Matter of Facts: Comms is Sorcery

[00:00:03] Welcome back to the Matter of Facts podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network

[00:00:06] We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify

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[00:00:17] I'm your host Phil Rabbley and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic and here's your show

[00:00:22] So welcome back to Matter of Facts podcast

[00:00:25] This is the show where I have Shanghai, Browbeet, Bullead, and Begda listener to come on the show and

[00:00:31] talk to us about something that Andrew and I don't know near as much about because

[00:00:35] as is kind of tradition for us at this point we start the show by saying that

[00:00:39] Andrew and I don't know a whole ton about the subject and we're here to learn and share information with the audience

[00:00:44] So to greet the guest, Scott, thanks for coming on the show and

[00:00:49] I'm going to stand by and poke and prod you and get you to ramble as much as humanly possible about the subject

[00:00:55] We all want to know about

[00:00:58] Oh, welcome

[00:01:00] Thanks for having me and

[00:01:02] Good to be here. We'll see if we can actually impart some of

[00:01:06] A little bit of knowledge I have and on everyone else and hopefully

[00:01:10] Everyone's a little bit smarter and not any dumber for having this

[00:01:14] I mean if they've been listening to us for any length time not getting a dumber

[00:01:17] I think they've already bottomed out

[00:01:22] So Andrew you look a little disheveled. I know you just came from another engagement

[00:01:26] Yeah, I

[00:01:30] Started the preparation for the truck

[00:01:34] So my buddy

[00:01:36] He's who I talked about last week. He's got a youtube channel called cars will cars cars will's customs

[00:01:43] And he's kind of helping me film and trying to get my youtube channel off the off the ground a little bit

[00:01:51] So we were putting the we got the bed rack on

[00:01:55] And we actually so I forgot that I so I bought supports

[00:01:59] Bed supports to help stabilize because Tacoma is if nobody does if they don't know

[00:02:04] Tacomas have a composite bed

[00:02:08] And over time if with weight and if you especially if you put like a lot of I mean

[00:02:14] Basically if you put really a lot of heavy stuff in the back of the truck for a long period of time, especially like a

[00:02:20] Bed rack or just like I put the dex drawer system that it tends to just warp over time

[00:02:27] because of that composite and so I bought

[00:02:31] Their bed stiffeners basically that kind of reinforce and they bring the bed back to

[00:02:35] alignment factory alignment and everything so

[00:02:39] We opened up the package from cali raised

[00:02:41] And where I got my bed rack from and those dropped out and I'm like, oh, yeah

[00:02:45] I bought those too. Well, so then putting those in we just I mean a lot of the we did a lot of filming for that

[00:02:52] Uh because doing with the deck drawer system, uh, we found that I had to pull the deck system apart

[00:02:59] Uh, the basically both sides of the both wings I had to pull off basically

[00:03:03] Which wasn't a big deal, but then we got everything in good to go

[00:03:06] Uh, yeah, and the deck drawer the the system the wings basically on each side

[00:03:12] I had to actually notch out a little section

[00:03:15] To it so we covered doing that and just yeah, it was I mean it was a lot of fun

[00:03:19] It was really interesting and he filmed a lot and um

[00:03:22] So we did that and then yeah, we got the I got my bed rack in

[00:03:28] And going and then so tomorrow

[00:03:30] tomorrow after church, um, I will be going back to his place

[00:03:34] And uh, we're gonna put the rooftop 10 on

[00:03:38] So and then my buddy one of my buddies, uh him and I are planning on

[00:03:43] Doing a just a quick overnight uh camping trip. I think next Friday

[00:03:47] I believe so it's gonna kind of test it out first time out so

[00:03:52] Be interesting to get it out and test it. But yeah, so, uh

[00:03:55] He had something he had to get going on at he had to leave by five

[00:03:58] And so and so did I and so it was like, you know

[00:04:02] Quarter to five or so and he I was like, all right. See you later

[00:04:05] Texted you hey, I'm on my way back 20 minutes away and got stuck behind someone slow

[00:04:10] And not a chance to pass them. So I ran in made a cup of coffee and like booting up

[00:04:15] Like I think I ran my stairs like four times

[00:04:18] Between booting up the computer making coffee

[00:04:21] And everything so so yeah, no it was uh, it was a good day though

[00:04:25] It was fun. It was good to hang out with an old friend and uh

[00:04:28] smoke some cigars and just kind of getting my feet wet when it comes to youtube so

[00:04:34] Kind of I think I don't know like the youtube channel. I guess I'm kind of curious on people's thoughts, but uh

[00:04:41] I almost thought about making it saying something like bobo's taco

[00:04:46] Or bobo's Tacoma or something like that

[00:04:50] I don't know if it'll fly or not, but we'll see

[00:04:52] I mean

[00:04:54] social media and content creation is kind of an extension of the creator so it's like

[00:04:59] It doesn't even flies with you it flies

[00:05:02] Right

[00:05:03] Catchy

[00:05:04] Yeah

[00:05:05] All right, so two topic

[00:05:08] This is something that has been brought up like multiple times. We've had I've had personally at least four different people request information about off-grid communications over the years

[00:05:18] And Andrew and I have been I wouldn't say we're calcitrant. We've we've both kind of come at this from the perspective of like

[00:05:25] We just don't know a whole ton about it

[00:05:28] Like I dove head first into and started learning as much as I can but like I hate to speak on a subject

[00:05:34] I don't know a lot about

[00:05:36] And Scott knows more than the two of us Andrew remind me now

[00:05:41] Just kind of like front-load the listeners. I went ahead and got my gmrs license from the FCC

[00:05:47] And even though I'm probably gonna wind up getting my ham license at some point in the future

[00:05:52] Like gmrs was the big draw from me because I can't get my wife

[00:05:57] To get a ham license so gmrs allows me and my wife and my daughter to all talk back and forth through each other

[00:06:04] All under my call sign all under my license and

[00:06:08] Because there's a handful of frequency share with frs these frs radios

[00:06:13] Can also talk back and forth with these gmrs radios if we're on a common frequency. So it gives me

[00:06:20] Like gmrs was kind of the direction I went because it gave me that

[00:06:24] Flexible entry with a low barrier to entry that I can actually like make this work with

[00:06:30] My group and my group is my wife and daughter if I can't talk to the two of them on it

[00:06:35] It just doesn't it doesn't serve my needs

[00:06:38] Um, did you ever end up getting your ham license or have you been procrastinating and I need to start brow beating you

[00:06:43] I've had my ham license for

[00:06:46] 11 years

[00:06:49] Um

[00:06:50] I I got it back when I was on search and rescue

[00:06:52] We carried ham radios and so when I was on search and rescue for the county

[00:06:57] We had to have it was a requirement. So I got it way back then I actually just renewed it. So actually 10 years

[00:07:02] I just renewed it

[00:07:04] And uh, so and it's one of those things ham has always been one of those things

[00:07:07] I've been always interested in just never picked it up

[00:07:11] Started kind of dipping my big toe into the water again. Uh took a class on ham

[00:07:16] Started learning the radio and then I just haven't done anything with it since and

[00:07:22] I need to I really need to like buckle down and start doing it because I my goal for this year is to actually get my next level

[00:07:28] ham

[00:07:29] Ham license and I kind of want to start looking at

[00:07:33] High frequency stuff that maybe if I can reach my parents

[00:07:38] Or reach, you know, I know you can reach a long ways away

[00:07:41] But just I don't know it interests me that you can talk to people around the world

[00:07:45] Depending on the atmosphere and all that crap. So

[00:07:48] No, I mean

[00:07:49] So yeah having scout on I mean

[00:07:52] It's uh, it's a good thing because maybe able to get me interested again

[00:07:56] But I mean, I don't know the first thing about ham. I know it's like, okay

[00:07:59] I'm going to be talking to this repeater and this person they can talk to this repeater and

[00:08:02] All this crap and it's yeah, I mean it it's

[00:08:06] It's way way above my pay grade. So

[00:08:09] Yeah, so Scott, I mean talk us through like what what's your history with

