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. (Visit www.everydayham.com)
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
How Frustration Built the Best Portable Logger: Sebastián KI2D & Ham2K PoLo
A better logger doesn't just record contacts—it changes how you operate. We sit down with Sebastián KI2D, creator of Ham2K PoLo, to explore how mobile-first design, tiny UX details, and relentless iteration make portable operating smoother, faster, and less gear-heavy.
From his journey growing up in Venezuela to building startups in New York—and yes, proposing the Arepa and Olive emojis—Sebastián shares the mindset behind a tool that understands what activators actually do in the field.
Short show intro audio clip
Short outro audio clip
The Everyday Ham Podcast is hosted by James Mills (K8JKU), Jim Davis (N8JRD), and Rory Locke (W8KNX) – three friends who dive into the world of amateur radio with a casual, lighthearted twist.
Follow us at: Website: https://www.everydayham.com/
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Hey there, everybody, and welcome to episode 10 of the Everyday Ham Podcast. I'm Rory W8KNX, joined by James Kate, JKU, and Jim N8JRD. Today we'll be talking to Sebastian Ki2D, who is the creator of the well-known platform Polo and all the other ham 2K things. We're going to learn a little bit about Sebastian. We're going to take some time talking to him about his journey to software developer, to ham radio developer, to ham radio operator. He's got a pretty cool, pretty cool story. It comes from his roots in Venezuela all the way to coming into New York City and becoming a pretty, pretty cool software developer across many platforms. If you haven't already, take a moment to like and subscribe. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whichever one you happen to be listening to us on. We also have a growing TikTok community that I know nothing about, but James tells me about that. Also, my favorite place, take a moment to join our ham everyday ham Discord server. Not much conversation there day to day, but we do have some conversation that's growing. And as more people join, the conversation will get better. Couple folks that have been on there recently, Robert N1RWJ and Mike W8MCV. They've been active on our Discord. They've recently gotten out to do their first POTA activations. And uh congratulations to them, wishing them luck on that and hope they have all the fun uh with POTA that we all have had. So what's going on in our shacks? Let's take a minute. Jim, what's what's up on your side of South Lion?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think I'm Jim, because I know that James is James, and uh as far as shacks are concerned, uh mine is in a constant state of flux. Uh, you guys tuned in uh pretty well to the subscription flex episode, and I did evacuate a flex from my uh shack uh in perhaps the nick of time. I'm just kidding. Uh it was really not a uh planned maneuver. Uh, but as a result of evacuating the flex, it did free up some uh ham fundage uh for me to put a uh legal limit amplifier in this shack. So right uh next to me here, I am a flexible. Full legal power. I am running legal limit now. Uh or I can run legal limit. Let's be real, I'm not running it all the time. Uh I will tell you that I usually am using it at 500 watts. Uh that's where it will mostly live. Uh and uh it has been uh an absolute blast. And if you're wondering, uh what does an amp do for you? Well, it lets you cut the line uh whenever there's a POTA pileup. So uh I'm having a blast with it, guys. Uh it is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, uh, but it it's it for a for a situation like mine, uh, where I've got limited antenna, a little extra power goes a long way uh to getting me out there uh and getting me in the uh in the pileup. So that's what's going on here in the South Lions Shack. James, what's going on over at your place?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so not too much other than today is October 7th. So this weekend coming up here, I will be in Kansas City uh for the Detroit Lions away game against the Chiefs. However, I am taking some time to definitely be doing some portable operation. So I will be out there uh poting my heart out, uh, I think on Friday. So if you don't have K A JQU and your ham alert, uh please do so because hopefully band conditions are favorable. But look out for me there. Uh I will have. I'm excited to talk to Sebastian, but I will have my ham 2K portable logger there with me uh in all the forms. It is my go-to. So uh again, that that's gonna be it, Rory.
SPEAKER_01:So I spent the weekend out at Island Lake State Park, which is my local POTA park here near to my residence in South Lion, Michigan. I spent some time out there both Saturday and Sunday, and the goal this weekend was to work the California Cuso Party. I somewhere along the way, I became very interested in working QSO parties all across the nation. The California Cuso Party added a category for POTA operators, so my goal was to go and get as many California stations while doing PODA as well. I got 102 on the log, which beat my 51 from last year by double. That was that was a very happy moment for me. Um, I was able to use Sebastian's polo app, and uh a couple things came up with that, and I'm looking forward to our conversation with him on this episode about some of the problems I had, and I think he's even gonna teach us a few things that we didn't know. So sit back and enjoy. It's a good one, and uh again, like, subscribe, comment, and uh we'll see you in the next one. All right, joining us tonight, Sebastian Ki2D. Sebastian's claim to fame is uh he's the author of the Arepa emoji and co-author of the the Olive Emoji.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:He is he is the the creator of Ham2K products such as Ham2K Polo uh and Ham2K what is the other one? I'm forgetting. CQDX Marathon, I believe.
SPEAKER_00:There's there's a there's a tool to help with the DX Marathon. I did a couple of other things before, but that are not actively maintained. Including one to help with the with the net client, uh an app that helps you track nets online. Well that was one of the first ones I did, but I haven't done much on it lately.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I wasn't aware of the the marathon one. One of our local hams, I think our friend Mike uh W8MSC uh mentioned that he knew you were involved with that one. So I I did not know that before that he told me that a couple months ago. So uh so very cool. So of course, we all are been avid users of polo for for probably more than a year for all of us at this point. We've all been that's been our primary POTA logging tool. And in some cases, uh I've used it just to log in general, just because it's easy here at home sometimes when I'm when I don't have anything other than an iPad hand handy. But uh, we all kind of try different products, different platforms. Before we fell into into polo, I was using uh pen and paper even for a while. And uh, you know, few first of those few CUSOs uh activations, I should say, where you're out there getting your first 50 and 75 CUSOs in a park and you're scribbling, it gets pretty sloppy and it gets hard to come back. So, you know, my thing, I I hurried up and was trying to find a solution. I I tried uh tried a number of things, but uh one of the days I think Jim mentioned that he had found polo and uh or had been using it once or twice. I hadn't started using it yet, but then I started to try it and I've I've not never gone back. Jim, how did you how did you fall into polo?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so uh this is actually not this last uh field day, so that would have been 2025 field day. It was 2024 field day. Uh I was working, I just got my general and I was out working my first field day. And who, if not K8JKU, said, Hey, do you want to do a polo or a parks on the air activation? And I said, Great, how do I do it? Because I had never done one before. And he said, Well, I have this great app called Ham2K Polo. Uh, you can use it. I'll plug your call sign in. We used his instance of it on his iPad, uh, and it was just super easy, you know, and it made it really easy for me to do uh Parks on the Air as a brand new ham that was already a little intimidating because I was A, out at field day not knowing what the heck I was doing, and B, I was doing a first polo uh POTO activation. So uh the app was kind of familiar. Uh of course, you know, I have uh iPhone, I've got an iPad at home here, so I've got lots of apps that I use regularly. So it just felt kind of at home. I had never been a pen and paper logger because I got on HF way late in my, I guess, ham career here. So uh I went right to polo uh for all of my park logging uh experience, and honestly, that's where I've been. And and since I got to use it, uh it actually sold Apple's iPad to I bought a new iPad with a keyboard and I've I've I got uh Sebastian's app uh and the rest is history. I've used it uh every time that I've gone out since then. And like Rory says, also just for some general logging use, which I think uh seeing it be more capable of general logging now uh is awesome, right? Uh being able to use it for that. So I credit James actually for getting me uh using it, and I have not uh stopped using it since then, and I've recommended it to so many people uh because I just think it's a it's an excellent app. So uh kudos to you, Sebastian. Uh excellent, uh excellent work there.
