Matter of Facts: Comms Is Still Sorcery

[00:00:03] Welcome back to the Matterfax Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network.

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

[00:00:10] Go check out our content at MWFpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram.

[00:00:14] You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners.

[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] And welcome back to the Matterfax Podcast.

[00:00:24] I might be muting myself every now and then because I've caught a cold.

[00:00:28] Again. It's not going to kill me. Andrew.

[00:00:31] Andrew's rolling his eyes and telling me be a man and get over it. And I will.

[00:00:37] Well, first of all, it's allergy season down here.

[00:00:39] And second of all, my wife had a cold and I kind of live with her.

[00:00:44] Huh? So when is it not allergy season in the south?

[00:00:47] For about four weeks between January and February when everything dies.

[00:00:55] But I digress.

[00:00:57] Anyway, we have a guest Sam.

[00:01:00] You and Andrew have made each other in person.

[00:01:02] So he actually knows what you look like.

[00:01:04] I'm just going to envision someone with like glorious facial hair

[00:01:08] and a bursting knowledge of amateur radio.

[00:01:12] How close was I?

[00:01:13] That sounds pretty close.

[00:01:15] Yeah.

[00:01:15] Call out.

[00:01:17] So introduce yourself to the listeners, man.

[00:01:19] Like as much as I know about you at this stage is treks that I should have you on the show.

[00:01:24] And that's really about all the endorsement I need.

[00:01:28] And you apparently teach people how to talk to people using sorcery.

[00:01:34] Yep. I teach radios with MDFI with their Balfang basics course.

[00:01:42] I use radios every day and kind of just fell in love with them back in high school.

[00:01:47] And I've been part of him ever since going on 10 years now on and off.

[00:01:54] Balfang's got really big back during COVID and people kept asking me how to use them.

[00:02:02] So I built this kind of course to teach them how to use them.

[00:02:07] Yeah. And it's a good course because I should actually, I should try to,

[00:02:12] I should just take it again because it was a course that got me really interested in learning

[00:02:16] radios. And I was like all about it for like a month.

[00:02:20] And then I'm just like, I got it. Then as time went on and I really don't have anybody to talk to.

[00:02:24] So I kind of was like, man. So now I'm like, oh well, just kind of focus on other things.

[00:02:33] So can I assume that this is my license to bully you into getting back in amateur radio?

[00:02:38] No, because I still can't talk to you over it. So.

[00:02:41] But you might. There are ways.

[00:02:46] Yeah. If I got like high frequency stuff.

[00:02:49] Except I'm not invested in it and in HF. So that's not going to do any good.

[00:02:54] Exactly. So that means you've got to get invested in HF.

[00:02:58] See my problem, my problem in like Andrew and I have already had this conversation, Sam,

[00:03:02] and I think you and I might have talked about offline, but like what drove me into GMRS really

[00:03:07] was the fact that like there are two people that are, you know, my wife and daughter,

[00:03:12] and they are by default members of my group. And if I can't talk to them on it, it's

[00:03:17] not useful to me. And I love your MRS.

[00:03:21] I'll now get a hand so that you can talk to further people away.

[00:03:24] Well, see, that's part of the gig. But the reason I'm getting more invested in GMRS

[00:03:29] is mostly because it allows me to talk to the two of them and a GMRS license covers

[00:03:34] like the whole family basically, whereas a ham license really only covers you.

[00:03:39] The GMRS is like a really nice low barrier of entry. We talked about offline and, you know,

[00:03:48] it's 40 bucks for the license and then you can get a GMRS radio. And a GMRS, you can go up to 50

[00:03:55] watts of transit power where it's like FRS and MERS are limited to like two, two watts.

[00:04:02] You can get a lot out of a really cheap radio.

[00:04:04] Yeah, man. I personally, I think GMRS is only real,

[00:04:10] only I think the only real limit, the only real downside for GMRS other than the fact that like

[00:04:14] because it's channelized you, you are kind of like, you know, I could see where in a large

[00:04:19] metro area you could get to the point where you can't find a free channel to talk on because

[00:04:24] there could potentially be so many people talking on a limited number of channels.

[00:04:29] But I also think that like despite its very nature, because it's UHF,

[00:04:33] you're always going to be a little bit range limited by that. But I'll be honest, like in the

[00:04:38] short time, I've gotten really heavily invested in GMRS and UHF and I've started learning more

[00:04:43] and more about it. I've been very impressed by the distance it will transmit, which I think is

[00:04:50] because I came into this with very realistic expectations. You know what I mean? Like

[00:04:54] when you, when you get the bubble pack radios from Walmart and they say they'll talk 35

[00:04:58] miles and I just want to strangle whoever wrote it on the box because I'm like there's

[00:05:02] no way on earth this thing is going to go 35 miles, not even in lab conditions,

[00:05:07] not even on the surface of the moon. It's not possible.

[00:05:10] I don't know. I think like even in the city you'd be surprised by how empty those GMRS channels are.

[00:05:16] Even in areas where there's like a really decent amount of radioactivity, it's still

[00:05:23] those that are really active in radio typically have their hand licensed and they're on repeaters.

[00:05:28] There's the GMRS. It's pretty quiet.