[00:08:14] Ham and GMRS like where tell the listeners like where you're coming from, I guess

[00:08:20] Well, I've always been interested in radio. So you

[00:08:25] You know, like most people

[00:08:27] It may not be popular to say in the ham radio community, but most of all everyone started out on CB

[00:08:33] You get kind of hooked on CB and then you want something more

[00:08:38] So the way I would describe it is ham radio is like CB on crack. You can do more with it

[00:08:45] um, so I started out with that as a kid and then

[00:08:49] Procrastinated and finally got my my ham license in 2001

[00:08:54] And have been licensed since then

[00:08:56] Um, I think I'm going on maybe five or six years with my GMRS license

[00:09:01] It's seen a big explosion

[00:09:04] GMRS has grown a lot and

[00:09:07] In probably the last 10 10 years

[00:09:11] When uh, I first learned about it

[00:09:15] There was really only one repeater south of us fill

[00:09:19] And that was it in the area

[00:09:21] if you

[00:09:23] If you go on the website my gmrs.com, which is kind of like the granddaddy of gmrs information

[00:09:30] You know, you can punch in your location and it will give you a map or a list of

[00:09:36] repeaters in your area

[00:09:38] And um, if you go on it now, I mean there's there's a pretty good network of repeaters here in the state of louisiana

[00:09:45] And there's a massive system out in texas, which I think

[00:09:50] Connects if not all most of the state of texas

[00:09:55] So it's gmrs has exploded like crazy in the last 10 years and um

[00:10:01] It's good like like you were saying um

[00:10:04] That was one of my things I asked people when they they were interested in radio. They say hey, what should I get?

[00:10:11] You know, which what's your goal? What is it you're trying to accomplish?

[00:10:15] Um, phil you said you want to get in touch with your your wife and daughter when you need to and

[00:10:20] If it can't do that and you have no use for it. Well, that's your goal

[00:10:24] you, you know

[00:10:26] Some people get into it because they like the contest

[00:10:29] aspect of ham radio if you're not interested in that that's fun is there's all kind of stuff you can do with

[00:10:36] Not only ham radio, but the gmrs side as well

[00:10:41] the

[00:10:42] That like I said, that's what I start with what's what's your goal if you just look in the communicate

[00:10:47] With family members in a small area, you know within two miles or so

[00:10:54] And and that's all you want to do

[00:10:56] Frs is good. You could do

[00:11:00] Handhelds will get you probably about a mile in a

[00:11:05] In a city or even a more rural area

[00:11:11] You know, that's handheld to handheld you'll get more range with higher powered mobile radios

[00:11:18] And of course, you know

[00:11:20] The higher the antenna the better

[00:11:22] So if you can put up

[00:11:24] 20 30 40 foot antenna at your house

[00:11:28] You can increase that range even more, but it just it all depends on like I said what you what your goals are

[00:11:33] And that's where you just kind of work from there. Yeah, and I mean like

[00:11:38] You know from my perspective

[00:11:39] I feel like at least most people in the preparedness community like a lot of us probably have a lot of the same use case

[00:11:45] If not exactly the same variables it all comes down to the idea that like

[00:11:49] Every one of us has had an experience where you pull pull this magical little box out of your pocket

[00:11:54] And it stops working all of a sudden most recently that was you know, kind of a distributed outage

[00:12:00] That hit lots of cell phone services across the country

[00:12:03] But you know more recently like hurricane Ida pundit us all back to the stone age

[00:12:09] couple years ago and hurricane Katrina before that and

[00:12:12] Most of us have been in some kind of a situation where

[00:12:15] Our primary means of communicating with people over the horizon

[00:12:19] Failed

[00:12:20] And I think that's why a lot of people in the preparedness community really get

[00:12:24] They really get hit wrapped around this idea that like I have to have some kind of a backup to the cell phones because a cell phone

[00:12:31] Is a wonderful tool when it works

[00:12:34] But it like many things is dependent upon this long chain of this long supply chain working

[00:12:40] And anything along that chain breaks

[00:12:43] It doesn't work anymore

[00:12:44] And I think a lot of us came to this idea of having like off-grid communications just as a backup

[00:12:50] To be able to reach our family members and make sure make sure that they're okay and be able to talk to them

[00:12:56] Further than we can shout at them, right?

[00:13:00] And and coming from a proper aspect, you know

[00:13:04] The ever popular bow fan uv5 r radios, you know, everybody's grabbing those and

[00:13:11] You know, there's a whole community community that just poo-poo's on them. But hey if it serves a purpose

[00:13:17] You know, it can't be all that bad

[00:13:19] So if that's all you can afford or all that you're willing to invest to say go get you the 20 or 30 radio get you a few of them

[00:13:26] At dead price point they're disposable if you leave it on the back of a truck and then drop down the highway

[00:13:32] Well, you're only out, you know 30 bucks max

[00:13:36] It's not, you know a $500 radio like I have, you know

[00:13:40] I'd much rather lose the $20 radio

[00:13:43] but

[00:13:44] with that um recent outage with the cell phones, that's what I started seeing a lot in

[00:13:50] Forums or on facebook groups was people saying

[00:13:54] Oh, I need to get my ham radio license that we've just happened again. I can talk to my

[00:13:58] My husband my wife

[00:13:59] Whoever it is they want to talk to well

[00:14:02] How far away are they? Well, they're in the other state. Well, you're not going to do it with a five watt

[00:14:08] handheld radio

[00:14:10] And you know, there's a lot more to learn than just tell me what to buy and let me go get it

[00:14:16] You know, so it it can be a little overwhelming, but

[00:14:20] It's all it's a tool

[00:14:23] Just just like, you know

[00:14:25] You're your fire starter or your pistol on the side of your waist

[00:14:30] It's a tool that serves a purpose, but you have to learn how to use it

[00:14:34] You know getting a radio and just putting it in your bug out kit and that was doing anything with it does you pretty much

[00:14:40] No good

[00:14:41] Yeah, so if anyone was to

[00:14:44] invest the money in any type of radio equipment

[00:14:46] I'd also say invest the time and learn how to use it and

[00:14:50] And you know that way when you do need to rely on it

[00:14:53] You're not fumbling trying to figure out what to do

[00:14:56] Yeah

[00:14:56] So let's kind of unpack that because like we've talked about three primary radio systems and forgive me for not discussing

[00:15:03] Merz because I just don't know squat about it and I have no interest in it

[00:15:07] but

[00:15:08] like ham and gmrs and

[00:15:11] frs

[00:15:12] And most people have gone to walmart and seen these things these tiny little bubble packs with non-removable antenna

[00:15:18] Scott and I were actually goofing around before the show started about how

[00:15:23] Walmart tells you these things will talk 35 miles and they won't

[00:15:27] I mean anything that runs on a couple of double a's is not going to go that far

[00:15:31] But you know this is where most people start their radio journey

[00:15:35] And this is just like a little frs walkie-talkie requires no license and people

[00:15:40] I like we use these camping a lot because I can hand one of these to my kid

[00:15:44] And if she gets out of sight, I want to find out where she is

[00:15:47] I can hit her on one of these and hers actually has a a whistle on the bottom of it

[00:15:53] That way if for some reason I need to locate her all she has to do is blow into the whistle

[00:15:58] And then like you know, I know exactly what direction to go in. I just follow the noise

[00:16:04] But

[00:16:05] Once you start looking at like something with more capability and power than a little bubble pack frs radio

[00:16:11] You're kind of you're in this

[00:16:14] You're in this territory of do you go for ham or do you go for gmrs?

