folks and I'm like I've got to go outside. I said it's too hot, it's too many people, it's too many, you know. I said I've got to go cool down for a minute and I did. I went out and went back in and the Livonia Club big shout out to them for putting this event on and seeing that there was such a demand for their swap, they looked for a new facility and they went with a large church facility here in the Metro Detroit area called Ward Church, which is in Northville Township, and it was an excellent venue for the swap. I felt it was pretty good. The parking was plentiful, the area inside. For those people who got there before they opened the doors, well, you could wait in the hallways of the church. You didn't have to stand outside in the cold.
Speaker 1:And for Michigan that's a big deal, especially in February, march timeframe.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the organizers there said they increased the amount of tables this year by 20%, if I remember correctly, and still sold out the tables and we still had plenty of room to walk around and we had room to stop and talk to all of our friends and people that we ran into. I saw several people I've not seen, in some cases in five or more years. It was good to see people. It was good to point out some folks to Jim as we wandered around that I know Jim has heard on the air put a face to name in a few cases because Jim's just getting more involved with the area ham stuff, and I know James ran into some POTA folks that he knows and it was a tremendous, tremendous showing from our local club that we're all part of here in the South Lyon area and it was just a good time.
Speaker 2:So I was pleased and this is kind of the discussion I wanted to lead into and I don't know, jim or james, how many, how many swaps you've been to, um, let's say, between the covid restart and now and then maybe just a couple years before covid let's use that as a time frame a lot of the swaps seem to be. You know, uh, you'd maybe have an hour rush of folks in there at the beginning and you know they'd look for the deals and they'd be gone. This particular one, they, they, it was a good salad, I would say. Were we there three hours before? We we finally?
Speaker 2:went across the street for lunch maybe, maybe longer maybe closer to four, you know, and and we kept finding more and more stuff as we made the rounds. So I'm hoping to see that this is a resurgence in the local swap culture, because some of them in the metro area and a lot of the clubs work hard on them, and I'm trying. I don't want to say anything bad about the clubs that are working hard on their swaps, but some of them in the metro Detroit area have gotten had become extremely stale and not a big demand. So what do you guys think, compared to swaps you've been to in the past in this area and other areas?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, being a post-COVID ham myself, so obviously swaps. When I got licensed initially one there weren't swaps really around yet again. And then about a couple of years, a year into my license, you started to see swaps pop back up and they were kind of empty. Yeah, a lot of people just being curmudgeoning, kind of complaining that there weren't good deals, there wasn't a lot of socializing, and this last swap. So you're starting there and you're building your way back up. I mean it was great. I mean we spent more time socializing and going around talking to people and looking at tables than probably we ever have before. So it was good to see.
Speaker 1:And my first point of advice for anyone that's maybe new to amateur radio or new ham is you know, go to swaps, meet people, talk to people. You know, walk around and just get a feel for what's happening, because that's really how you start to kind of explore new avenues of the hobby. I learned a lot actually from talking to some people that I've never met before. I learned about where they go to POTA and the spots they're meeting up with people. So just little things like that make a big difference in your enjoyment of the hobby and it was cool to see. Yeah, I mean, the room was alive and I think, zach, to your point, even said one of the organizers that they sold out of their tables and they could have added more. There was an appetite there to even have more tables. So if you have that many vendors interested in coming, then you know the people will come as well, which is great to see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the nice thing, and I think you guys both mentioned it and it was not something that I ever expected.
Speaker 3:Right, when I think of a swap, I think of a flea market or a garage sale. Right know, until I attended a couple, I've been to three total Three, one, two, three, three, so yeah, it's no four. Four was Livonia. Okay, so what I liked about that and Rory mentioned it was I put a bunch of faces to names of folks that I had talked to around the Metro Detroit area at the swap. Right, because it was a well-attended swap. I was like, oh hey, that's Jay. Jay pops in on my Thursday night roundtable on the repeater every once in a while. So I shook his hand. I said Jay, it's Jim.
Speaker 2:He's like, oh, you're not who I expected and you put a face to a name and you both are like well, you're not who I expected you to be.
Speaker 3:But it's super fun to do that. And then I met another guy who was selling a couple of his wares that owns the Spirit of 76 repeater up here, and the Spirit of 76 in Detroit is a big digital mode repeater. A lot of folks love that repeater. It's been online for a long time.
Speaker 3:Rory could give you more history than I could, but it was awesome to meet this gentleman who had a wealth of knowledge around that repeater thing. So it was just cool to be able to say, oh yeah, there's K8JKU there repeater thing. So it was just cool to be able to say, oh yeah, there's a, there's K8JKU, there's W8KNX, there's N8LEK, there's N8AR. Right, Like all of those folks that you run into on the radio, you're putting faces to names too, and for me that was probably one of the more exciting things, and I will tell you. When Rory asked me if I wanted to go to the swap and we went together, Rory and I shared a ride over to the swap not too far away. He said I'm not planning on buying much, I'm just going over there to have a social hour.
Speaker 3:So Rory went, fully expecting this and I was the one with a couple of bucks in my pocket, thinking I was going to get a good deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you held out on buying a handheld, which is shocking too.