SPEAKER_00:That means that that James and you you started early in June of last year. Polo had just came out, basically.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was uh what was it, test flight with the Google test app. Yeah. I remember there was uh a bunch of buzz on Facebook, I believe, the Facebook POTA group. And I said, this seems awesome. I saw a screenshot of it being posted, and I said, This is exactly what I was looking for, actually. So you you hit the sweet spot in terms of timing, and I I signed up for the testing group and I immediately loved it. So also nice job with the initial release. It was clean and and worked exactly as you'd expect for a poda logger.
SPEAKER_00:That's great. I mean, uh one thing before we continue, I want to make something very clear. Rory was not joking when he said I'm the official author of the Arepa emoji and the Olive emoji. Those are one of my proudest achievements.
SPEAKER_04:That's a hell of an achievement, though, too. It really is really cool. That's in history book.
SPEAKER_00:Let me put it this way. It was it was it was significant work redacting a proposal and all of that. It was not a big deal, but uh but the the ratio of work to impact in the world is probably the largest of anything I've done. That's funny.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The the no, it's it's it's great to hear that you were an early user of Polo, James. Um and that that that you guys did parks on the air on field day and all of that. Um it's it's kind of like it's what I had in mind when I started polo. I wanted to do like portable operations, that's where the name comes from. Um it's uh because I did it, I wasn't happy with any of the the existing solutions. Yeah. Um there were good things. I mean, I I I don't mean that in a in a negative way, it's just that none of the solutions work the way I wanted. Um but they opened my eyes to the possibility of logging on my phone. I mean, apps like Hammers were like like they they broke that barrier like saying you can actually have a good login ex login experience on your phone. Um and and that's what got me started. And it was like um I'm trying to remember, I think that it was like November of 23, would have been. My very first actual polo activation was end of 2023, like December 30th or something like that. I went on a hike with my wife and actually activated while walking, while hiking, uh, on a on two meters on a day. And like I barely made it. I had to actually go on the rest on the local repeater and say, guys, go on 520 and try to see if you can work. Come and help me get contacts. But I got I got the 10 contacts uh and I was logging while walking, which was kind of like amazing. It was like it was I had the the HD on one hand, the phone on the other, and and I would just thumb type when when I got a contact. Nice. And that was the very first uh activation in Polo. And then like end of January, I was making it public to a very small group and and slowly started opening it. And I think about March or April of uh 24, I I made it more broadly available and then went through the the trouble of getting it approved on the app stores and Apple and Google and all of that. And then by by by the time you came in July, in June, probably for field aid shoot up, I I believe that was already you could download it from the app store directly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That was the full-fledged version that I was showing Jim by that point. Yep, yeah. And and the one thing I'd like to add there too is the first time using polo, I could tell it was used by someone that does parks on the air or at least mobile operation. Because the interface was so well thought out. And I remember thinking, all right, this whoever's this developer, they they get it. And I was I was very impressed by that. But also the second thing I was impressed with, and I think we'll talk about your update cycles and how you how you keep to maintain polo. Uh, but I think the very next day I opened it after the first time, you know, using it, and there was already some sort of update there that was being pushed to me, or or a parks refreshed database. And I was like, oh, okay, this is something that's gonna have a long lifespan as well, which I was very impressed with.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I I I'm constantly fixing, I mean, I'm constantly making let let me let me rephrase that and be honest. I'm constantly making mistakes that force me to push updates. Like any good developer, yeah. Like I think that that that's what it is. But no, I I'm I'm glad to hear that because I I'm I wrote the app for myself. I would go out, activate on a park, and find the things that would annoy me, and come back home and fix them. Um and then I started like when once people started using it, I would like listen to what they were complaining about and try to fix those things too. Might not have worked every single time and and I might have different priorities than than every than than other people. But I try to make it, I try to see if I can make everybody happy. And and as long as it's the the trade-offs are not too bad for a larger number of people, I try to allow for all the different ways people will use it. And then I go back to the park and I go and use it. And on I go and try to activate with friends and see how they use it and and what they're screaming about when they're using the app and they're like, why would WTF happen here? And like, oh, let me take a look.
SPEAKER_02:Um As soon as I got the uh as soon as I got the iPad, I will tell you, Sebastian, I did I downloaded it because I had been using it on my phone uh initially because I didn't have that yet. Uh and I got the iPad and I I opened it up and I was I was logging away, and then I realized uh that I couldn't slide the spots over, right? I couldn't make that a little bigger or a little smaller. And I said, well, that's interesting. I would have expected that. You know, big screen, lots of dead space over here. And so I got on, I think your Discord and I said, you know, hey, here's what I experienced. Uh and I believe you acknowledged, you said, yeah, that was something that I was working on, and I I believe it's coming soon. Uh and it wasn't uh I believe it was the next release I saw it pop out.
SPEAKER_00:So that that hopefully is fixed now. That absolutely first time I did it was you did that.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. I used I used that just this past weekend when I was out doing doing parks in the air.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. A little customizable size. And one thing that that's just my reality is that I'm also a guy who A has a full-time job and a family, and and I also like to go out and activate every now and then. And and I've like have other commitments and things like that. So I kind of need to prioritize sometimes. Like like there's there's plenty of things that are half broken in Polo that I just push till later. Yeah. Um, because I need I only have so much time I can I can dedicate to the app right there. Absolutely. Um I have I have so many ideas and things I want to do that I just haven't had the time to get to yet, but that I want to. Um that that so I apologize if one of those things is something that matters to you. Jeez. Um, if you're listening, Sebastian cares is what I think is the key takeaway that cares.
SPEAKER_02:We have to make priority suggestions as soon as selections.
SPEAKER_00:And again, I I people come and and they will point out at something that did not work for them. And I like to believe I mean, I don't know if you remember that scene from Ted Lasso where he's playing darts and he says that he read this thing. Like be curious, not judgmental. Yeah, yep. Like somebody comes and and pops up a point that didn't work for them, and I could say, Oh, that was stupid. No. Like, I mean, actually, you could be both curious and judgmental. You could say that was stupid, but let me try to figure out why it was stupid.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, let me let me see if we can learn from that and and make the app better. Because I mean, you probably didn't mean to be stupid when you did the thing you did. Um so let's try to make you feel smart and not stupid next time that happens. And and yeah, and I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love it. A few things that stood out to me right when I first started using polo, and and this was very important. I was able to start leaving the laptop at home. That was that was a huge deal for me. Either go out with the phone or go out with the iPad. That was a huge selling point to to switching to polo for for all of my podo logging. Um for a while I still carried the laptop if I wanted to do FT8. We're slowing down with that now because you can do FT8 from the iPad now. I'm still trying to sort out quite how that works. It's not quite seamless for me yet, but that's okay. Um But that was that was huge. The ability for polo to be off-grid. If you had everything downloaded, you didn't need to worry about a cell connection. You could still log. It still functioned, functioned, you know, pretty much perfectly. And then lastly, it like like Jim and James both mentioned, as we've talked about the the support that you provide and the feedback that you provide in the Discord chat and the emails and all these ways that I'm not sure how you keep up with with being a full-time person with a family and all this. It's uh you know, any any question down from from Jim suggesting the the changeable size of the window to to me reaching out to you to have you join us on here. You've you're always always very accessible, which is which is which you know, big kudos to you for for for doing that. I think the ham you're you're a asset to the ham community and uh definitely definitely well well appreciated.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate that. I mean I also have to say that there's there's there's a lot of people helping now, both in in in in answering people's questions in the Discord, in the forums. Um there's people helping with development. I mean that there's there's there's a few guys that have come on into the the team and have added code and and like help anytime we have something going and and they they hop in and collaborate. So it it is it is I'm I'm still doing the the the bulk of the coding, but it's not just me. And that made a difference. I think that that it would have burnt out a few months ago if it weren't for for the fact that that other people are stepping up and and helping there. Um and I really, really appreciate that. Um I mean there's there's there's uh and I'm not gonna mention Mike Dolby V3H because he's not the help the most helpful of people in the in the chat. He's just around all the time. I mean no there's there's Alan V Vikor Kilo one alpha Oscar in Australia, there's uh Jetil uh Lima Bravo 4 Fox Hotel in in Norway, there's Bo Whiskey Charlie9 Bravo in in in uh in this in in the US. There's there's I don't know. I I'm afraid of giving names because I'm I'm I'll miss many of course.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I didn't realize it was so global as well.