[00:16:18] And like we were talking about earlier like my interest with gmrs really boiled down to

[00:16:24] The the barrier to entry is a lot lower

[00:16:26] I mean the the FCC's website is a travesty in the 21st century and whoever designed it should be flogged in public

[00:16:34] It's it's bad, but

[00:16:36] It's a 35 dollar fee and it's

[00:16:39] 15 20 minutes of your life to navigate a horrible website

[00:16:42] And then you have a license to use one of these things legally and the cool thing about gmrs at least for my purpose was

[00:16:50] Your gmrs license can be shared across

[00:16:53] Your entire immediate and most of your extended family so I can hand one of these radios to my wife or my daughter or my

[00:17:00] Brother-in-law or my sister or my parents or a huge group of people

[00:17:05] And as long as they know my call sign they can use it and we can all talk back and forth to each other on one license

[00:17:10] Which is something that

[00:17:12] You know

[00:17:13] It to to my point

[00:17:15] I think is the reason why you're seeing gmrs really take off is that

[00:17:19] they've made it so easy

[00:17:22] to get into and utilize and

[00:17:26] I'm finding that

[00:17:27] Like the more the more I dig into this particular radio, which I can't imagine that they're that different

[00:17:34] But i'm finding that this is really

[00:17:37] easy for the lay person to pick up because there's

[00:17:41] You're you're talking about a fixed number of channels versus a near infinite number of frequencies

[00:17:46] It's just it's it may be more restrictive

[00:17:50] Scott

[00:17:50] But gmrs to me seems like the thing that's really easy to jump into I would agree. It's it's more user friendly. Yes

[00:18:00] One thing to keep in mind with these handhelds frs gmrs ham radio

[00:18:05] Um, they're all operating in the vhf or uhf range

[00:18:10] Which means basically as a general rule it's line of sight communications

[00:18:15] Um, do you need to physically be able to see the person? No, but

[00:18:20] Expect two miles at most with any of these radios if you're talking radio to radio

[00:18:25] Uh, a little bit more if you talk in a mobile station to mobile station

[00:18:29] And then of course if you have a repeater you could cover

[00:18:32] You know 100 miles if you can access the repeater and the repeater is high enough and has that kind of range

[00:18:38] um

[00:18:39] You know frs it costs nothing but the purchase of the radios

[00:18:43] You know if you're using it like you said at state parks

[00:18:47] perfect for that

[00:18:50] gmrs used to be um

[00:18:54] What was it it used to be?

[00:18:57] $80 for the license

[00:18:59] Um in 2021 or 2022. I believe they they cut the price to 35 dollars

[00:19:06] and um

[00:19:07] Ham radio used to be nothing but submitting paperwork

[00:19:11] But they now had that 35 dollar fee onto

[00:19:15] Getting your ham license or renewing it as well

[00:19:18] So um, even with that it's not too much of a barrier

[00:19:23] For anyone to enter into it, you know $35

[00:19:26] um

[00:19:27] And and the gmrs like you said it's it's easy to

[00:19:31] navigate to

[00:19:33] crazy website submit your payment and

[00:19:37] Usually within two days you have a call sign assigned to you

[00:19:40] You know ham radio and you have to study a little bit for the exam and uh pass find a place that

[00:19:46] Is given the exam pass it and then submit your payment

[00:19:49] um

[00:19:50] Once that's in usually within two three days you'll have your license as well, but there is that testing

[00:19:57] um

[00:19:58] That you have to to go and take the exam

[00:20:02] but um

[00:20:03] They they all serve their place and again, it's just a matter of what it is you're you're looking

[00:20:09] To accomplish. Why why do you want the the radios?

[00:20:12] Again, the frs is perfect for state park

[00:20:15] And gmrs is going to get you a little bit more range even if you're not using a repeater

[00:20:21] um

[00:20:22] And ham radio it opens you up to you know repeaters

[00:20:28] Excuse me and and also uh more frequencies

[00:20:32] And yes, you you'd have to figure um

[00:20:36] Figure out which frequencies you need to program in and all that whereas

[00:20:41] The gmrs the frequencies are assigned channel numbers. So it's easier to tell someone

[00:20:46] Hey, you know go to channel

[00:20:48] 12 or whatever it is instead of saying hey punch in 146.5 to

[00:20:54] You know what are you talking about? You know

[00:20:57] so

[00:20:58] It does

[00:20:59] gmrs. Yes, it is a little more user friendly for

[00:21:02] Backup communications

[00:21:04] You can just give it to someone tell them turn it on put on this channel and go

[00:21:07] But would it be if would it be fair to say that?

[00:21:12] I guess me here's one question I have and I'm sure it's not a question only I'm thinking of but like

[00:21:17] I know that ham

[00:21:19] covers everything from like a little handheld this size all the way to

[00:21:24] The gigantic very high powered base stations

[00:21:27] So I guess my question is if we were to compare ham and gmrs handheld handheld

[00:21:33] Is there a rage advantage with ham? Um

[00:21:36] There's more freak more repeaters out there

[00:21:41] For

[00:21:42] For ham radio

[00:21:45] You know that that would be the benefit if you're using strictly handhelds

[00:21:49] um

[00:21:50] You have that network out there

[00:21:52] That that is more in place

[00:21:55] Uh now your mileage may vary like I said in texas. There's a system that covers almost the whole state for gmrs

[00:22:02] um

[00:22:03] Mississippi, I don't think i've seen one gmrs repeater listed on the website yet

[00:22:09] Um where there's you know probably three dozen or so

[00:22:13] easily

[00:22:15] Ham radio repeaters throughout the state of mississippi

[00:22:17] So, you know your mileage may vary on that depending on your location as far as how much is out there, but

[00:22:24] Um, there's tons and tons of ham radio repeaters

[00:22:29] Uh some are in a vhf range some are in a uhf range. It just it depends on

[00:22:36] What the club or that person decided to set up in that local area

[00:22:41] so it's

[00:22:43] As far as what's would you end up having more at your disposal the ham radio would win that

[00:22:50] You know if you're looking for coverage

[00:22:54] As far as how far you can talk handheld to handheld. Yeah, well me ham is

[00:22:58] Ham is infinitely better established. I mean hell my parents have been ham operators

[00:23:03] Longer than i've been alive and my parents at least my father has a four digit id for his ham license. So

[00:23:11] He's been a ham operator

[00:23:13] Since well before I was thought of

[00:23:16] But I mean, I know gmrs is kind of a kind of a newer

[00:23:21] It's a more recently codified and set aside set of bandwidth. So I mean it makes sense that the repeater network out there is

[00:23:28] Far more limited although like you said, you know, I don't know if you said after we start rolling or while we were waiting on

[00:23:34] Andrew but like

[00:23:35] gmrs is really

[00:23:37] I see it taking off in popularity and I don't know based on the

[00:23:43] The limitations of gmrs versus ham of gmrs, whatever eclips ham

[00:23:48] But I can't say that like it seems to be growing at a very very fast pace

[00:23:53] Mostly amongst lay people like people that are kind of in my boat of

[00:23:56] Like I would take the time to learn ham because I just i'm a nerd about whatever piece of equipment

[00:24:01] I have I want to know how it works

[00:24:03] But to be able to take one of these radios and hand it to my 11 year old and say

[00:24:08] It's already on the channel needs to be on hit the button and talk to me like that level of

[00:24:15] That ease of use is something I don't think exists with ham. No, I would agree with that statement

[00:24:20] It's gmrs is family friendly. Yes

[00:24:23] It's I mean especially with what you're talking about. I mean if you have a group of people and

[00:24:29] I mean say a group of 10

[00:24:33] And you're worried about comms in any kind of way

[00:24:37] Getting people through a ham class

[00:24:40] Even though a lot of them are online, but studying for the class

[00:24:43] studying for the test going to the class doing all the stuff

[00:24:46] and

[00:24:48] It's just it's a headache. I mean if you're not really serious about it and

[00:24:52] I mean and so when you're sitting there and you're like, okay

[00:24:54] Well, we have this group of 10 and we live within a few blocks of each other say or whatever and you know

[00:24:59] It's it's just easier. It's easier to just hand these radios out have

[00:25:04] the

[00:25:05] G the gmrs

[00:25:07] License and if you can get to where it can cover a group of people or one person in the family or whatever in it

[00:25:13] Or each family has one license or whatever it is

[00:25:17] It's just more family friendly and it's just easier to really do

[00:25:20] I mean, yeah, you're not going to be on any kind of like encrypted channels and

[00:25:24] It's not really going to be 100 secure, but you have communications

[00:25:28] Yeah, and just just you brought up the family friendly aspect. This is from the FCC's website