Speaker 2:I had a few dollars in my pocket and I spent all five of them to get into the thing and that's another plus I'll comment on that the Livonia Club keeping it at $5. Most a lot of swaps have gone to the $10 or $20 ticket fee. So big shout out to them for not being crazy on their ticket price and that you know in the ham community we have people from all walks of life. That is actually an accessibility thing. There is one gentleman there who I know quite well, who that is actually a difference of whether he would be able to go or not. He doesn't have a whole lot of means but it's good for him to get out and walk around and do it. The one other thing, and you mentioned running into Wallace KE8HR from the Spirit of 76 machine.
Speaker 2:There were a couple other people wandering around from our local repeater group, the WRADAR.
Speaker 2:They're the WR8 DAR repeaters that cover a lot of Metro Detroit and that's a group of guys who pooled resources to put repeaters on the air in the Metro Detroit area over the last probably 35 years. But their thing now is they were busy talking to some other folks who are trying to establish repeaters and give them tips and tricks and help them find equipment for low and reduced prices. Some of them happen to have some Motorola equipment banging around in their garage that they magically found fell off a truck somewhere. So they're helping other people out. So there's a lot of helping hands that go on. It's not just the idea of taking your stuff and buying stuff, it's the socializing, it's the networking, it's the helping each other out. You know, you go up and down the aisles and you might have a conversation with a fellow about an antenna or maybe something that's homebrew on the table, and you learn something by talking to them about what it is and how it was built. That's such an important part of the hobby as well.
Speaker 1:And you can find some. They're not just ham products, right. They're computer electronics records, all sorts of. Someone was selling tents and camping gear. There's a lot of miscellaneous things that are out there, but you get talking to people about their stories and everyone wants to talk about what they brought and what they're selling. You're right, though. It's very interesting and what you can learn very quickly from each other.
Speaker 3:What I thought was interesting too was that some of these tables were not necessarily there with a whole bunch of wares. They were bought because they wanted to establish a club presence or a network presence for a specific repeater network, or it was a gentleman that just didn't have the legs to walk around the thing, so instead he got himself a table. He brought a few little things with him, but he was just there to have other folks come by and say hello, and I appreciated that the Livonia swap was that kind of accessible. It wasn't all about everybody has to have a pile and pile and pile of stuff that they bring. It was a real mixed bag of different folks that were there for different reasons, and I just really enjoyed it. Now I'll ask everybody's opinion. When you go to these things, you usually are guessing how much junk is going to be there on a zero to 100% scale. How much junk did you feel like was at the swap? This?
Speaker 2:time. So this is funny. You ask this because when I was asking you if you were going, I came up with the junk scale in my head and I actually thought about the swaps I've been to in the past, which I've been to numerous around Michigan, a couple in the Chic, the Chicago land area, probably one up in Northern Michigan and I thought of in my head there's always each swap has a different, different flavor to it, a different, you know, but it also has a certain percentage of junk. And I put this one going into it at and I told Jim I said, come along, 75% junk.
Speaker 3:It'll be. It'll be a good time.
Speaker 2:Um, that was, that was my junk. That was my pre-swap junk scale.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so. So I'm a little spoiled in the fact that I grew up going to a lot of flea markets with my mom, um, so her, her motto was everyone's treasures are always a little bit different, so it's hard to put that scale on it. I would say I'm going to be a little bit more generous. I'm going to, you know, 60 to 65%, but again, I'm not here to judge anyone's you know, perceived notion of what is a treasure to them. Now, the one thing I did learn that is the most important, and this is also maybe the secret I shouldn't share is always look down and under the table to see what they're selling.
Speaker 1:I was so mad every time, Jim, you snagged that one antenna the mobile antenna that was on the ground at a killer deal $10, I think you paid for a great mobile antenna $10 for a brand new antenna, yeah, brand new.
Speaker 1:And then someone else was carrying another antenna and someone else had this other radio and I was looking for, and every time I asked them like oh, where'd you find that they're? Oh, it was, you know, under under the table sitting under the table. Yeah, so now you know I'm now I'm gonna permanently miss out forever that we shared these uh hot swap tips, but it was uh. It's something to look at I was walking down the.
Speaker 2:I was walking down the one aisle and it made me laugh because you know we kind of all that was a fun thing, the way we all went. We kind of went around, looked at our things, met up with each other once in a while. We weren't all trying to get through this as a group because that's impossible. So I ran across one of our other friends, eric KDRS, and he's hands and knees on the floor going through a box. I'm like what's going on down there? He said, oh, you've got to look under the table. So he was already on that path and I think he found some rotator cable that he was looking for and a bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did, he dug out his treasure.
Speaker 2:But that's what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying so. My 65 is not meant to be mean, but there's still value to be found and you enjoy it, and Jim did you say what? Your percentage ended up being.
Speaker 3:So I went in assuming that Rory had the best perspective on this, because he has been to this swap a number of times and kind of knows who's going to be there. So I was figuring Rory's estimate was going to be pretty close and I don't think I was disappointed with his estimate. I think it was right on par. A couple of things I'll say here. Right, when we say junk, I think we're saying it in the lovingness sense right the flea market is intended to bring you things that are not?
Speaker 1:maybe necessarily whole. It's candy land. If you're nerdy enough, you'll find it.