SPEAKER_00:It is it is yeah polo is big in Australia and Germany. Oh awesome. Um no, it's it is it is I mean one thing is that I I try to also include support for programs that are not necessarily popular in the US. Things like I mean Australia has uh silos on the air and and uh um what is the other one? There's silos and and I'll I'll there's there's wild wildlife uh flora and fauna is very popular outside of the US and we added support very early on. So it's not just Poda. Poda is global, but it it is big in the US, not as big everywhere else. Sure. And and uh the the uh the the support we brought and and the idea of adding features that like and Steve uh Mike wants here at Delta Hotel has helped a lot with these programs and he'll he was he's in England and he's done like light it lighthouses on the air and castles on the air, bunkers on the air, things like that that had made it very popular outside of the U.S.
SPEAKER_01:It sounds like if you know we're we're over here do busy doing parks on the air, all these other pit places have so many cool things castles on the air, silos on the air. We're just out here in our silly parks. We need to go do some silos and castles.
SPEAKER_03:To be fair, as Michiganders and New Yorkers, we're kind of missing lighthouse on the air as a big opportunity out there.
SPEAKER_00:I'm trying to get better support of lighthouses globally. We have good support in for the England lighthouses. Some of these programs it's hard to get uh an official list of all the references and things like that. Yep. Not all of them have it. Some of them have it like in an Excel spreadsheet where like each tab has a separate country. Um which great that works for humans, but it's hard for Polo to read it directly. And then but I'm working on that. We are working on that. I've I've gotten also a lot of help from people from those programs who are who are interested in making sure that they're well supported too. So it's it's uh it's a collaboration. Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So we'll probably talk, we'll we'll loop back around. We're gonna try and go full circle with this. We'll get back to polo and and current era. But one of the things I wanted to take the conversation towards, just because I'm curious and I'm always very curious about people and and where they came from and how they got started, how they got to where they are today. So so Sebastian, you're originally from Venezuela, and at some point, some point you made it to the States. How did where did how did that all start? How did you get into software? It's you have a what from what I can gather from reading online, a uh pretty fascinating trek to where you are today.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Um I I I grew up in Venezuela, which also explains why I focus on the Arepa emoji. Um it was not just uh cultural appropriation, it was like it's a thing I eat every week here at home. Um I I I've been into software development since I was a kid. I was like the prototypical kid who like at 12 got his first computer. Um Sinclair ZX81 with 16 kilobytes of memory. And that was with the expansion. The origin the base was one kilobyte of memory. Jeez, I'm old. Um But like I I studied computer science in college, that was my thing. I started after graduation, I started doing a couple of uh internet-related projects, early internet, mid-90s. And uh at some point we started uh like a dot com startup with with with real startup funding from the US. There's a network of sites for Latin American youth called lockesea.com, whatever.com. And through that, in the in 2000, um, I said, Oh, we had a headquarter in the in New York City, right? Because the with with American funding, and we had a big production and development out in in Caracas. But I said, Hey, I would love to go to New York and spend the summer there, and I did that and loved it. And from there I said, I'm gonna get my visa and work for New York, and and the company helped me do that. I got a a transfer visa. Um I moved to New York with my wife in May of 2001, and which is not only when a couple of months before 9-11. Absolutely, yeah. But also the time when all of the dot com companies were dying. Yep. And including ours, like January 2002, the company shut down. We we found ourselves uh quickly jumping into a different job and another job, and and but we found ways to to stay, get the visas renewed and transferred. And in 2005, uh with with part of the friends who were part of the that Venezuelan startup or or or Latin American startup, we started a company called uh Street Easy in New York City, which is uh a real estate search, it's kind of like Zillow, but for New York City, and it was so good that Zillow bought us. Wow, that's a good problem. That's pretty cool. That that they they they tried to get into New York, and the easiest way to to do that in the end was to acquire acquire Street Easy. Uh so like that was like mid like 2013, 2014. Um then I I I left, I started doing I've been doing startups all my life of all kinds of things like like uh security, real estate search, I've done uh agricultural management, I've gone online education, I've gone tax filings. Right now I'm into uh uh um school fundraising tools. Um I kind of like I like jumping industries because it I'm curious about learning new how things happen on each of these industries. Yep. So I I I enjoy the the switch and the opportunity to learn new things and how people do different problems differently. Um and but yeah, we we moved here in 2001 and stayed and had kids here, uh anchor babies as they call them sometimes. Um they they grew up, they're one of them finished college already, the other one is in the process of doing that. Congratulations. Um and uh and this is this is home now. Yeah. It's been for a long time. And uh with I am uh at this point uh I I I've had like six different types of visas and then a green card, and now I'm an uh an American citizen. Um so it's uh I've gone through the the whole spectrum of the whole gambit the whole US immigration process, yeah. Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_03:It's never easy to navigate either.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no. No. I've had L1s and H1Bs and and TN1s and it yep. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:I mean that is Is there a theme on the on the things that you've developed, then Sebastian? When I'm thinking about each of those, I'm thinking uh distilling huge data sets into ways that make it more usable for normal folks. Like I is that the like is that the big theme here? I'm trying to figure out.
SPEAKER_00:I don't I don't I mean there there's a lot of that of trying to come up with with good ways of presenting information and trying to make it usable. I like to put myself in the shoes of the user and and try. I'm I'm not I'm not a uh a checklist engineer that gets a list of this is the things the app must do. Right. And then I do them, and then when they're done, it's like I've completed it. No, I'm I'm a I'm a product engineer, if you wish. Like I I'm doing the product. I I want to know who's using it, how they're using it. So when someone says you should be able to search for a call sign, I say, okay, I'll do that, but but how can I make that search better? How what how can I make it what is a small change I can do to make it 10% better? What is the thing that annoys me when I try to use it uh as as the user would, or or as I would, because I'm a user. Um and I try to focus on that a lot and and iterating all the time. So I think that software is like a living entity. You you if it's like a plant. If you don't take care of it, if you don't trim it and feed it and and and move it to a better place in the windowsill for the as the season changes, it'll die. Yep. Um or it we it it it will not grow as as it should.
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Ross Powell It outlives its usefulness, right, in in many ways, right? Because the way the users evolve, the way the user is using it evolve, right? And so if the app doesn't continue to move with the user, it becomes uh an afterthought for that user, and then they move on to something else that is more effectively serving their needs.
SPEAKER_01:Trevor Burrus, Jr. We've seen that you know that work with polo for sure, because you're constantly keeping that up to date and keeping people wanting to use it because it's kept fresh. That's definitely part of its magic for sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And Sebastian, I have a question on your engineering style too. So you say you design something for how the usability would happen. Would you describe yourself as someone that will develop like a like you you obviously have a passion for all the things you're working on? So will you start with like a minimal viable product, like an MVP, and then go, nope, it's not gonna work. I'm gonna move on to the next thing, or do you just go full bore?