[00:25:34] This is what they consider immediate family when it comes to gmrs licensing

[00:25:39] It's your spouse your children stepchildren

[00:25:42] Parents grandparents stepparents

[00:25:45] Brothers sisters aunts uncles nieces nephews and also in-laws

[00:25:50] So they are pretty liberal with their definition of immediate family

[00:25:55] You know if you have a big family and they all fall under one of those descriptors

[00:26:00] You're good to go with one license

[00:26:02] That does mean you'll have to share one call sign

[00:26:04] Which I've talked to people that said that they usually

[00:26:07] Like they'll they'll use their call sign because that's just keep the FCC happy

[00:26:11] But once you've spouted out your call sign

[00:26:14] A lot of them will have like some descriptor after call sign after their call sign to i

[00:26:19] So that within that group you can identify

[00:26:22] Individual people all using the same call sign

[00:26:25] Right you could you know any kind of identifier you could use it's

[00:26:31] There's no restriction against that. They just want you to use that

[00:26:34] Official call sign every so often. Yeah, and and we do it in ham radio as well if you work in a public service event

[00:26:41] You know you might use what

[00:26:43] You know air quotes a tactical call sign

[00:26:46] Where it's you know, hey rest stop one at rest stop two

[00:26:50] Blah blah blah blah, you know the way you're not repeating

[00:26:53] You know it's all about brevity and in those situations the way you're not tying up the frequency that you know

[00:26:59] With unnecessary stuff which

[00:27:02] You know could be your call sign

[00:27:04] Especially some of these people with the southern draws that like to drag it out

[00:27:08] You know, you don't want to wait 30 seconds just for them to get their call sign out

[00:27:11] Yeah, there is kind of a trope about southern people talking slowly and i'm not going to say it's true

[00:27:16] But it might be

[00:27:19] Just remember we we talk slow doesn't mean we think slow

[00:27:24] But yeah, I need to loop back around to a couple of things that we've spouted off because I don't want to lose the listeners

[00:27:29] We've mentioned hf vhf and uhf which just for the listeners

[00:27:34] Please don't for god's sakes. Don't ask what frequencies those equate to but like hf means high frequency

[00:27:39] Which is the lowest of the three ranges and then vhf and uhf

[00:27:44] It literally just means if you take all these frequency bands and you lay them out like on a timeline then

[00:27:51] hf is high and vhf is

[00:27:53] Kind of in the middle one. You have this yeah very high and

[00:27:57] memory serves me gmrs falls into uhf which is like 462 to 467 megahertz

[00:28:04] correct and and it's you know if

[00:28:08] You want the vhf and uhf for your local communications the hf is for

[00:28:12] You know your worldwide communications and you have certain frequencies that work great at certain times of the day and certain times of the year

[00:28:20] You know, we can get into a discussion that would

[00:28:23] Really go over everyone's head if we started talking about hf radio, but

[00:28:27] Just just know hf is your worldwide frequencies and that's when you see the large antennas on on 100 foot towers or

[00:28:36] 100 or more feet long

[00:28:40] Length of wire that's being used as an antenna, you know

[00:28:47] Just without getting too nerdy

[00:28:50] the

[00:28:51] Higher the frequency the shorter your antenna is going to be

[00:28:56] and you can you can look at that if

[00:28:58] You take a vhf radio, you know 140 150 so megahertz

[00:29:03] And compare that antenna to a gmrs antenna

[00:29:07] You know your gmrs is going to be shorter because that's up and like you said 450 to 460 range somewhere around there

[00:29:15] um

[00:29:15] That's why your cell phones don't have antennas anymore on the outside because they've gotten so high up in frequency

[00:29:22] They can hide it inside of the phone and that's all based off of

[00:29:26] The literally the wavelength that you're operating on

[00:29:30] Yeah, yeah, which of anybody here is

[00:29:33] Like even remotely nerdy

[00:29:36] I started looking into like the theory behind building your own antenna and everything not that I think I would do it

[00:29:42] But just I was curious

[00:29:44] And that gets really interesting really fast like there's there's a reason why I named the episode comms is sorcery because

[00:29:53] It's it starts to look like witchcraft at a certain point

[00:29:56] I mean anytime you're playing around with radio waves that are floating around in the atmosphere

[00:30:00] And you can't see them that that appeals to a certain

[00:30:04] Certain of us. Oh, yeah, it can get you can get deep into the weeds when you start talking about antenna theory

[00:30:11] Yeah, but for the for the lay person just just buy one

[00:30:16] Yeah

[00:30:18] Well that that that brings me to one of the points I wanted to touch on too

[00:30:22] When you held up your gmrs radio

[00:30:25] um one of the best things you can do

[00:30:29] With a handheld which it looks like you've done fill is

[00:30:32] Change out the stock antenna

[00:30:36] You know, um those things up

[00:30:39] Pretty much nothing but a dummy load these little things

[00:30:42] Yeah

[00:30:43] They're good for what they do, but you just increase your range

[00:30:47] By getting that larger antenna that even if it only has

[00:30:52] One db of gain you you've increased the efficiency of your signal

[00:30:57] Um not generating heat but actually getting out there into the atmosphere. It's a way you can talk to where you want to

[00:31:04] You know pretty much everyone

[00:31:07] That starts out with radio whether it's ham radio gmrs

[00:31:11] That's one of the first things they buy is a handheld radio

[00:31:15] That's your gateway and usually the next thing is a mobile with a

[00:31:19] You know a vehicle mounted antenna

[00:31:22] So that's the best piece of advice I can give anyone that's buying a handheld is

[00:31:28] Look at some reviews online. There's tons of them find yourself

[00:31:32] Um a better antenna than the stock antenna that comes with your radio

[00:31:36] Yeah, Nagoya 771 is one at least for the the 77 1g is when you'll see recommended very often for

[00:31:43] Gmrs and I wouldn't say it's the best. I will say it's very often recommended because it seems to work well

[00:31:49] It's it's also one of the most counterfeited ones out there. So buy from a reputable

[00:31:54] Retail

[00:31:55] Yeah, the everything I would point out because you mentioned like getting a mobile setup and like that's on my to-do list

[00:32:02] I haven't done it yet. Obviously. I just got into gmrs

[00:32:04] but like

[00:32:05] I did go ahead and take

[00:32:08] And purchase a uh a Nagoya vehicle mount antenna

[00:32:12] And I got the adapter I needed to screw it into

[00:32:15] A handheld which I figure, you know down the road when I get uh a mobile radio

[00:32:22] Kind of looking at midland

[00:32:23] They're they're little micro mobiles just because I don't want to have anything that like sits in the cab of the truck

[00:32:28] And super obnoxious for the limited mad time. We're going to be using it

[00:32:32] But I was looking at that

[00:32:36] And I realized very quickly two things first of all

[00:32:39] I tried mounting that antenna like up on the hood

[00:32:43] And it worked, but I realized as I was driving around that

[00:32:49] What direction I was pointing had an incredible effect on my reception because I heard some people talking back and forth

[00:32:56] To the point where like as I was exiting the interstate

[00:32:59] I went from listening to static choppy broken English

[00:33:03] And as I made that sweeping right turn and I came I came more and more from pointing

[00:33:08] West to pointing north all of a sudden the reception cleared up dramatically

[00:33:12] Oh, yeah, because I wasn't trying to receive a signal through the cab of the truck

[00:33:17] Yeah, again the higher the antenna the better. Yeah, so if you can put it on the roof of your vehicle

[00:33:23] That's the best spot if you can picture a bubble surrounding your vehicle

[00:33:28] It it's going to be if you have it on the center of your vehicle

[00:33:32] You'll have not a perfect circle around your vehicle, but

[00:33:37] close to it

[00:33:38] whereas if you have it

[00:33:40] On the front hood of your vehicle like you said you have the cab

[00:33:46] Interfering with that

[00:33:48] So that bubble is going to go now

[00:33:50] From that antenna forward

[00:33:53] Instead of around your vehicle if that makes any sense

[00:33:56] No, it makes perfect sense

[00:33:57] And I mean just just in like in in real world usage that became super obvious very quickly