Speaker 3:I want to pick through it, find something that's broken but has a couple of good parts that I can take out of it and just get a killer deal on it. Or you buy something that has been discontinued for 20 years and I'm like, oh man, I always wanted one of these. It's nothing that important to me. I love the thrill of the hunt. Nothing that important to me. I just I love the thrill of the hunt. So I'm a guy that goes to the Salvation Army. I go to the you know all the cheap stores around here. I do the same thing if I'm not at a ham swap. But I will say 70% seems about right on. The one thing I will also say out loud is I was shocked by the number of non-functional radios being sold for pretty good money.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah, premium pricing.
Speaker 3:Finals are blown still worth tons of money.
Speaker 2:That was interesting. I've seen a good amount of some of those what I would describe as vintage VHF UHF transceivers that were being sold. I've seen a lot of those at swaps and I've probably bought a used radio like one of those at a swap. But I don't think I've quite seen this many that have a sign on it that flat out says doesn't work, still want. I don't think I've quite seen this many that have a sign on it that flat out says doesn't work, still want $65 for it.
Speaker 1:At least they're honest. Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:At least you're being honest about it, yep, yeah and I think some people want a project so they'll buy it to try and fix it. But interesting sales technique for sure.
Speaker 1:So what's next on the swap calendar? So obviously we're thirsty for more here.
Speaker 2:What do we got coming up? We have the W8KNX junk scale rating 65% Toledo swap coming up Sunday, the 16th of March, down at Owens Community College down in Toledo. It's a nice, easy drive from the Detroit area. It's a solid hour and drive from the Detroit area. It's a solid hour and 15 from my driveway here and it is a good swap. It's held in the large I think it's in the gymnasium of the community college there and it's spread out. They use their space wisely. When I was there last time, which was two years ago last year, I did not go because I had managed to throw my back out and I wasn't doing any sort of walking or sitting in a car or any combination of that.
Speaker 1:That'd be pretty miserable.
Speaker 2:It wasn't good but anyway. So I didn't go, which was a bummer. But the way they have theirs set up is they have the consolidated aisles of stuff like you normally would, but they also have an area off to the side for people who might have larger things. I remember seeing a couple people that were that were selling off uh tower sections, um that kind of thing, to where they were able to kind of spread out and uh, someone with a bunch of vintage stuff was over there to kind of spread out so you could look at it. So it's kind of a nice layout. As far as comparing it for you guys, have either of you been to the Toledo swap?
Speaker 3:I have not. I haven't been to the Toledo one. I've done Findlay and Monroe, so do they compare.
Speaker 2:I've never been to Monroe Findlay, I've been to a lot. Still I would say size-wise and table-wise it would be on par with what we saw at Livonia, but it spread out a bit more in the variety. Like I said, the junk scale is a little better and the variety I found to be a little better too, and I have to be careful because that sounds bad when I'm rating these things on the junk scale. But swaps are fun. Swaps are always an excellent good time.
Speaker 1:So I am looking forward. We're to yep, go ahead no, I'm sorry we're gonna cut you off one thing we forgot to mention that I want your opinion on, which is worth jumping in on what is the coffee service rating scale for the swap? So that's important to us. Yeah, that's important to us dayton.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about dayton here in a second. And maybe I did something wrong at Dayton last year. I don't know, but we'll get there.
Speaker 3:No, no.
Speaker 2:So let's back up to Livonia. That was another thing. Zach and the guys of Livonia did an excellent job. They brought in Big B Coffee for sale at the swap. There was plenty of it. They brought in Looney Baker Donuts, which is a local bakery over there in Livonia. That's a nice touch which was readily available at the swap and that was excellent. The Toledo swap upcoming here, if I remember correctly, since it's in the community college, is a small coffee vending station that's open during the swap outside. That's how I'm remembering it. I I'm I'm foggy on it for sure, but I feel like there was a spot outside of the main entrance to the swap where you could purchase coffee. So coffee was there and, uh, that's always good.
Speaker 3:We can we can go into date. If you're listening to this after after the toledo swap and rory is wrong, make sure you leave a comment below telling him that his coffee rating was poor.
Speaker 1:And Hamvention. If you're listening, please take notes.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about Hamvention, which we are 10 weeks and a day from Hamvention at this point.
Speaker 1:Got my ticket in the mail today.
Speaker 2:So we got our discounted early bird tickets. So we got our discounted early bird tickets. My friend, Sean Cade SAW, brought that to my attention the other day and I promptly shared it with everyone in the South Lion Club. I'm like save a few bucks, get your ticket, order it now, and that early bird is over with. And now the Dayton Hamvention tickets are their full price of $30. But still, I recommend, if you're going to Dayton, go ahead and order them online. They get the tickets to you in less than a week. I think ours all came in three or four days.
Speaker 3:It seemed exceptionally quick.
Speaker 2:Mine was here two days, yeah, so just a tremendous job on them getting the mail out. But it saves you the trouble of having to go to the ticket window at Hamvention when you get there. It's just one less thing to worry about when you arrive. So I highly recommend because they do have such a good turnaround on their mail go ahead and get your order in, but yeah, dayton's right around the corner.