SPEAKER_00:The sooner, the sooner I can get the product into the real world, the better. So I build the the the the the that MVP concept, that minimum viable product, the the least amount of features and code that can demonstrate if the idea works or doesn't.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you can start iterating from there and make it better. It's like the the the that that first version of Polo I used in in December of 2023 would barely work, but it worked. And it could let me export the log at the end. It could not do twofers or anything like that, but it would it would work. And a lot of the code that was there then is still in the app now. Yep. And but only using it is that I realized that certain things need to move around and change positions and change behaviors. I could not sit and think about it and try to come up with the perfect solution. Uh I need to go and do it and use it and put it in other people's hands, even if it's incomplete, even if it's if it's a a mediocre copy of what I have planned or what it should be. I need it to be out and and in the real world to see if it's if it if my thoughts, my theories are actually valid. So I I I try to come up with that idea of that concept of the MVP. What is the the minimum set of features I can add to get it out and tested?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's the little details, I think. And I and I'm thinking of as you're talking about it, how that applies as Apollo, right? Uh being able to comma delimit a set of call signs, right? And then send them all at once and it creates a row for each of those call signs, right? Or add multiple parks at the same time, right? And and again, uh as I type US dash or C A dash, it gives me the park number. So I think that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00:You don't need to type US dash or C A dash.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. Okay, see, there we go.
SPEAKER_00:Learn something new. That was that was actually one of the one of the one of the very first things that that made me think, hey, I maybe I should make my own logger. Yep. Was the fact that Many applications, uh, I'm not gonna name names, but but there were more than one, including the official PODA site. Sure. Require you to type US- and the whole set of numbers in order to search something. Yep. In polo, I know where you are. Or I know where the other GPS, right? Or if you're in park to park, I know where the other person is because they gave you the call sign. If they gave you a call sign that starts with kilo, they are in the US. You don't need to type US- I love it.
SPEAKER_03:If they gave you a call sign that's by a happy incident, too.
SPEAKER_00:And and I I love I love having little things like that that that you don't necessarily need to know. You can use Polit just fine, typing the entire thing. And and I don't want to interrupt. I mean, I will I just interrupted you in the conversation. I don't want to interrupt you. Oh, by the way, it looks like you're trying to enter a park. Did you know that you no? Well, I'll let you do it that way if you want to. But when you discover and when you discover it, it makes you feel smart. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:It makes you feel like here it feels so smart. I was I was doing PODA and California Cuso party over the weekend, and we'll talk about this in a bit too. But uh they have a county line operation there where people are giving two counties as as where they're at. So that of course I'm rapid fire, you know, contest exchange and they give me two counties. Quickly, my brain said, How do you do this in polo? Well, how do you do a two for or a three for? You put a comma between the two two calls and two parks, you put a comma between the two counties and it worked. I may or may not have squealed when that happened in the in the park when I when I saw that it worked and knew what I wanted. So that was that was that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's right. And and and a lot of those features they didn't come from me sitting down and thinking, oh, let me see what should be the requirement for this. And no, they came months later and say, Oh, I could also add a comment in this other field. It makes sense to add it in that place, or or it, or or I find myself trying to tap somewhere on the screen and realize, oh, this doesn't give me something. But if I tap here, why not take the user here or there? And there's still plenty of things I haven't gotten to yet or haven't discovered or people haven't pointed out yet that I want to keep adding. But it's like I love having these little things where the app works just fine, but then you discover one little thing that makes you faster or happier or or or and it it gives you a sense of of of discovery and wonder and like, oh look at me, I'm so smart. Like you said, that you you you discover that rover in the middle of the activation, and you're like, oh yeah, the coma work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. There was a there was a gentleman that was uh coming back from a bike ride because where I set up is uh a fishing launch area and also a trail launch area. So uh it's kind of a secluded, not everyone launches from there, but if you know it's there, you can get there. And uh the guy was just come back from his ride. He knew what I was doing. He had talked to me when he first got there. He thought it was strange that someone was sitting out in the back of their car playing radio. But uh he got back and I I was working that County Line station and and I I made a funny sound and he looked over at me and I I I told him everything was okay. It was but yeah, no, that's that was that was uh that was a fun one for sure. And I I had made a note to mention that.
SPEAKER_02:Um well if you're a software developer, you might learn something tonight as well on the old Everyday Ham podcast here, because I I I'm in software, but tangentially kind of, so it's fun to hear uh some of your approach to how you come up with this thing. Um I think these are really, really useful things to know.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not just you, Rory. I like when when I first added the ability to add a coma in the call signs when you have two operators and things like that. Every time I was on a park activating, and I would type a call sign, type their park-to-park reference, and there was a but please stand by, there's another operation. I would laugh. I would like, we have to do that. No, no problem. Right, right. No, because I'll be honest.
SPEAKER_01:So when I was using one of the one of the previous apps that I don't use before, there was not a native way to do uh multi-operators, multi-parks. You could type them all in separately and hit enter. But that actually for a while, I I avoided, and and everyone knows that I avoid multi-op things because they take so long to get through the list, and I'm generally in a hurry. But if you could log them quickly, I'm okay with that. But there was no way to do it in some of the older software. Suddenly polo can do it easily. I'm not I'm not always avoiding the uh the multis anymore. James, go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:I do have a question though. So is there a limit? And I'll tell you why I asked this question. Is there a limit on the number of commas and activators you can separate in one entry?
SPEAKER_00:No. Um, other than then after a while I start stretching the view and might it might render on top of the other. I haven't tested it with a large number.
SPEAKER_03:I I can tell you, I I think I did. It was at Caesar State Creek, the ham venture creek this last year. There was a campsite just a few over. I believe they had 19 or 17 operators sitting there. Yeah, yeah. And I I was like, oh shoot, they were calling on the radio. I was like, I didn't know there were 17 of them. So I called the one. I'm like, oh, I'll just get out my polo app and my phone, I'll log it. And they go, please stand by. Next one. Please stand by, next one. Then I was like, I'm gonna break this app.
SPEAKER_00:They handled it. They should have used if they had been using polo and had spotted themselves that way. I don't know if how it would work with 19 people. Maybe there were it was but but polo would spot all 19 of them to the PODA website. And when Polo sees in the spots two stations in the same frequency with the same park reference, it also puts them with a coma in the spots. So when you tap on it, when you tap on it in the spots, it'll pull all of them for you.
SPEAKER_03:Nice. So I'll politely walk over next time. Yeah. Tell them. Have you met Polo? Um I I do want to maybe go back a little bit. I'm sorry, Rory, but I I I we didn't really cover your ham journey so much and where you started.
SPEAKER_00:No. So there's there's the the the short story is that I I'm a pandemic ham. Like March 2020, I was uh we were living in New York City. I I I was looking at the news and I say, this doesn't look good. We have this this where I live now, a small country house like about two hours uh northwest of the city. Come here every weekend, but we were in this living in the city, the kids were going to school there, and things don't look good. I tell my wife, let's let's grab our stuff and head upstate. This doesn't look good. In fact, try to grab as many things as you could have because this looks like it's gonna be a big for like bad for a while, a big deal. It might even be like a couple of weeks. Uh we should be ready for. Um but literally we we we we move before they even shut down the schools here in in the city. We get here and it's super quiet. I feel like isolated, and and I order a scanner from Amazon. Oh like a bear cat. Like just wanted to hear what was going on around me, and like and the scanner, of course, at some point I picked up the local repeater and oh yeah, amateur radio. I I knew about this thing. Um and I started looking online, and by mid-April, I had my license. Um, I I crammed, I took one of our first online tests that they were being organized through hamstudy.org. Um I I I got my one friend I asked through Twitter back then that I knew he was a ham. He said, one piece of advice, study for the general. Don't stop because because going from the general, from tech to general is not that hard. It's not that much more study. Go for the general. And that was that was life-changing advice. Um, I might have gone into tech and said, Oh yeah, this was fun, and and then push it aside. Yeah, but I didn't. I got into like and and I started playing with all the things, and I got a 20-watt Diegu G90 radio and started working on HF, and one weekend I hop on, and the bands are like crazy. The the little uh waterfall looks like a scene from The Matrix with all the letters falling. Um, and I discover contests, and oh, contests are fun, and I start looking into that, and I get myself a better radio, and then I get myself more radios, and uh five years later I got my full DXCC. I've done contests, I've gone plaques, I'm doing all the things. I've I've done 200 parks on the air activations, and I've I've gone all down, not all, but many of the rabbit holes. Um I like like I think it was uh Jim who mentioned it earlier. Uh I became part of the organizing committee for the DX Marathon, which is kind of like a year-long competition of getting the XCC uh how many DXCC entities and zones you can contact every year. I I developed the all the software for the marathon. I help basically I'm I'm the IT manager, is the official title. Uh I got involved with Drid Tracker early on, um which is an open source program. Tag uh is a great guy, came up with all the his he's a crazy coder. He comes up with these ideas, he's he's hyper productive, he's done a great job there.