[00:34:04] Oh, yeah, it's the same with a handheld if you just

[00:34:07] You have it at your face talking into it

[00:34:10] And you take it and lower it down

[00:34:13] To your chest to listen

[00:34:15] Your body's going to block that signal some as well

[00:34:18] Yeah, you know, it doesn't take the cab of a pickup truck to block it

[00:34:21] Your body can block it, you know just as easily I would say the other thing I noticed though was like I just I

[00:34:27] Decided like a b like, you know

[00:34:29] Plug in that external antenna versus just use the whip inside the cab

[00:34:34] and I would say that

[00:34:36] The the difference in reception from a whip and a handheld inside the cab versus an externally mounted antenna was

[00:34:44] pretty remarkable like

[00:34:46] It's it's interesting to me that it doesn't take a ton of

[00:34:51] Like if you just bought this thing with a little rubber duck antenna on it

[00:34:55] It doesn't take a ton of additional work to really improve your user experience

[00:34:59] Whether you're talking about an upgrade antenna or a vehicle mount antenna or you know very small changes make a very huge

[00:35:06] difference and vice versa

[00:35:08] Not making those huge changes cuts your range so remarkably

[00:35:12] Like the first week I had this thing. I actually realized that

[00:35:16] A lot of days because I work from home a lot

[00:35:19] I would literally just turn this thing on and I would stick the antenna in that window over there

[00:35:24] And with it laid up against the glass all of a sudden I'd start hearing people talk back and forth

[00:35:29] And I'd pull that that whip six inches away, you know into the room and it go dead quiet

[00:35:34] Oh, yeah. Yeah

[00:35:36] It's it's

[00:35:37] Like you said, it's it's some kind of crazy magic working in the air

[00:35:42] Yeah, well, you're I mean your vehicle. I mean you gotta think about the wavelength or you know

[00:35:47] The radio waves and stuff like that that are going through and your vehicle is

[00:35:53] a peak like I mean it's

[00:35:55] Almost it's almost like a fairy day cage in a way is the way I kind of look at it and it blocks signals

[00:36:00] The one class I took the old guy was talking about

[00:36:03] Yeah, he's he's like, yeah, you need to mount you like if you're gonna have a radio inside your vehicle

[00:36:09] You're not gonna get crap. It's you need to mount a

[00:36:12] An antenna on the outside

[00:36:14] Because your vehicle is gonna block a lot like pretty much just all like a lot of the radio waves that are coming through

[00:36:22] so

[00:36:23] So yeah, I mean and just like uh, I mean just like your house it's

[00:36:27] Your house will block a lot. Uh, and so that's why you know when people have

[00:36:32] their their radio setups they have the

[00:36:35] antenna

[00:36:36] Built on the outside of the house just uh have the outside

[00:36:40] The the antenna on the outside of the house

[00:36:43] You walk into certain buildings and it's just like a big steel structure. You're not going to get crap out

[00:36:49] So that's what the company I work for it's we have a

[00:36:52] Up the road we have a

[00:36:54] I mean, it's a few miles away

[00:36:56] And we can definitely talk to you know the whole security and stuff like that

[00:37:02] When we're not when we're

[00:37:05] Outside of the building but as soon as we walk inside the building. It's just it's just a dead spot

[00:37:09] We can't hear it's it can it's hard to hear anything so

[00:37:13] Yeah, it's uh, you gotta be definitely pay attention to

[00:37:16] your

[00:37:18] The building that you're in and

[00:37:20] Your home your car all that stuff

[00:37:21] So yeah, which that that goes back to those crazy claims where

[00:37:26] They say oh, you know, you can get 35 miles out this radio

[00:37:30] You know, that's under laboratory conditions or from mountain peak to mountain. I'm gonna say that yeah, that's like direct

[00:37:36] Yeah, the

[00:37:38] Now I was telling Phil before we started um

[00:37:42] I was heading across lake poncha train this morning

[00:37:46] And with my hand held in the car

[00:37:50] I was able to talk to someone

[00:37:52] Through a repeater where a repeater was located about 30 miles away as the crow flies

[00:37:58] Does that happen all the time? No

[00:38:00] um, I was

[00:38:02] on top of

[00:38:04] You know a bridge a flat bridge over

[00:38:08] How many thousands of acres of water? Yeah, that's the only reason why that worked and and like you were saying Phil with uh

[00:38:15] The antenna in the window

[00:38:17] You you can receive better than just moving it six inches away

[00:38:22] Well, that's how I was talking. I had the antenna touching the driver's side window

[00:38:26] But if I pulled that antenna and radio in front of me, I'd lose the signal

[00:38:32] So as long as I had that window that antenna touching the driver's side window I was able to talk with him

[00:38:37] But move it just a few inches. I lost it and and he lost my signal but that's

[00:38:44] That's one of the exceptions to the rule like I said

[00:38:47] It was perfect conditions. I'm over a lake that you know, that water is bouncing that signal as well

[00:38:55] And helping propagate it. That's the only reason why it traveled to that 30 mile

[00:39:00] That repeater 30 miles away

[00:39:03] If I would continue talking to that guy once I got to the end of the bridge, I would have lost him immediately

[00:39:09] You know even

[00:39:11] on my side of the bridge, I would have lost him immediately because

[00:39:15] It just doesn't propagate through the trees and everything that we have right and the one thing so I mean the gmrs and stuff going back to

[00:39:22] Family friendly and all that thing all that

[00:39:25] I mean phil when aila hit like you know, I know you guys couldn't get like get a hold of your parents

[00:39:30] So it's one of those things where you know a granite as far as the way

[00:39:34] You know, they live far enough away where you might not be able to talk to them

[00:39:38] But if you can coordinate with people or family or friends in between

[00:39:44] That might be somewhere in between where you can talk to them

[00:39:47] And then if they if your parents can like if they can talk to them, you know

[00:39:50] It's one of those things where you can bounce a message

[00:39:53] Say hey, can you reach them and then kind of play telephone in a way? But uh

[00:39:58] And gmrs it just helps with that because it's just cheaper to get into

[00:40:02] I was actually talking with my dad about gmrs just this morning. We went out to the gun range and then stopped for lunch on the way back and

[00:40:09] Um

[00:40:10] He he'd mentioned that he had caught the podcast where we'd start talking about gmrs and he said he's interested because

[00:40:17] You know, like he still has all his ham license. He still has all his ham here

[00:40:21] I kind of want to get my own ham license at this point

[00:40:25] But he recognizes that

[00:40:28] gmrs is just another

[00:40:31] It's an I mean it's a it's a I don't even want to say it's competing radio service because I don't feel like it is

[00:40:36] I really feel like

[00:40:39] I really feel like the technical requirements to utilize ham efficient efficiency

[00:40:44] efficiently

[00:40:46] Place it

[00:40:47] In a state where you have to be a little bit more committed to it to use it efficiently

[00:40:52] And gmrs being a little bit more family friendly and user friendly and designed for the layperson

[00:40:58] Makes it to where you're the the person you're going to reach on gmrs

[00:41:03] I was about to say they'd be more like normal people

[00:41:06] But quite frankly I keep finding more and more people that I meet that are like in the gmrs community

[00:41:11] Are also in the ham community. So I don't know. Yeah, you know

[00:41:14] It depends on I mean you've got in the ham community

[00:41:18] You have these these people who were nothing but contenders, you know

[00:41:22] How many contacts can I make in 24 hours? It was the furthest

[00:41:26] You know running gun all the time. They don't want to do what they call a rag chew

[00:41:31] It's just shooting a bull over the radio

[00:41:34] um

[00:41:35] You know, you'll you'll find on gmrs repeaters

[00:41:39] What what I've seen is yeah, you've got

[00:41:42] You know, uh more of a group of buddies just hanging out. They're shooting a breeze. Uh, it's nothing majorly important

[00:41:49] They're not all you know

[00:41:52] um

[00:41:53] The running joke with ham radio is it's a hobby where you talk about your hobby with other people in the hobby