Speaker 3:The little nuggets that you're listening for. Right here is strategy for Rory.
Speaker 1:Well, the line does get long the one hamvention I've been to and it was raining and it was a very long line that you were waiting in to get a ticket. So if you have your ticket in advance, rory's right Highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the coffee scale of Dayton, the coffee meter, the coffee rating? I only saw one small food truck trailer selling coffee. Did I do something wrong? Is that all that?
Speaker 1:I no. No, we talked about this in episode one, so you know we're clearly very bitter about this. One coffee cart for all of Hamvention.
Speaker 2:So no, you have some ridiculous amount of coffee-drinking, ham radio operators and one coffee cart. I mean, I stood in the line and then they ran out. They ran out of regular black coffee. What are all these guys, all these fellows that we all know well, that are ham operators. I'll say it, the old guys. What are they going to do? They just want a black coffee. They don't want an Americano, they don't want anything like that that's going to come out of a machine that's making a lot of noise. They just want a coffee out of the thing. I like it. They were still able to provide an Americano, which I was okay with, but just have enough coffee for everyone. I think that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:I was prepared when I picked Rory up. By the way, I made us both a cup of coffee. Oh, you're a good friend, and Rory came out to the car as we're getting together, and he had his cup of coffee and I was like, well dang, I thought you were going to be under the weather here. Here's a cup. It's all right, though I think we split the second.
Speaker 2:The coffee you made got used later in the day, I believe.
Speaker 3:That is 100% true. We had quite a bit of fun after the ham swap.
Speaker 2:We had a good time.
Speaker 3:We after the ham swap. We had a good time. We had eight or nine people that came from the South Line Area. Amateur.
Speaker 1:Club that we went to.
Speaker 3:And after we all got together and bought a few things and socialized some folks didn't buy anything, they were just there for the experience we did head over afterwards and have a lunch together, which was awesome. We got to talk more radio, we got to share ourselves a beer, I had a little lunch and it was just a really, really good social event as a follow-up to going to the ham swap. So I had a lot of fun there. I have one more strategy that I want to share with you guys, and see what your thought is on swaps before we change gears here.
Speaker 1:So I will say that one thing that I like to do at these things and Rory joked right off the gate that you go with somebody, but you don't always stick with them table to table, because everybody has their own move when they get there right, looking for the best thing, well, you're also competing with each other for that deal.
Speaker 3:That's true. That's true. What if James would have got that $10 antenna?
Speaker 1:I would have loved to. No, I would have loved it, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:So my strategy here and I'm funny is I'll run through all of the tables but I won't buy anything. I'm generally like a kind of first pass guy Eyeball all the things that I think. I might be interested in and then see how quickly they sell, because I'm waiting until the end to make my buys right and that's when I start to make my offers at the end. So you know the things that are sitting around. A lot of folks don't want to drag them back to their vans or their houses or their wives don't want to see them come back in the garage.
Speaker 3:So I did manage to score myself a nice power supply at the end of the swap for $50 off, which I thought was all right. If you're looking for a big power supply or any other heavy gear and it's still sitting there at the end of the swap, you can probably make an offer and come to a good price on it with whomever is selling it, and so that's your N8JRD swap tip of the the day.
Speaker 1:the end of a swap is a hot tip for any flea market really, or any any kind of swap or anything like that. I see my problem is I also look at the lines. So if the table's not busy and I know there's a component I need, like wire minute um hamvention, I'll swing right in and just grab what I need um just because I if I go back next time they're probably gonna be packed and it's kind of nice, so also seize the opportunity when it's there.
Speaker 3:That's true. That's true, I think it does depend right, Like on your prepackaged stuff. Like Wireman is probably selling you brand new gear, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, the prices are probably not as flexible, right? Nope, they're fixed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're out in the field where folks are selling off the back of their pickup truck. You might be able to work a little more magic on the deal there. See what folks are feeling. And, by the way, I do want to say, before we get too far outside the ham swap topic here I did walk away with an HT. It is a Linko you did.
Speaker 2:A digital HT which I have over here on my desk. Are we sharing this already? Oh, that one.
Speaker 3:That's my MD5.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one, the, yeah, that one the.
Speaker 1:MD5. You couldn't resist.
Speaker 3:I couldn't resist. It was priced $80. I got it for $60. So you guys tell me down in the comments is the Elinko MD5 worth $60? It's a pretty neat little radio. Though.
Speaker 2:We can have a little segue with that. How are you feeling about DMR? That's the first DMR rig you've actually used, I think.
Speaker 3:It is true, it is my first DMR rig. It's very much. For me DMR feels a lot more like using a modern cellular radio type device. Right, because what it does is it continuously seems to handshake with whatever tower you're getting into the DMR network with and you get a sort of like five bars of signal strength on your radio right. And so if you have good signal strength and you key up right, it'll start that digital conversation, and I was really impressed.
Speaker 3:I thought DMR sounded pretty good to the ear compared to some of the other digital modes. I've used D-Star and System Fusion, of course, so I was pretty happy with it. It's a neat radio. What I will say is out here where I'm at, I'm not sure how many DMR-specific towers I can hit, but I'll have to play a little bit more with it. It's far too early and I will give W8Connect's Rory here a little bit of credit because I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to DMR code plugs. But Rory said what radio did you get? Give me a few minutes? And he sent me over a code plug that I just dropped on my radio with my DMR ID number and I was able to key it up and get on the Michigan wide.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll be honest with you. I was afraid if you didn't get it programmed, you would have sold it before you had a chance to try it.