SPEAKER_01:Grid tracker is very important. It makes uh FT8 a lot more exciting than just watching watching the paint dry. Got it installed here. Got it installed here.
SPEAKER_00:Um so the the a lot of the work in the grid tracker roaster was me.
SPEAKER_01:Um I've I've that actually makes sense because I just started using that, and my friend Sean, K8SAW, another local ham here, brought it to my attention. He's like, I just started using this function in grid tracker, and there was something familiar about it. So that kind of makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's trying to figure help you figure out all the the all the noise, all the of all the things you're hearing, which ones are are important there. Um and then I ended up starting polo like a couple of years ago. Um I've ever since I started being a ham, I was like, I don't like all the software. I I find myself wanting not just more, but but different, and and I'm not gonna say better, but better for me. Um and but I was not I kind of felt like I needed to understand ham radio better, and I couldn't just jump into my first year, um but like three years in, I felt I had enough of an understanding to to jump in. Um and I also decided to go on the phone because A, I I I understood portable operations. I've done them, I knew what what I needed, so it was a good place to start in a very focused way. And if you solve a user interface problem, a usability problem on the small screen on a phone, it's somewhat easy to extrapolate that when you have more space. It's hard to do the opposite. It's hard to you could come up with you could come up with decent solutions on a desktop that will not work on a phone.
SPEAKER_02:Once it gets small.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Whereas if you if it works on a phone, it's easy to to make it work on more space or add more things around it uh to take advantage of the space. So I decided to start with phones. I I I do have uh ambitions of world domination and having the the one and only app that does all the things in ham radio 10, 15 years down the road. Um I do I do want, I mean, I need a better desktop logger. I need a better way to manage my logs. I need a better contest logger. Um I I there's there's many things I want to get into, and I've started like slowly adding things to Polo to move it in that direction. I don't know if the final thing is gonna still be Polo or Polo will become power logger instead of portable logger, and we'll do all the things, or I'll have a separate desktop logger that's different from portable logger. But I want to I want to tackle all of those things and get there.
SPEAKER_01:I think the I think the the keeping it, the idea of keeping it fresh is important. I I know Jim, Jim and I have talked about at times the the aged look of so many ham radio software that are out there that have just never been changed because of course they work, but we have this thing with with the ham radio hobby where people kind of fall in this uh oh, it's okay, so I don't need to do anything about it. So it just kind of stays stagnant. But this this approach of of wanting to continuously improve, keep things moving, make it better, not stay stagnant is is refreshing to me for sure. I know I I've I've gone through a ton of desktop loggers. Um I've not found one that I use consistently. I don't like any of them, I'll be perfectly honest. It's there's something there's something that uh is is missing or just not for me.
SPEAKER_03:There's a lot of trade-offs between them.
SPEAKER_01:There are some of them are better for certain things than others, but I've I've really just not come up with a solution.
SPEAKER_00:The the the fun fact, the name Ham2K was was both one one is it was a short domain name that was available, and that's very valuable. Yes, but the other was a bit tongue-in-cheek of saying like bringing amateur radio to the 21st century. Sure. Oh, okay. The the the I think that that we should update some of the the approach, not just the in the looks, but the approach.
SPEAKER_01:I think I think you are maybe find someone who wants to update the the slow scan TV uh application. Yeah, that's like it's been since 1990, whatever, too. So that's that one that one comes that one comes to it works. Again, it's another one of those that works.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's it's a thing, and that's a that's a valid take, too. It's like it works. Why do you you need to spend more time on it if it works? You could probably use that time on something more productive and something more important, and that's that's perfectly valid. But at the same time, it's like I believe that there's ways of making them better that haven't been tried yet. So it's worth giving it a shot.
SPEAKER_02:I think, Sebastian, and and I'll I'll say some things here, and you can agree or disagree. Uh you come with a very uniquely suited background for this type of work, right? You you said, hey, I'm gonna look for a solution to this problem for ham software, and I'm gonna build something new that that is uh modern and and and very easy to use. And I think when I th when I look at other pieces of ham software, not everyone, but when we look at that, a lot of them are as is uh very true of most of the things of this hobby developed by the hobbyists themselves, right? Someone that their first job is not software. Uh they simply uh got dangerous enough with uh whatever code they chose uh to build the app that they needed for the thing that they wanted to solve a problem for. And and uh in many ways, I think some of those pieces of software that we're still using uh were designed early by those types of folks, you know, that that didn't have a background or a true understanding, and that's okay. They they they did what they could with what they had, and that's that's very much a true ham thing.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell Or they had the the full background and the ability, and they started when they started and with the tools they had at hand then. I mean, one huge advantage I had is that I started two years ago and not 20 years ago. That's true. Because it's real once you get something that works in a certain way, it's not only hard to make it to evolve it into a different type of thing, it's it's not productive. Like it's the same thing with the SS TV thing. It's like you got it to work, it reached a point where we're of diminishing returns, of spending another year making it 10% better might not be worth it. Let me move on to something else. Sure, sure. Where I started from a point of view is like is it what we call a greenfield application. It's like this, I can do whatever I want with it. I can start from zero, I can I can figure out what I want to build and and how to better build it with all the lessons I've learned from 25 years of software development experience on how to build an application that's more responsive. If I had become a ham 20 years ago, I probably would have written the kind of app I'm criticizing. Uh and it would have still looked that same way. So it's it's it's that was my big advantage that I came to it late.
SPEAKER_02:Uniquely suited to solving the problem and doing it in a in a very effective way, I think. Yeah. Yep. Very good.
SPEAKER_03:I kind of have a question around back to maybe your engineering style a little bit. Are are you philosophically, are you excited where you see sort of software and maybe for ham radio moving? We always have a debate, for example, here on what is AI going to be in the future for ham radio. Are we gonna put it in the radios itself for signal processing? Is it gonna help with software development like vibe coding, where people are gonna have more access to create their own apps in the future? Like, where do you see this heading and and I and you obviously being on the forefront of you know creating apps for ham radio?