[00:42:00] You know, so you don't really find that so much on gmrs

[00:42:04] You don't hear people. Oh what radio are you using what antenna blah blah blah? You know, it's more just shooting a bull and

[00:42:11] You know your drive times you'll hear more people morning and afternoons and your drive time both on

[00:42:17] You know your two meter repeaters on ham radio and also your gmrs repeaters

[00:42:22] And and most of the time it's hey, you know, we're traveling

[00:42:26] We're looking for something to pass the time. Let's have a conversation

[00:42:30] And oh by the way, my marker 17. There's an accident get out the left lane, you know

[00:42:36] um

[00:42:37] You know, so you'll you'll find all cons of different people in both services

[00:42:42] And and you'll find your place where you fit in

[00:42:45] um

[00:42:47] It's just a matter of first thing I tell people when you get the radio besides upgrading your antenna is

[00:42:53] Just listen you'll learn a lot about what's going on from listening

[00:42:57] If you're listening to a repeater, you kind of catch the vibe of how things

[00:43:01] Are unofficially run on the repeater. So, you know, you kind of get a feel for

[00:43:06] And it kind of helps you get over that mic fright, you know

[00:43:09] And you'll actually key up and talk to someone that you don't even know

[00:43:13] And it might end up turning into a lifelong relationship, you know where

[00:43:17] You know, you'll have some some friends that you will end up uh creating and whatnot

[00:43:22] Yeah, speaking of mic fright before I get to this next banner because something I definitely want to talk about

[00:43:27] but um

[00:43:28] I had my gmrs

[00:43:30] Radio in the cab of the truck the other day and I just turned it on my daughter and I were going to run an errand and uh

[00:43:36] I had asked her before we left the house like hey if if we hear somebody talking

[00:43:39] Do you want to try to talk to them? She said yeah. Yeah, she seemed excited

[00:43:43] I swear to christ the minute that radio lit up and it was somebody

[00:43:47] Fired their calls on out just look for somebody to talk to my daughter

[00:43:50] Like eyes like dinner plates was like turned off turned off turned off turned off turned off turned off

[00:43:55] She was all of a sudden super bashful about talking to somebody she didn't know it. I was like, okay, honey

[00:44:01] take a breath

[00:44:03] But I did I did want to talk about this really quickly because like I and I call these things privacy tones because

[00:44:09] I think that's what motorola calls them and I just wanted to dispel this myth

[00:44:15] I don't like

[00:44:17] Scott you're you're the ham guy and this or you and andra are the ham guys in this relationship

[00:44:21] So y'all tell me if a similar thing exists on the ham radio side, but like in frs and with gmrs

[00:44:29] They call these things was it it's pl tones or um, I think

[00:44:35] dc tc ss

[00:44:37] continuous totally coated squelch. Yeah

[00:44:41] it's um

[00:44:43] Now it's just all advertising hype um

[00:44:46] Unless you have your signal encrypted it's not private

[00:44:52] Which the rules for ham radio and gmrs and frs prohibit encrypted transmissions

[00:45:00] um

[00:45:01] The encryption is you're going to find on

[00:45:04] You know, your public agencies radio systems

[00:45:07] But all of that pl tones privacy tones

[00:45:10] um

[00:45:12] You may even see

[00:45:14] a radio advertised as having

[00:45:17] Whatever 600 different channels

[00:45:21] When in reality all they're doing is taking those 38 channels multiplying them by however many

[00:45:27] Tones they have and they're counting those as different channels

[00:45:31] um, if you remember back to the days of the voice pages, you know, you're uh

[00:45:37] You your page would go off you'd hear the message from the person and if you didn't push the button

[00:45:41] The squelch was left open and you would hear other people's messages coming through

[00:45:47] Well, that's basically the same thing as a pl

[00:45:50] tone

[00:45:51] That that when I called your voice pager it sent the tone to open up your squelch

[00:45:57] So you could hear my message I left for you

[00:46:00] um

[00:46:01] Same thing with the with the radios you program in

[00:46:04] The pl tone or whatever they're calling it

[00:46:08] Then your radio will only recognize

[00:46:11] A signal that's sending that same tone so it opens up the squelch and you can hear

[00:46:15] What i'm saying to you Phil

[00:46:18] and

[00:46:19] Anyone else that's listening

[00:46:22] They don't have to have the pl tone

[00:46:24] They will hear our conversation

[00:46:27] If their squelch is just wide open and they're listening for anything going on the

[00:46:32] The the tones only allow

[00:46:35] You know person a and b to hear communications between themselves, but it doesn't make anything private

[00:46:41] No, it doesn't and and it shuts off all the background if someone else was using that channel at the same time as you

[00:46:48] And they were talking

[00:46:50] You wouldn't hear them because they're not sending out the tone to open up your radio squelch

[00:46:55] That's the only thing

[00:46:56] You know

[00:46:58] That those pl tones or whatever, you know that manufacture calls it. That's the only thing

[00:47:04] It's just opening up the squelch on the two radios communicate with each other so you don't hear anyone else

[00:47:09] Yeah, it's not so that no one else hears you. Yeah, because like I've I've seen this brought up and

[00:47:16] I can understand because like some manufacturers call it a privacy tone

[00:47:19] Which irks my freaking nerves because it's it's it's worse than

[00:47:24] It's worse than thinking you don't have privacies to think you do and you don't

[00:47:29] So like I just wanted to like cross it off the list and talk about that for those that are like

[00:47:34] interested in getting into gmrs is that if you see and the same thing applies to frs too because a lot of frs radios have

[00:47:41] Privacy tones or whatever they call it

[00:47:44] But it just comes down to like all that does is it tells your radio and another radio that are set up similarly

[00:47:50] To ignore everybody else talking on the same frequency

[00:47:53] But if there's person c that's on the same frequency they can hear both of y'all clear as day

[00:47:59] And that's what worries me is that a person would think well, it's a privacy tone

[00:48:04] So this is a private conversation and now it's worse than if you realize

[00:48:09] You're just blasting rf out onto the open airwaves. Anybody can hear you and you would be a little bit more

[00:48:16] Or

[00:48:17] You be a little bit more careful about what exactly you say because you think it's private

[00:48:22] I mean, right, you know

[00:48:24] I'm I'm sized for a size 12 and a half temple have a vice curious

[00:48:27] But like there are reasons why I call these things um and and say spy devices because

[00:48:32] There's a lot of people out there that think cell phones are perfectly private and I hate to be the one to break it to you

[00:48:37] They're not

[00:48:38] So I just want to kind of cross it off the list. I'd like me personally

[00:48:42] The way I have this setup is that um

[00:48:45] For the repeaters that I have programmed into it. I only have the transmission ctss

[00:48:50] Assigned and I leave the receiving side just wide open because if somebody's talking on that channel

[00:48:57] I want to hear them. I don't I don't want my radio to ignore

[00:49:02] chatter

[00:49:04] You know what I mean? Yeah

[00:49:06] Yeah, and you know after Katrina there was a loose group of us

[00:49:14] We we managed to keep one of the repeaters up

[00:49:18] There was a guy was running out every six hours refilling the generator

[00:49:22] and

[00:49:24] We had our own

[00:49:26] informal net going on for a couple of weeks

[00:49:31] We were basically spotting gasoline shipments

[00:49:34] and

[00:49:36] You know anyone could hear us if they had the right receiver

[00:49:40] um, it did you don't need a license to listen to

[00:49:44] Any anything out there, you know frs gmrs ham. You don't need a license to

[00:49:49] To even buy a transmitter and just receive

[00:49:52] So anyone could have heard us and all thing was you know

[00:49:56] We don't want everyone to know where the gas is because we want to get there and get it and get out

[00:50:00] We don't want to be sitting in line for an hour

[00:50:03] or even longer

[00:50:05] so, you know we

[00:50:07] You're not supposed to send coded transmissions, but there's nothing wrong with saying hey go to channel two

[00:50:14] Well, there's no channel two in a ham radio

[00:50:17] you know

[00:50:18] handheld or whatever it's it's whatever you assign to that memory like like your car stereo, you know

[00:50:23] Which memory number one whatever so we would say go to channel two which meant go to this different frequency