Speaker 3:You know me too well.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to at least get you something functional and that particular network is pretty easy to set up in a code plug. So that took me all of 15 minutes when I should have been doing other things at work. It was appreciated, thank you. That is the first Alinko radio I've played with the programming software actually, and on that note, compared to the only DMR radio I own, which is a TYT MD380, that Alinko programming software was pretty good for DMR programming. It was for me to have been able to figure it out in the time that I did, without the radio even in front of me, to write you a note.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he didn't have the radio, it was at my house.
Speaker 2:It was pretty easy and pretty cool, so very good. While we're on that topic, what else? We kind of glossed over something that we've kind of been doing and what's going on in our shacks. We got right into that excitement of the Yeezy radio at the beginning and we were going to talk about what's going on in our ham worlds right now, james, anything new going on.
Speaker 1:No, it's not super ham related. I've been trying to play with Mesh Task again because they updated the t-deck firmware, the, the 2.6, the ui I should say not firmware, um, but you know, just playing with my uh lilly go t-decks, which are, which are nice and the new ui is is very uh user-friendly, more resembles a, let's say, modern cell phone type interface, uh, all-in-one. I still have not found a practical purpose for Meshtastic. However, I enjoy flashing the firmware to the devices and just talking to myself back and forth on two devices. So it's something. But what about you guys?
Speaker 2:So real quick on that on the 18th of March our friends in Ann Arbor at the Arrow Club are having a session on Meshtastic and Jim and I are planning to take a little road trip from Southland to Ann Arbor to go listen to their talk on that. If you find yourself on this side of town, james, you can tag along.
Speaker 1:That's my opportunity not to talk to myself through my Meshtastic devices. Back and forth is what you're telling me.
Speaker 2:I've known several people that have played with the the stuff and they pretty much say the same thing you're saying there. They've talked to themselves with it, so I'm I'm happy to learn about it. I'm curious I it sounds like they probably cool stuff.
Speaker 1:It is. It's really cool technology and you know it works.
Speaker 3:It works really well, yeah, so I think uh, ke8sq down at the Aero Club is putting on the presentation. So we'll meet Blake and see what he has to say about Meshtastic. But it's cool that James brought that up, because it's on my radar as well. I have not bought a device yet. I'm generally the guy that buys it before I go and see what it's all about. But I think I am going to hold out this time. I'm going to go down and watch the presentation. I'm going to hold out this time. I'm going to go down and watch the presentation. But, james I asked. I was like you know, last year at Dayton there were so many Meshtastic devices that Meshtastic's network suffered a sort of overload right.
Speaker 3:And it looks like they've made some adjustments to how they handle the handoffs of that data between nodes. So I'm curious this year and that's why I want to have a device there with my ID plugged. I don't know anything about it, I'm talking generally. It has my ID plugged in because I want to see that firsthand. I think if you're going to take one of these kind of niche devices down to a thing, I think that's going to be awesome to see all the folks that are on Meshtastic down, it was fun.
Speaker 1:I mean it was fun, and the one time maybe it was kind of practical, even though I had a handheld radio right next to me, was at the campground at HamVenture.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of. It wasn't crashing my device and it was just detecting so many nodes and so much traffic that it just didn't want to go any further. But at the campground, yeah, it was actually pretty cool. We had some good conversations, quick chats, met some people as I was walking around and met some hams. But yeah, it's cool technology. Again, I'm still just searching for a purpose, which is maybe the money investment part is questioning that part on why.
Speaker 3:The Metro Detroit network is not well established If you look at the mesh map, which is kind of the idea of where things are online. There's a few down by University of Michigan, which I think college towns are a real prime place for this type of thing to spring up and actually get use. There's a few up in Traverse City, which is kind of a resort town if you're not familiar with Michigan, up in the tip of the here, and then there's a few that are sprinkled around the downtown Detroit area. But realistically I think that in a metro area like Michigan's Detroit area there's a lot of space between people. Where the Meshtastic stuff really shines, it seems like the more I read about it is in places like Chicago and New York or even San Francisco, where there's a high population density of folks that have interest in these sort of niche and emerging technology experiments, if you will.
Speaker 1:Which makes sense. Rory, what have?
Speaker 2:you been working on. So the only thing going on in the shack here is a little bit of contesting. Over the weekend I participated in the what was it called the International Sideband Contest. A little bit of fun there. I never considered myself a contester until maybe the last year or two, and I'm not a good contester. I have a very mediocre station here at home. It works, but it's not great. But I still have fun getting out there and being in the chase of a contest and I was able to pick up, I think, 17 more DX countries through the contest. Again, not great numbers compared to what some people have, but it was a good time.