SPEAKER_00:I um I'm generally uh I have a positive view of of what AI can bring, but also skeptical. I I found that AI has is very good at doing what you ask it to do. And the the problem has always been figuring figuring out figuring out exactly what you want it to do. Right. And and how to describe it. You can tell an AI, hey, build me an app logging, uh logging app that does PODA. And it might even you can let it work for a day and it might come back with something that that actually fulfills that request. Yep But the hard part is not writing the the lines of code. It's is is and the AI is great at making you more productive. I use AI tools all the time to to to help me solve some of these things. But it always ends up being the the the menial chores, the the the the the writing the code for me that it's obvious how to write. The the coming up with the ideas of what is needed I I don't I don't see it doing it because it really doesn't have that it AIs are based on learning everything we've written in the past. So sometimes they can come up with with some novel ways of of looking at that past data, but they're not good at creating something from scratch. At at creating at coming up with a new approach to something or and they're also not be the artist, but maybe not produce original. They're not gonna create a new style of art. Right. They can they can do new pieces in an existing style, but they're not gonna come up with a new style of art, a new new type of music, or a new type of application. And the other thing they tend to not be good at is anything that goes beyond the the small context window and the task at hand. Like having a vision for a long-term uh project and how all the pieces fit together and how they're maintainable. Um so from a software development point of view, I don't think that that I think that they're a great tool. It's just that they're not the miracle tool that's gonna destroy my career. Right. Um I think it's a problem that many companies think they don't need junior developers because the AI can do the kind of things that junior developers do. I think that's very uh mistaking because AI does need senior developers, and there's only one way to become a senior developer, and that is being a junior developer. Yep. Um and and some companies have been smart enough to keep hiring them and keep developing developing that new talent. Uh others are saying, like, yeah, no, why do I need to hire? Like, I'll keep the the the the the the few senior developers I have, I'll fire everybody else and they'll be more productive. AI will make you 10, 20% more productive, not 50, 100%. Um now on amateur radio, I think that that there's there's lots of things you can do in terms of of voice recognition and signal recognition. Um I think I don't know, it it's it can take away the fun part of a hobby. Right. Um I I having said that I know plenty of people who think that FT8 has taken away the fun part of a hobby by making it easier to do uh uh like like weak signal operation instead of trying to get better signals, you can deal with weak signal and like anybody can get the XEC now. Sure. Um so if AI helps you in a way that makes you enjoy the hobby more, go and do it and and and do it as much as you want. Absolutely um it's it's uh I don't think it's gonna transform the hobby. Uh but I I wouldn't be surprised if if a year from now Polo will let you speak the uh as you repeat the call sign over the air, it'll write down in the log for you. That'll be a very nice thing to have.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's one thing that I realized, like that it's funny. I I I come I I had the idea, it's one of those ideas that it's it's it's kind of obvious once you start thinking about it, and it happened that many times at the same time. Trying to recognize a call sign in the middle of a very noisy signal is really hard. Yeah. But your brain will recognize that call sign and repeat it to the other person to acknowledge them. Right. When you're doing that, you're talking very close to your microphone of your phone and very loudly and clearly. So you all that polo needs to do is hear you when you are repeating the call sign. And I found out that that's how closed captioning is done. Closed captioners basically repeat out loud what they're hearing on the TV.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Because the early voice recognition apps were not good enough to capture to to understand what the the audio coming from the live seek feed was saying. Yep. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:But if you're not sure.
SPEAKER_00:But you have somebody repeating what they're hearing, and then all of a sudden the the the the machine learning, the the algorithms can pick up what you're saying and quickly type it for you. Um I was, yeah, that was very clever. That is smart. But I haven't I haven't gotten to the point where Paulo does that yet. There's there's there was a few other things I need to do.
SPEAKER_02:Something to look forward to, maybe. There's a few other things I need to get for to first.
SPEAKER_01:That would be groundbreaking. I mean, the the just the automation of that one less thing to do when you're when you're trying to listen to a listen to a weak signal out at a park would be that would be that would be excellent. I never even I never even thought of that was a good question, James, about AI, because that took it down a path that uh I would have never thought would have been a been a thing. But uh there you go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's good to get a also a uh a software engineer's perspective on that, because I know there's a lot of uh very sensational headlines right now about uh AI putting folks out of jobs, right? And and I'm certain that in the short term it will affect things, but I think that Sebastian makes some very fair arguments to say that there is still a need for that human touching. Yeah, and there's some people even in the development. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00:There's some people whose jobs are definitely going to be affected forever. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Absolutely. Um and and and that's a that's a a very important discussion, and there's there's impact there. So I'm not saying that that AI is just insignificant or or not. A lot of it is is is hype in a sense and and and a lot of it it and and it does some crazy things like creating a podcast for you or doing these videos, but then all the podcasts it creates, they read the same.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna say they start to look all the same, right? Slop happens.
SPEAKER_01:We start seeing it on YouTube. I got stuck in a loop of of related videos, and I got to like the third one, and I'm like, this isn't even a person speaking. I and I said it's saying the same thing about nothing I've been listening to for the last 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00:The slop is real, the slop is is ruining the feeds. Um it's uh which is why it's good to have like live recordings like this. Yeah. Um who's who can prove that we're not just a some of the best AI avatars I've seen yet, by the way.
SPEAKER_02:So if we're doing this, we should uh we should be selling them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:See, Jim, Jim has an AI poodle over there. Cash may not even be real wandering around Jim's Jim's office. But look, the poodle has only three legs. Ooh. Yeah. There's always a there's always a tell. I think AI, I mean, this the more thinking about it through this conversation, we're probably gonna have to live through kind of a full cycle of of AI doing a lot of things and then realizing that doesn't work and and cleaning out the negatives that come of it, which is gonna be like the early dot-com bubble.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Hopefully we'll survive as a civilization to get to a point where it can recover from fair.
SPEAKER_01:I also hope so. Yeah. I hope so. That'd be nice. Just uh just as long as they don't come up with one that can uh do construction accounting, I'll be okay. That's my thing.
SPEAKER_03:So well, and and I will say my dirty secret is I work in human resources. So with that said though, Sebastian, I agree fully with you that AI does not replace junior developers at all. But also the other thing that I see happening in the market is they replace senior developers. They hire junior developers and say, here's your AI tool, go do what the senior developer does. But the problem is you don't have the experience, you don't have the knowledge, you haven't experienced, you haven't talked to a U and learned how to build good UI and good feature sets. And I think you need to keep the full spectrum. AI to me is a tool in the toolbox, and you still need the people interacting with that tool. Yeah. Just like a good process. A process doesn't necessarily replace the the tool, you know, kind of.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we're dealing with that at work right now. With we we've had a we had a little bit of turnover with our senior project management. People decided to move on, and we had some of the junior folks go in and finish the projects, but without and they're doing great. They're learning, and and it's it's a great opportunity for them. But without that, that senior knowledge and the actual the actual experience, there's there's big voids, and that, you know, unless unless AI has learned it and it's not going to learn all those little specifics. It just isn't. Um, at least I hope it's not. Um you know, we go, we'll see where it goes, but I think I think we'll still always need need the human component for sure.
SPEAKER_03:So can I bring it back to polo real quick? Because I I know this is also so I I'd be really curious from your point of view also, what is your favorite feature that you've implemented in polo that isn't the commas or isn't any of that that maybe other people don't know about as well? I know it's hard to pick your favorite child, but like where what are you most proud of, I guess, with polo?
SPEAKER_01:What makes you squeal when you do it? Like I talked about putting the commas in for the county line.
SPEAKER_00:I I love the the shortcut commands you do on the call sign field. Okay. Where when I get to a park, I set up my antenna, get start trying to find uh a place to start running. I normally actually look at the spots, find somebody who's operating, try to see if if my setup is working by trying to contact another park.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Once that's done, I kind of try to find an open spot nearby. And once I do, I just type the frequency on the call sign.
SPEAKER_03:Wait, that's a thing? That's a thing.
SPEAKER_00:I was just gonna say I didn't know this either. Why? You do not need to tap on the little radio, then tap on the field that has a frequency. You just type the frequency on the call sign.
SPEAKER_01:I I wasted a lot of time this week. Mind blown.
SPEAKER_00:And and if you you you can type 14.200, or you can type 14200. No need to type the the period because polo can figure out that there's no ambiguity. No, there's no ambiguity I I realize there's there's there's there's almost no ambiguity between the frequencies you can operate as a ham on whether you're talking about kilohertz or megahertz.
SPEAKER_02:Megahertz, yep.
SPEAKER_01:So it even says when you type in the frequency, it even checks to make sure that you're not crazy. It says change frequency to 3900 and you hit it down there and it goes.