[00:50:29] Well unless you knew what we were considering the channel two

[00:50:32] You'd have to sit there scanning through all the frequencies that we are allowed to use to find us

[00:50:37] Or we'd say hey, you know

[00:50:40] Um, do you know Phil's birthday? Yes go to that channel

[00:50:44] which actually meant

[00:50:47] Whatever Phil's birthday is add 10 to it and go to that channel, you know

[00:50:51] So we had our ways around it and and you could develop that

[00:50:55] You know with with any of the radio services

[00:50:58] Will it it still doesn't give you ultimate privacy, but it makes it harder for people to find you

[00:51:03] Um, especially with ham radio because you have a lot more frequencies that you can use

[00:51:08] Um as far as gmrs. I mean you're limited to the 38 channel

[00:51:12] So if somebody hits the scan button, they could probably find you again, you know pretty quickly

[00:51:17] And Nathan young is asking about uh digital encryption on gma or sr frs. I don't think it

[00:51:23] I'm pretty sure the FCC would have a stroke. Oh, yeah, you were digitally encrypting your communications

[00:51:29] but like the other problem is

[00:51:31] Like every method I know for every method I am familiar with for encrypting radio comms. First of all, it's not permitted

[00:51:39] on

[00:51:41] I know it's not permitted on gmrs or frs. I seriously doubt it's permitted on ham

[00:51:45] There are some digital modes on ham radio

[00:51:49] Um again, it's not encrypted

[00:51:52] But if you were to tune into a frequency and hear a conversation

[00:51:58] That's being used. Um with digital radios

[00:52:01] You're just gonna hear a bunch of you know noises almost like an old dialogue mode i'm going through

[00:52:06] You're gonna be here all the all the ones in zeros in other words, correct? Correct

[00:52:11] Um now one thing with gmrs. Um, there's some manufacturers out there. I believe garmin has a couple of radios

[00:52:20] um, I have no experience with this but

[00:52:23] um

[00:52:24] gmrs allows you to send short data bursts

[00:52:29] Now

[00:52:30] The garmin systems are usually it's a radio built into a gps

[00:52:37] Unit so you can share your location

[00:52:40] Um, it will send out a beacon and whoever it is you're sending it to or happens to receive it on their

[00:52:47] um

[00:52:49] Their gps it will display your location for them

[00:52:54] um, now there are some

[00:52:57] manufacturers that are making

[00:52:59] a

[00:53:00] smartphone app that connects to your radio via bluetooth

[00:53:04] That will allow you to send text messages over gmrs

[00:53:08] So it's a little more secure because you got to have the right equipment to

[00:53:14] decode it

[00:53:16] But uh again if you have it

[00:53:19] Have the equipment you can see what anyone else is out there sending. Yeah, and I've actually seen at least one

[00:53:26] One app in the app store that

[00:53:28] Utilizes basically your phone's speaker

[00:53:31] to send those

[00:53:33] those chirps

[00:53:35] For lack of better term through your handset and if you have the same app on your phone on the airside

[00:53:41] And you basically just get the phone to listen to the radio it get transmits that back and forth

[00:53:46] Via the microphone and the speaker. I mean it's it's an interesting implementation

[00:53:50] I guess I just you know this whole conversation about privacy tones and everything else to me

[00:53:55] What I always try to put out there is kind of a version of the same conversation I've had with my daughter about

[00:54:02] You know controlling the information that goes out assume. There's somebody listening. You don't want to listen to you

[00:54:09] so

[00:54:10] You know like I don't want to say speaking code but

[00:54:12] Say things to me on the radio that I would make sense to me, but would not make sense to

[00:54:18] The average person who's listening right just always assume somebody's listening and you know conduct yourself

[00:54:24] You know in that fashion and that's the best thing is

[00:54:28] Don't say anything over the radio that you don't want the general public to hear and no home address

[00:54:34] Let's start with that

[00:54:36] Yeah, right

[00:54:38] We used to um

[00:54:40] We used to have a lot of guys that would give out their phone numbers over to ham radio repeater, which it was like

[00:54:45] You know, okay. That's fine with you, but um, you know, I'm not giving out my phone number over to

[00:54:51] Radio no and that was one thing, you know when I started getting involved in some public service events with with ham radio

[00:54:59] um

[00:54:59] if you're along a bike ride and providing communications

[00:55:04] and you know

[00:55:05] bike rider number 33 falls to the ground and

[00:55:09] You know, his elbow is twisted the wrong way and is

[00:55:12] Bleeding profusely from the head

[00:55:15] you don't say

[00:55:17] Hey, Phil fell down and this is what's going on. You just say hey, we have an incident with bike rider number 33

[00:55:22] We need ambulance here, you know

[00:55:25] Because um, you just you don't want that out there because especially if it's a high profile

[00:55:30] We we did backup communications for the Super Bowl

[00:55:34] after the 9 11 attacks

[00:55:36] And we were down there in the city and and that was

[00:55:40] One of the things was hey, we know the press is monitoring our repeater right now

[00:55:47] So do not say anything

[00:55:50] That could give away a situation that can make headlines

[00:55:54] you know just

[00:55:56] If you have an incident tell them where you're at

[00:56:00] And you know, we had phone numbers given out beforehand

[00:56:04] so

[00:56:06] Hey, I need Phil to call me. I'm at this. We got a situation get ambulance in route

[00:56:11] Phil would give me a call and then we discuss

[00:56:13] details over the phone, but

[00:56:15] That that was one thing stressed, you know, like I said, we knew that the

[00:56:19] The press was was monitoring things

[00:56:22] So don't say anything that you want to make a headline of in the news that evening

[00:56:27] Now that makes perfect sense

[00:56:29] I do have one more thing I wanted to touch on like as we get ready to wrap up

[00:56:34] So before I ask that Andrew like is there do you have any burning questions on your mind? No, I mean it's pretty straightforward. I

[00:56:42] you know the

[00:56:43] It's just interesting thinking about

[00:56:46] like operational security and

[00:56:49] if

[00:56:50] crap, it's the fan and

[00:56:51] You guys have radios. Yeah, keep in mind having a

[00:56:56] Protocol

[00:56:58] Amongst you and the group is important

[00:57:02] Just because you don't you never know who's going to be listening and then having challenge questions and having

[00:57:08] Okay, just like what scott said was

[00:57:10] okay

[00:57:12] What's your birth year

[00:57:14] Or birth month or whatever and then add 10

[00:57:17] And just as long as everybody knows that then

[00:57:20] You want you should have any issues

[00:57:23] But yeah, no, it's uh, yeah radios is it's something it's just uh

[00:57:28] I mean it's just like night vision. It's really like just like anything reloading

[00:57:32] Where you you get into it and it's uh, it's a wormhole. I mean it's it's

[00:57:38] You get into it and it's it can consume you

[00:57:42] so

[00:57:43] But it's important. It's something that people should get into

[00:57:47] They should have a protocol

[00:57:49] Set up and they should have a way of talking and

[00:57:53] all that stuff and especially with

[00:57:55] Crap hits the fan or even if the power goes out

[00:57:58] Yeah, we have our phones and stuff like that but

[00:58:01] Worst day ever is your phone goes out and or your power goes out and your phone died for some reason

[00:58:07] You know who knows what could happen by having the

[00:58:11] The two as one and one is none having backups

[00:58:14] It's important especially since nowadays

[00:58:18] Not many people have landlines in there in their homes

[00:58:22] Because we have the cell phone. I mean

[00:58:24] I don't remember the last time I had a landline

[00:58:26] Probably since I was with my parents years ago. Yeah, and they I think they got rid of theirs

[00:58:32] So it's one of those things we're

[00:58:34] Having that backup so

[00:58:36] It's important uh to learn so

[00:58:39] To kind of wrap this up because this episode really was meant to just scratch the surface give

[00:58:45] Entry level information to people who are curious and have not made a made a move towards off-grid comms yet

[00:58:52] So I wanted to talk scott up really quickly about like

[00:58:56] What is step one for gmrs and for ham for the person who has is at zero?