Speaker 2:10 meters this year, as you guys are all aware, 10 meters has been very good in the daytime hours over to Europe. I was even able to work into Russia with no problem. A lot of countries I didn't have Bosnia, a few of those over there. I still struggle to get to the south. I'll never understand why my station doesn't get to South America, but it just doesn't. I'm sure there's reasons, but it just doesn't. But I crossed the pond and had no problem working. A lot of Italian stations were on. A lot of French stations were on were on. A lot of French stations were on. Was able to get Wales, scotland, both, which I never had those entities in my log so I'm hoping to get confirmations on all of these. I might have to actually do QSL cards for a few of them to get them confirmed, but that was actually a good time for me over the weekend.
Speaker 1:I turned on my radio and the scope was just packed which was awesome.
Speaker 3:It's awesome to see, and 10 meters was just alive. It was humming.
Speaker 3:I think the contests are a great way for folks that are getting into HF and are still trying to fill their CUSO map, so to speak, especially in sideband, to get those distance stations right. You can go on FT8 and you can get around the world pretty easily, but really these contests are good opportunities to have folks with high quality antennas and a lot of power pointed in your direction and listening, even for your 100 watt station with a minimal antenna setup. So it really does give us an opportunity I say us because we're all in kind of the same boat as far as antennas, to some extent an opportunity to use sideband to really work more distant stations than we would be able to on like a regular day. It's not to say that you couldn't, it's just to say that you have folks that are looking for you at that point. So you have a better opportunity, a higher hit rate on that type of thing. So I think that's what that's where these contests and, uh, further emphasize your point as well.
Speaker 1:There's a very. If you listen a little bit, you'll usually pick up on the exchange very quickly and it's a. It's a good formal exchange it's. It's generally quick and easy. So if you're again a new ham, a good opportunity to either look on the website and you can just get in, get over that mic fright a little bit and start making contacts. But maybe go on, rory.
Speaker 2:I mean, if nothing else, it will get you over the mic fright real quick because the contests are moving quick and the exchanges are going quick. But it's nothing if you've never done it before, don't let that scare you, because the guy on the other end of the radio path will slow down. He might grumble, you might break his flow a little bit. He might not be happy with you slowing down what he's doing, but he'll be happy to help you out. If you don't know the exchange, he'll tell you what it is. If you've not done contests before the WA7 BNM contest calendar, just go on Google and search contest calendar. That is an excellent contest calendar. It lists out pretty much for the whole calendar year, all the contests every day and it also lets you know what the exchange is and where to go to find the actual rules for the contest.
Speaker 2:So if you want to make sure you know the exchange before you get involved and what the rules are in this case you were not allowed in this contest over the weekend. You were not allowed to contact other American stations for credit. They would get very mad if you tried to contact them because they weren't interested in talking to you, because that's a no-point situation. It was strictly DX entities, so certainly I highly recommend it. The contesting thing hopefully someday I have a better antenna up and can do it a little more seriously, but in the meantime it's still fun.
Speaker 3:I'll give a little bit of credit to also one of our club members. I like to pass this around because I'll also encourage you, if you're listening and haven't involved yourself in a club yet, to think about some of the reasons why it's worth doing. We have a club member, his name is Frank NFADM, and Frank is a big contester. He always mentions each weekly net what contests are coming up. He tries to remind us when there's a contest that seems like it might be approachable for us newer hams. So there are those types of people out there that will keep you a little bit more in tune, even if you're not a heavy-duty contester. And I really appreciate and I always tell Frank whenever I hear him mention a new contest. Hey, thanks for saying that out loud. Right, I don't check the WA7 BNM calendar every week, but I appreciate that you call these things out for us.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, james. No, I was going to say speaking of, let's say, contesting and exchanges. There's another topic we were talking about, which is the POTA exchange. So, rory, maybe you fill us in a little bit on what the discussion point was.
Speaker 2:So this got me fired up a little bit. Now, anyone who knows me personally or who has activated POTA sitting next to me I am not someone to pass along a bunch of flowers in my POTA exchange, it is a 5-9 Mike, india, 5-9, us-3315, and I'm on to the next person. There's a lot of discussion on whether that's right and wrong, but what it comes down to is it's your poda activation. You do it how you want to do it, and if you're calling into someone else's poda activation, you get to conform to the way they're running their activation. And I am all for that. And a lot of people think it's funny because I'm just a very impatient person.
Speaker 2:But something that popped up on the POTA Facebook page probably two weekends ago now I think some folks were doing a de-expedition over down in Costa Rica. Ti7 RRC was activating Costa Rica and they were doing four of the special events, so to speak. They were doing Islands on the Air, parks on the Air, worldwide Flora and Fauna that's a hard one to say WWFF and Amateur Radio, lighthouse Society. They were working all four of those and attempting to give people credit for contacting a station at one of these entities. That's all they were wanting to do is give people an opportunity to talk to a park or a lighthouse or an island or whichever one you're playing in Costa Rica, but they were doing it in true de-expedition form. They were wanting to get as many contests as quickly as they can, so they were not giving a long exchange. One of the people that was running it R1BIG I think her name is Raina. She, of course, was in full contest mode and wanting to get the contacts done as quickly as she could. The bands were good right then. It was good to get a lot of people through.