SPEAKER_00:And Rowley, if you type 14 no, if it let me make it easier. Just type dot zero fifty. Oh, so it knows what band you're in, so it just changes to it now also changes to CW.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, look at that. Because it knows what it knows the band plan. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So all you need to do when you get to the park is type the frequency you're gonna start running. So I I I take the mic and say kilo inde to delta is frequency in use a couple of times, and then I start saying kilo inde to delta parks on the air, QRZ, and as I'm doing that, I type the frequency in in my logger so that it has the right frequency. And then I type QRV.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And when you type that, if you press enter, it'll spot you on the POTA site with QRV and it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's that's excellent. So um and I one of my one of my notes to ask about was about shortcuts. And those are those are two right there that are that are super handy. The spotting, changing frequency, and and doing doing all the things. Um I think uh now I want to go out and activate and play with these things I just learned. I went through, I was reading, I was glancing at the the manual online today, and I found the um uh call sign stacking.
SPEAKER_00:I I look forward to I look forward to playing with that at some point too. Here's a a meta tip. You mentioned it. There's a manual. If you go on the call sign field and you type RTFM, it'll find the manual for you.
SPEAKER_01:That is that is so you can go read it. So that's step one. When you when you download, when you download Pode at Don't do anything before typing in. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00:Go go use it. Go use it for a week or two before you go into the spend time reading the manual. Because it'll make you feel smarter than if you're going to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01:We have a friend of ours who uh who's a who's a heavy pod a guy, Jason KN4AL thousands of activations at this point. He's still doing pen and paper, but he's like, I can't handle the pileup doing it in a in a in a keyboard, you know, typing it in. That might be the answer.
SPEAKER_00:No, the the the the the the callstein stacking, if you don't know what to do. You explain Calstein stacking, yeah. Thank you. You're gonna do it. I'm on a pileup and I hear November 8, Juliet, and then as I'm trying to and I start typing November 8th, Juliet, and then I hear Kilo 8 Juliet Kilo uniform.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So and I uh you you step on top of Jim, but I got the first I got the November 8. I didn't get to type the Juliet. I type slash slash and then I type the rest of a call I did hear completely. So Kilo 8 Juliet Kilo uniform. And I then say out loud kilo eight Juliet Kilo uniform, 5-9 into my park. You confirm, I press send. It puts you in the log, but it keeps November 8th in the call sign field.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:And then I go say, okay, the November 8, go ahead now. Which saves me a round of pile-up.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Even even if I didn't get your full call sign, James, when that happens, like whatever thing I hear, I start typing it. If I what I hear belongs to a different voice, I put a slash slash. And and in most keyboards, there's no eash on the phone. If you type period, it will convert it to a slash for you. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So on Android phones, the period is there. On on uh iPads, the period is there. Yep. If you're on an iPhone and you have the virtual number of keys that polo dots for you, there should be a period at the end. If you tap there twice, it'll put you two slashes. Or same thing if you're trying to somebody calls you and like it's it's a mobile or QRP, you can use the period instead of a slash key to enter a slash.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:You know what's funny is I see I saw the period up there in the in the special bar that you can turn on, and I didn't know why. And I never questioned it.
SPEAKER_00:Because I was like, And on that bar, if if you start tipping a call sign, that period will change to a slash as soon as you type any letters.
SPEAKER_02:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:It's a period as if if you type not typing numbers, it remains a period. If you type a one letter, it becomes it, it changes to a slash.
SPEAKER_03:Beautiful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's an excellent question for Sebastian. And I think that if you're listening here, you probably learned something even more about uh how awesome Ham2K Polo is here.
SPEAKER_00:So you don't need to get into the the advanced features to to enjoy polo. That's kind of what you're doing. No, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:I didn't even know that existed.
SPEAKER_00:You should be able to do the basic things without needing to read any manual. Yeah. Um it's only the the the more advanced feature that or or doing the basic things faster that you'd benefit if you read the manual.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:That's the goal, at least. Don't always achieve it, but but that's what we strive for.
SPEAKER_01:So just a couple more things. We're we're coming up on an hour here, and we don't want to keep Sebastian until until all hours. So um just a couple more things. What what big's coming from what is the next big thing out of polo? Now, I I mentioned a couple times uh the California Cuso party I did with Parks on the Air. I was pleased to see one of the new things that's that has come into Polo is the ability to do CUSO parties and other contests on top of Parks on the Air. Um I did have a little trouble with the serial number incrementing, and you told me that was brand new to Polo. So that's still working on the code.
SPEAKER_00:That's what you get for doing the California Cuso party, which is the first the first big event that needs numbers. But this year we've we we've worked hard trying to add support for all the QSO parties, all 40, I think it's 42 of them. Um as you can tell, some of them better than others, but we tried to do full support of all the rules and all the quirks each one of them has. They and they told me they're all different. They all are all different.
SPEAKER_01:So that is something I've started doing. I've started doing a lot of CUSO parties, and most of the most of the time I do them alongside with with PODA. So being able to do them on polo, to log them on polo, is is a huge step forward for me the way I operate.
SPEAKER_00:The the New York Cuso party is my favorite event of a year, even more so than Field Day or anything else. Okay. Um I I I don't think I was trying to get polo to the level where it could satisfy what I needed to do this year. I didn't get there. Um the thing is, I do I mean I'm ruining this for everybody who knows the trick, but the best way to get a good score in a cuser party is to operate portable at a park. Um if you can do it at a county line, even better if the that state supports county line operation. Um the thing is that I go, I set up three, four antennas, I bring my flex and I operate SO2R. Uh so that's going all in. And and Polo is not quite yet at the point where he can support SO2R operation. The main thing that's missing to do that would be CAT control.
SPEAKER_01:You're hitting on one of my questions, actually, is if that's ever something that's even possible.
SPEAKER_00:Cat control, it is possible. Depending on the phone and device and radio you want to control, you might need a bridge device in between you and the radio. That will be like a little Raspberry Pi connected to the serial port of a radio and doing Bluetooth to your phone. Okay. Something like that. We've done experiments. We we we got started there. It kind of got sidetracked by other things, but it it is something that that we've started playing with, and it's definitely coming. I I need to have that.
SPEAKER_01:That that that makes me that makes me smile because that was actually one of my one of my things. And I didn't know if there would be hardware limitations. I'm not I'm not good at all the things, but uh it sounds like you're already thinking about that because it's as simple as when I was spinning the dial this weekend during the QSO party, I had to make sure I changed the frequency. Or if you're out there hunting on a normal Saturday and you're just hunting, if we click the spot on the right, take my radio there would be a tremendous that is definitely something I want to have in the app.
SPEAKER_00:And and I'm I'm frustrated that it's not there yet. So I'm the first one who's complaining so much. I'm glad you're frustrated because that means you take it seriously. Yes, no, it's like you've done you've done so much and it's doing so well. I'm frustrated in a very selfish way. It's like it's not that I'm frustrated that I cannot please Rory and having the CAT control you want. No. I'm frustrated because I want to have CAT control.
SPEAKER_05:I love it.
SPEAKER_00:I want it for a New York USO party.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the the but so cat control is coming. I kind of pushed it into the back burner because I want to get two other things first.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:The first is uh cloud sync.