[00:59:03] And like what's what path do we put them on so they at least

[00:59:08] They're on the path and how far down the path they want to go is up to them

[00:59:12] If you're looking on a gmrs side to get licensed as quickly as possible

[00:59:18] Go ahead and just

[00:59:20] type in your favorite browser

[00:59:22] How to get a gmrs license?

[00:59:25] And there are some sites out there that'll give you step-by-step directions with um

[00:59:30] Website links to the FCC and how to go about

[00:59:34] You know their convoluted system of registering and getting putting in the information and all that bad

[00:59:40] Yeah

[00:59:41] Um

[00:59:42] And and it's something you'll probably have to do again in 10 years when you go to renew your license because that's the only time

[00:59:47] You'll probably go to their website

[00:59:50] But that's the easiest I would just search how to get your gmrs license

[00:59:54] Um, and then from there

[00:59:57] Just look at the youtube. There's tons of youtube reviews

[01:00:02] on gmrs and uh

[01:00:04] Ham radios actual units so

[01:00:08] You know make the best

[01:00:11] Choice about what's out there as far as equipment based on what it is you're looking to do

[01:00:15] um

[01:00:16] With the baufang ring radios or radiology radios you can get in

[01:00:21] For as cheap as 50 bucks for a pair of radios and like I said earlier

[01:00:26] Um, no matter which handheld radio you get I would suggest upgrading the

[01:00:31] antenna to something that gets a

[01:00:34] A little bit more db gain out of it

[01:00:37] greatly improve

[01:00:40] Your satisfaction with it

[01:00:42] As far as ham radio, uh the granddaddy is the amateur radio relay league ar rl

[01:00:49] If you go to ar rl.org

[01:00:53] There's a tab on there somewhere that talks about getting license

[01:00:58] And um, there's tons of resources there

[01:01:02] You can even search for local clubs that may be giving

[01:01:05] Some classes to help you get your technician license

[01:01:09] And uh, whether they're in person or um online

[01:01:14] I I say

[01:01:16] For a technician entry level license if you can

[01:01:19] Commit to about an hour a day or maybe even every other day for a month

[01:01:24] Um, you should be able to pass that exam

[01:01:27] It's 35 questions. You have to get I believe

[01:01:31] 28 or 29 something like that correct

[01:01:35] Basically you have to score 74

[01:01:38] And um submit your payment and then you'll have a ham radio license in a couple of days. Um, but

[01:01:46] Even youtube there's some youtube series where there's a whole

[01:01:49] You know, it might be 10 weeks of courses that you can find

[01:01:53] That will instead of an in-person class you can just watch the videos

[01:01:58] And what's good about that as well is if you just search

[01:02:02] um

[01:02:04] Ham radio practice exams there's tons of

[01:02:07] Different organizations have the exams online

[01:02:10] If if you're taking those practice exams and you're constantly scoring 80 or better

[01:02:15] You're ready to take your test

[01:02:18] And you know, if you're getting 80 or better, you'll pass it first go around

[01:02:23] Um one thing I forgot to mention

[01:02:26] With the ham radio

[01:02:28] License not only is there a $35 fee like the gmrs license

[01:02:33] But most people that teach the course will ask for

[01:02:37] um

[01:02:38] A uh exam fee which is usually 15 bucks. I've never seen one more than that

[01:02:43] Some are even less some will do it for free. It's just to recover their expenses but

[01:02:48] Getting the materials and everything and possibly renting a location to hold the exam

[01:02:54] So it's still not that terribly expensive

[01:02:58] But um the best thing I could do is is tell you there's tons of resources out there on youtube and on on the rest

[01:03:04] the internet

[01:03:05] Just search for what you're interested in and and um

[01:03:09] You know just absorb as much information as you can and move on from there

[01:03:14] Um ham radio prep is a good source as well

[01:03:17] It is I'm

[01:03:19] I'm using that I've gotten away from it the last couple months, but I'm trying to upgrade

[01:03:25] uh to extra and I'll

[01:03:27] Uh use some of their resources. I just need to

[01:03:31] get some more time and

[01:03:34] Prepare more for the exam

[01:03:36] Yeah, and I mean as we close this out like the one thing I want the one thing I wanted to confront is something I've heard

[01:03:42] I've heard out of my community on more than one occasion

[01:03:44] And I just want to dispel it as gently and harshly as humanly possible

[01:03:49] I've heard more than one person say well

[01:03:51] I bought the radio because in shcf who there will be no FCC and who cares if it's unlicensed or not

[01:03:57] And there is truth to that

[01:04:00] In an emergency situation you are allowed to break down there any FCC regulation you can imagine

[01:04:06] If it's a life or death situation

[01:04:09] However

[01:04:10] I tend to be of the mind of if you don't use this thing if you don't use the skills if you don't have the experience

[01:04:17] Then your ability to use it diminishes greatly

[01:04:21] And yes gmrs is fairly easy to get into

[01:04:24] It's not difficult to term one on make sure it's hitting the right frequency and pass to my daughter and center off on our way

[01:04:31] But a lot of the things we've talked about in the last hour little things like you know, like

[01:04:36] technique and

[01:04:38] Intent placement and all kinds of little things like that

[01:04:40] Those are things you don't learn if this thing's just sitting on the shelf waiting for the day that you don't have to

[01:04:44] Bother with the FCC

[01:04:46] So that's why I personally encourage people that

[01:04:48] If you're going to get into gmrs go get your license and start using these things

[01:04:53] And if you're going to get your hand license same thing, but like

[01:04:56] Find opportunities to use this to develop the skill set so that you can use the gear

[01:05:02] When you really need it to work properly

[01:05:05] And please don't be the knucklehead that says I got a you I got a biofang

[01:05:09] It's sitting in my bugger bag and i'll figure it out

[01:05:12] On the worst day of my life

[01:05:15] No, especially those because

[01:05:17] the broken english instruction booklets and the

[01:05:22] The interface on the radio itself

[01:05:25] it's

[01:05:26] It's a nightmare

[01:05:28] It can be programmed from the face of the radio

[01:05:30] But it's a lot easier with the software and in an shtf situation

[01:05:35] You may not have access to that software. So you need to know what you're doing. Yeah, that was a whole aspect

[01:05:40] We didn't even get into I actually programmed one of these

[01:05:43] Because I didn't buy this goofy little cable when I first got my radio

[01:05:47] So

[01:05:48] I didn't have this cool thing and the first time I programmed one of these radios

[01:05:52] I did it through the faceplate and that is an experience

[01:05:55] But then after I got one of them set up perfectly

[01:05:57] It was like a five-minute job to take this and clone all that those settings to the other radio

[01:06:02] so, I mean I would I would just say

[01:06:05] Obviously we're gonna have follow-up episodes on this

[01:06:08] But like please just whatever gear you're gonna get whichever direction you go

[01:06:12] Just please use it especially use it with the people you want to be able to communicate with

[01:06:18] In the event something goes wrong. I could not agree with that more. Yeah

[01:06:24] All right, Andrew you have anything before we punt this one out of the door

[01:06:27] No

[01:06:29] All right. Well scott. I appreciate you coming on again, man. Like I said, I mean thanks for coming

[01:06:33] I

[01:06:34] I Andrew and I know a bit, but I really want to have somebody to like give us that more experience

[01:06:42] That more experience, you know ask or uh, holy crap. You can tell it's a saturday afternoon when my brain goes away

[01:06:48] And I can't figure out my words

[01:06:50] Give us your experience and your perspective. That was the word I was looking for. Oh, absolutely, man

[01:06:55] It's been fun and

[01:06:57] Yeah, if you want to do another one we'll have to figure out the time and we can

[01:07:02] Get a little bit more nerdy if you want there

[01:07:04] There's gonna have to be more because I'm sure we're gonna have questions

[01:07:07] But we'll go ahead and kick this one out the doors matter of facts podcast heading out

[01:07:12] Go get a radio learn how to use it make all your friends getting radios too

[01:07:17] And if necessary, tell them to come look at this

[01:07:20] Episode and maybe we can help you talk them into it. But heading out the door. Bye everybody. See you