Speaker 2:So someone posted, trying to be helpful, on the POTA Facebook page saying these guys are there, they're glad to make a contact with you, but they're not looking to exchange park numbers. But they're not looking to exchange park numbers and, as most of us know, and some people who may not, with POTA you do not need to formally exchange your number. You don't need to say it aloud when you talk to another station, as long as you log it, and if they're at a park, they log it. The system does all the work for you. You could sit there and let them know what color the moon is. You can let them know, whatever you want, you can give the park number. You don't have to give the park number.
Speaker 2:So I, you know, I was a bit a bit bothered by, by some of these comments that were on on this post, and you know it's like we're we're supposed to be having fun with this Absolutely One person while I don't really care, turning down a park-to-park while using the POTA platform is a bit lame. You're not turning down a park-to-park, you're going to log it. They're going to log it. The system will figure out your park-to-park. What are we doing? Let's see what else.
Speaker 3:I'll also say real quick here, rory, there was a huge line of folks that wanted to talk to these people, to get their credit for calling down there, so I also think it's fair to consider, right, it's not only you that wants to talk to them. There are a whole bunch of hams behind you that want the same opportunity. So it's almost a little bit of respect both ways to say let me get in and get out and not extend this too long, right, because I know there's a whole bunch of other people that would love to talk to a Costa Rica DX station that isn't normally on the air Go ahead, rory, I mean so they technically ran two stations TI6 RRC Portable and TI6 RRC.
Speaker 2:So between the two, 12,000 QSOs are noted on their QRZ page. That's a lot of people that were very glad to make that. But you know, I don't know. I just got really agitated reading these very, very negative posts on the Poet of Facebook page People very concerned that you know. Well, I want to stop and have a conversation with these people. No, no, you don't Give your number. Get on with it, get on your repeater and have a conversation with Bob down the street. Then I mean, it's just I don't understand and just the negativity against these folks that took time out of their life. It was people from all over the country. Let's see four, eight, nine operators went all over the world. I should say Nine operators went down there to activate this so they could do 24-hour coverage during their de-expedition. And you know they were. They were looking to have a good time and they were looking to provide as many contacts from Costa Rica and one of the Costa Rican islands as well. So I don't know, it struck a nerve yeah, well, I think so.
Speaker 1:I saw the same park and they were the same post, which is actually why we started talking about a little bit and I think some. So I saw the same park or the same post, which is actually why we started talking about it a little bit, and I think some of the other feedback was. Well, on their poster website they use the POTA logo and they've used the islands on the air logo and therefore they should be giving the formal parks on the air exchange and I think you already said it, rory but you can POTA how you want to POTA and again, they are a de-expedition. And I think one of the greatest things about POTA is, if you're an experienced operator, you're new to the sport, whatever you are, or however you want to do, your activations, your activation. If you don't want to exchange park numbers, you don't have to. If you want to sit and have a chat or share some information about yourself, you can, and I think that's one thing we need to remember that makes this program so special.
Speaker 1:As all three of us are pretty big POTA operators, at least we enjoy that part of the hobby. You know it's okay. And again, remember their de-expectation. They're there to get as many QSOs as possible, as quickly as possible, so they can share that with everyone. And you know again, as Rory said, so they can share that with everyone. And you know again, as Rory said, you're going to get your park-to-park credit and I know the other complaint there too, not to also rant is well, I'm someone at three parks, so I have three park numbers to share with that individual and I want the three park-to-park credits. Well, you have to understand again, that's not their priority and they're still in a park, they're still giving you poda credit and let let them, let them poda, let them poda how they want to poda.
Speaker 3:And I think that's the biggest lesson the de-expedition right is a self-funded trip right so these folks are paying their own money to go run it their way I think and I. I also like to keep that in in the back of my head, right? This is not something that I personally have in my financial means right now. I hope maybe in the future that I would be able to go on one, it'd be fun.
Speaker 3:It would. It would be super cool, but for me, this is exactly what Rory said. Rory runs his POTA activation one way. It's to the point. It's a 5.9. I'm in Mike, india, let's move on. If you get me on the air, n8jrd.
Speaker 1:Oh, you'll run your battery out.
Speaker 3:I might, I might, I'll have a little activation with you and sometimes, if you say the right thing, we might stop and have a two or three back and forth cue. So I'm okay with that and that's what I appreciate a lot about the POTA community is, if you don't want to stick around, keep the dial spinning right, keep moving down the band, come on back later on and I might still be there, right? And I think that that's the same way you have to look at it when you're doing POTa is these folks are going to do it their way, poda, your way.
Speaker 2:Rory, you got something up on the screen here yeah, I do so for the, for the folks who said they had poda splattered all over their their qrz page here, here's the little icon right here. Okay, I don't think that's splattered all over, I think that's them. These, these fellows here, let's see these, these eight folks who we need to be, who I feel we should be grateful and thankful for taking the time to put on this de-expedition. It's these eight guys and ladies saying here we're going to support these four things, we're going to help you get a contact at another one of these entities. So it was a whole thing no-transcript.
Speaker 2:So these folks also did the locals a favor by and don't quote me on that, I might have something askew that was just something I read in passing in another article. But you know they're trying to do a good thing, they're trying to do the right thing and I just was kind of disappointed by the POTA community from having to be so vulgar in some cases on those posts just because they wouldn't be able to slow down and have a five-minute QSO with some folks in Costa Rica, able to slow down and have a five-minute.