SPEAKER_05:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:So and that's something that actually I've started, I've been working on it for months on and off. The app has been syncing to the cloud for nine months, probably. So every Q so you enter, if you have said, if you selected the part that says share the data with the developers and whatnot, that goes to our cloud server. So if if you lose your phone and you lose your operation, but you had connection, I might have the log if you ever need it. The hard thing is actually syncing back to the phone. That's the one that has taken me a long time. In the last two months, I've started working more focused on that part. I did a couple of weeks ago, the very first activation. We had a special uh station here in in Sullivan County, New York, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and the local club went there, and we had two stations uh working Kilo 2 Delta, and that was on two separate phones, and one phone and one tablet, and they were both logging on the same log. And when one station logged a few seconds later, it will show up on my phone on the other station. Nice and and and so on, and the totals were the combined log and all of that. So I I might have I will probably have something working well enough for for beta testing for winter field day, if anybody is interested. I definitely want to have it polished for summer field day.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I was just gonna say it reminds me, so we sync using N1MMM. We set up uh, you know, date and we have all our network computers and they all get the updates as we go. But it sounds a lot like that, right? For for more multi-op competition level logging, it would be awesome to have.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's kind of like that what that would do. But also if you get a new phone, you connect it to your account and it'll download all your activations. If you or if you have a phone and a tablet, it'll have both have the same data.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that would be that's cool because there's yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's a handful of people testing that in the wild right now, um, which of course brought up all the little bugs. Sure. Um and sadly, I mean online syncing data is one of those things that it's what how hard would that be? It's it's it's I've read the message boards.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Same thing as as I want to write a a chat, a chat. How hard is it to write a chat? Trust me. Been there, stop that. It's tough. Um it's tough. So same thing with syncing data. So the minimum viable product for syncing data is actually more than just a couple of weeks of work.
SPEAKER_05:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and and and at the same time, I didn't want to abandon all the other features like user parties and so on. So I've been working on on like two tracks, normal features and sync. And sync is almost ready to go out. Um the next thing after sync is done is I want to bring Windows support, like a desktop version of the app and or a web version that works well on desktop, probably both. Okay. The exact order of the what's gonna come out will depend on on how it develops. Sure. But I want to have a very solid desktop alternative. You can actually run polo on Macs because the the new Macs let you run iPad apps directly. So you could run polo on a on a new Mac laptop.
SPEAKER_01:We have a couple of newer hams locally here in our South Lion, local South Lion club that are doing that actually, and they're they're liking their they prefer it actually over other logging platforms already. So I've I've not done it, but I should try it.
SPEAKER_00:I I still personally prefer logging on my phone because of of I think that Rory was saying it earlier. It's like, I don't need to carry my laptop with you. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00:Like the the the pull it out of your pocket and go. It's one less thing I need to make sure it's charged and and with me.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:All I need to make sure is I have a radio with a battery and and and a wire. And then I can have these opportunistic activations when I find myself with an extra hour, I'll stop at the park and do an activation and didn't need to remember to bring the logging device. Um but sometimes if you're in a contest or if you're home sitting at your desktop, logging on your f on your computer is what makes the most sense. So I I want to have but I wanted to have the sync first because I don't think it's that useful to have a desktop on your app and a desk uh an app on your desktop and one on your phone if they don't talk to each other.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_00:So that's why I I ended up doing sync first. And then after the desktop app is there, I want to work on getting cat control um working well in all of those, both in the phones and the desktop.
SPEAKER_02:So you've got a lot of work ahead of you here. So we won't put your we won't hold your feet to the fire on this one. But uh it's exciting to hear some of the things that are coming for you. Um, or could be coming for everyone uh if they're using M2K Polo. And I have a uh a question for you, and don't uh I I want to ask it out loud because I think that uh we're all very grateful for the efforts that you put in. Uh if if somebody does appreciate what you're doing and wants to help you out uh financially, help the developering team out a little bit, uh how how best do they they reach out, Sebastian? Is it just the buy me a coffee link?
SPEAKER_00:There's a few things you can do. The first one is you know, as you do on YouTube, is like like hit like, subscribe, and all of those things. Yes, on both your channel but also the Ham2K channel. Okay, I'm sure it'll be linked in the comments below. Uh and but you all you need to do is search for Ham 2K and you'll find it. Uh subscribe to the channel, that's always that always helps. Um use the app. Above anything, use the app if you want to leave a review in the app stores, that helps a lot. And then if you want to support us economically, uh you can do that both inside the app. If you go on the settings, there's some big bright buttons that says uh contribute. You can donate to the app stores. If you go on the polo.ham2k.com site, that's where the manual is. There's a link to buy me a coffee. Uh that means we pay less of the platform tax that you pay if you do it on the app. But I don't really, I mean, whatever is most convenient is is what works.
SPEAKER_02:Is best, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The the cloud service will end up being a paid feature. There will be a free tier and and there will be a paid tier. The the idea with the free tier will be something along the line of uh it'll sync the last week or two weeks of update. Yeah. So if you if you turn your iPad on every day, it'll sync whatever you do. But if you don't turn on your iPad for a month, when you go back to it, it will only sync the last two weeks of operations you've done. That makes sense. Um if if at that point you lose your phone and you lose your iPad and you're crying because you lost your operations, you can come and pay and and all your cusos will be there and you can recover them.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, there you go.
SPEAKER_00:Um it's a rescue option. It's a it's uh yes. I mean, I don't I don't guarantee I'll keep all your accusers forever, but but I I sure that that's uh but it will be a good way of supporting the app and it's not gonna be expensive. I haven't decided on the pricing yet, but it's gonna be in the three, four dollars a day or or or thirty, twenty-five, thirty dollars a year, something like that. Um three, four dollars a month, not uh not a day.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna I was gonna correct you on that one because I assumed that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, no, a day a day is definitely not and I I also want to and and but I also want to be sensitive and mindful of people who live in in lots of other places outside of the US where$3 a month is a significant amount. And and I want to be able I want to make sure everybody can can use the app and and and enjoy the hobby. So I'll I'll come up with some ways of of having differential pricing, and I'm sure somebody will abuse that and get a to pay less than they they sure would have. I don't care. Um it's it's if they if they can live with that, I can live with that.
SPEAKER_02:And I will say we we often say that here on the Everyday Ham, right? There's hams of many, many means, right? Yes. Uh some have many, many means available to them and some do not. And and and really we don't want to borrow those folks from the hobby.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of people in the U.S. who are retired living on fixed income that that the hobby is the thing that keeps them happy and and moving.
SPEAKER_02:And and for communicating with other people because that's the one way that they get out of the house, right?
SPEAKER_00:And again, that for them, five dollars is a significant amount. It's it it they have to budget all their expenses. I don't want to be the barrier between them and join the hobby.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. I will hand it back to Rory because I butted in there. Sorry, and I do appreciate it. Uh thank you for your effort.
SPEAKER_00:And I mean, in case it's not clear, for your listeners who haven't checked polo, it the app is free.
SPEAKER_02:It is free.
SPEAKER_00:And the app is open source. So even if I decide later to not make it free, somebody can come up and take at least whatever it was available to the point where I decided to not make it free anymore and and keep going with it. So it's but that that's a that's a way to keep me honest, too. It's like it's uh it's uh I I I put that out there so that that that decision is kind of like mostly permanent, that it's gonna there's always gonna be a free polo uh out there. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Sebastian, thank you for giving us more than an hour of your time. This is this is precious developer time that you could be going and working on cat control, but you're here talking to us. That's right.
SPEAKER_00:You know where my buy me a coffee is. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:I do know where it's at, and I'll I'll use it again for sure. And uh thanks that you're you're not only an asset to the emoji community and the ham radio community, you know, you're an asset to all of us that that have had the opportunity to listen to you tonight. Fascinating person, fascinating developer, fascinating ham radio operator. Hopefully we can have you back on here maybe in six months to see where we're at with with polo. I'd I'd love to.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe we'll be talking about the desktop version or about how frustrated I am because I haven't been able to get the desktop version.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure having you on here, and and uh it's just it's been fun to get a glimpse into uh where it all started and and uh where it where it's going. So thank you very much. I've enjoyed it a lot.
SPEAKER_00:This has been a very pleasure, pleasurable evening.
SPEAKER_03:We appreciate you, and I hope that the whole ham community appreciates you as well. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for that. We'll say 7 3 73 73