Speaker 1:QSO with some folks in Costa Rica. Well and this brings up my other maybe this is a different topic for a moment.
Speaker 1:But, listen, I'm still a young ham in the hobby, so when I say this and you're learning, facebook is maybe not always the most friendly or best place to learn some things, that is true. So we talked about the swap. Right, I have had more enjoyment going to a swap and just talking to random people about what's on their table and meeting people. I've heard on the air with POTA and all those things than I've ever had on Facebook. So all hams realize Facebook is Facebook. It's a platform. It's fine, whatever your investment in it is, but it's not always the greatest learning tool and it's not the only learning tool. So just everyone be cool, just poda how you want to poda. I'll say it again.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that in the climate that we're in right now, it's better to take a step back sometimes and just put it in context and maybe when you see something that you don't like on those Facebook pages, give it a read, consider it. But not every reply needs to be said aloud on there. Maybe come back and bounce it off your buddies right Like.
Speaker 3:JKU and W8KNX on a podcast that you have between the three of you, but these are the types of things that I think are it's good to hear a little bit of conversation on this and just think a little bit more critically about the things that are happening in the ham community, because as a whole, it's an extremely friendly community, it's an extremely helpful community and there's folks that are out there doing things that I think benefit you, even if you're sitting at home. And that, for me, is kind of. The takeaway here is I'm happy that there was an opportunity for me to reach out to Costa Rica. I wasn't able to get it, but hey, rory did.
Speaker 1:I did. I got 40 meter sideband and FT8.
Speaker 2:Thanks to Rory for telling me how to get an.
Speaker 1:FT8.
Speaker 2:Yep, I got them on FT8 and one on phone as well, so that was good. I didn't realize you got them. That's cool. Here's just because I'm going, and this is a good one. I understand that it is an expedition and, as such, what is sought is the greater number of contacts in the registry, but I question then why the park number, including the POTO program, is used in order to search for more hunters if they are not going to be kind enough to note down the park-to-park. The system does the park-to-park for you. I don't get it.
Speaker 1:The fine folks at the Parks on the Air program have built one of the best ham websites that have ever existed. And I'm not, you know. Yes, we know some of the developers and some of the people that help manage it, but they really have built a great website and it will do that for you. So again, if you, it's customary, I even exchange parks when I do my activation, but you know you don't have to and I think that's you know I and I do.
Speaker 2:I give my, I give my park number when I'm the activator. If I'm a hunter at a park, I don't. I, I give the five, nine, mike, india and I let the system do the work and my and I've been criticized for that. But my thought behind that is I get my contact. It allows them to move on to someone else. It's one less thing I need to be back and forth with. Oh, did they hear my number correctly? It doesn't matter, the software is going to do it, the website is going to do it for them. So that's just my thought. I know I'm an outlier on a lot of things and that's probably one of them, but yeah, second, and I certainly 100% shout out to the POTA folks for their website being 100% volunteer-driven, with a very small budget, their online system is phenomenal and exceptional customer service.
Speaker 3:Every time I've had to deal with it, for very minor issues, they are always extremely quick and extremely helpful in resolving my issues. So, yeah, shout out to those guys for sure.
Speaker 1:All right, we're getting close to the end.
Speaker 3:here, guys, a little bit of fire maybe get you thinking. We'd love to hear your thoughts on expeditions or Hoda in general, and we'd also take a couple of ideas as we continue on, although we do have Dayton Ham Venture coming up and we're going to do one of these on site or at least part of it on site.
Speaker 1:We're going to try. Maybe let's not overcommit here, but we're going to try. We're going to definitely do it. Part of it will be on site. We're going to get something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but as we wrap it up here, go ahead. James, I think you were headed that direction.
Speaker 1:No, I, I guess. Another thank you from my side as we close this episode. As a reminder, this is a monthly podcast. We do post to YouTube under Everyday Ham and you can search for us in any major podcast platform as Everyday Ham Podcast. So go out there, like, subscribe, comment, get involved and, as Jim already mentioned, please send us your ideas. We'd love to talk about stuff that's relevant for you. We have a wide range of experience and skills, so we'd love to be able to try to help you out a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yep, and it's fair to say too, I think, that we do want to eventually speak to some folks outside of this group here and bring in some outside perspectives. So if you are interested in that, you can actually visit our website as well everydayhamcom and on there you can actually visit our website as well, everydayhamcom and on there you'll find some contact information. We'd certainly love to hear from folks who maybe have some thoughts that we might be able to bring in as a guest speaker too. So the future is bright, I think, for Everyday Ham, and appreciate to everyone that has taken a listen to us and has subscribed or given a like or even made a comment those things mean a lot to us and has subscribed or given a like or even made a comment. Those things mean a lot to us as a small little group here, but always a pleasure getting together with you guys tonight. James Rory.
Speaker 2:Definitely look forward to seeing some friends. Look for some folks at the Toledo swap. Look in a couple weeks. By the time we record again, we'll have done that. So if you see us down there, feel free to say hello. So with that. I will say 73 from WAKNX.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 73. Everyone have a good one.
Speaker 3:Yep 73, guys Bye-bye.