[00:05:33] Yeah. And I mean, I guess that's kind of what I've noticed is that like usually when I'm just bumping

[00:05:38] around town, I'll flip my radio on, I'll flip the mobile in my truck on and I'm dialed into

[00:05:44] the nearest large scale repeater which is in New Orleans. I mean that's,

[00:05:49] I'm two and a half miles north of Lake Pontchartrain plus 25 miles give or take to the

[00:05:54] air side of the lake to where that repeater is located. So like I would never say, I would always

[00:06:03] say that with a 20 watt mobile, I'm within the range of that repeater because thank God it's 600

[00:06:08] feet up in the air but I'm not really, I'm not firmly within the umbrella under which

[00:06:15] I can get a strong signal all the time. Like depending on where in town I am,

[00:06:19] I can't transmit to it but I can still hear it sometimes.

[00:06:22] But a majority of the traffic I hear on that is actually coming in off a GMRS live

[00:06:28] because that repeater is hooked up to a GMRS live node. Like when I listen to local repeater

[00:06:35] traffic where people are identifying that they're from like Metterie, Marrero and some of the

[00:06:40] birds in New Orleans, that's a very small group and once you get off of that repeater

[00:06:46] channel on the Simplex, you're right. I mean it's pretty quiet.

[00:06:50] The new internet connected repeaters are badass. You can get into all sorts of different areas

[00:06:58] because they're just connected through the internet. So you can talk to, like I talked to some guy

[00:07:05] that was out in Utah through a repeater last week but obviously my UHF radio cannot reach that

[00:07:15] far. So it's all just through the internet repeater. It's awesome. Yeah, when I first got my

[00:07:21] 20-watt mobile stood up and I quickly radio checked it before I started drilling holes and

[00:07:28] really stuffing stuff down but I did a quick repeater check just to see if anybody was

[00:07:34] listening and had a real quick conversation with a guy from Florida. And again, it was

[00:07:38] all through GMRS live. So I think from the hobbyist perspective or from the

[00:07:45] beta would gather intelligence from a long distance away, I think things like internet

[00:07:50] connected GMRS repeaters are extremely useful. It's interesting to me to be able to spread that

[00:07:56] network out and it wouldn't take much more than a little bit of coordination from you and some

[00:08:03] friends who happen to be utilizing repeaters that are networked together via the internet

[00:08:08] to be able to chat back and forth literally across the country. I mean

[00:08:13] that the capability is there to do it. The only problem with that which I pointed out,

[00:08:19] the first time we talked about COMs and I'll continue to point it out is if you pump it out

[00:08:24] into the airwaves, it's not private. Like anybody that tells you you can have private COMs

[00:08:30] minus some really inventive work, it's just not there. It's not there for radio. Like if you

[00:08:36] spit it up into the atmosphere, somebody could be listening. Yeah, you can get into like some forms

[00:08:42] of digital that are like talk rooms, but those are really just filtering out other radios and not

[00:08:49] blocking yours from getting out. You can get into like the, oh, it's called Astro 25

[00:08:58] Motorola form of encryption, but that's all equal according to FCC.

[00:09:03] Yeah, I mean there are great many things that pissed the FCC off that

[00:09:11] I would in the interest of not upsetting three letter agencies, I will only say that like

[00:09:17] everything I've ever read in the FCC's rules pretty clearly dictates in an emergency situation

[00:09:24] everything is green. You know what I'm saying? Like if you are calling for help or if it is

[00:09:28] an emergency, you are greenlit to stamp on every rule to get on whatever frequency you want to do

[00:09:34] whatever you have to do so you can call for help. So I'm not saying that as license for people to

[00:09:40] ignore the FCC's regulations, I'm just saying that if it's an emergency like you know,

[00:09:47] take the rule book and temporarily put it in the circular bin and do what you gotta do.

[00:09:51] Yeah, it's good they have that rule written in it's, it's, if you haven't used it,

[00:09:59] yeah. Although the even that being said though, like I get I cringe whenever I hear

[00:10:06] I cringe whenever I hear people that that get into amateur radio whether it's Merz or GMRS or

[00:10:12] Ham they get the radio they may or may not get the license and then the next thing they say is

[00:10:18] well, I'll figure it out when when the flag goes up. You know what I'm saying? Like

[00:10:22] I don't want to invest the time to learn this thing. I'll take the time to learn to

[00:10:27] use the thing in the middle of an emergency and I immediately get really squeamish about that.

[00:10:31] Like that's the whole reason why I was, I've been really particular with my wife and daughter

[00:10:36] like we've been using FRS radios mostly for years. And if for no other reason than just

[00:10:43] the fact that like if you don't use the daggin thing, you don't know how to use it properly.

[00:10:47] And I've been to my daughter since she was about I don't know seven or eight like hey,

[00:10:51] this is how you change channels. This is radio etiquette. You have to hold you have to

[00:10:54] hold the PTT down for a count count to one before you start talking like basic radio stuff

[00:11:02] because I want her to know how to use that. And now that we've made this move into GMRS,

[00:11:06] the radios have a lot more buttons. They're a little bit more complicated. And I am having to

[00:11:12] tell my 11 year old now almost teenager who wants nothing to do with this thing. I'm like,

[00:11:18] look, you're going to have to learn enough of this to get by because I might need to talk

[00:11:24] to you and your mom might need to talk to you. You don't have to dig into it like I have as a hobby.

[00:11:28] You don't have to, you know, like learn how to program this silly thing, but you have to know

[00:11:33] how to make it work so you can call your dad if you need to. And you know, I've taken I've taken

[00:11:37] a lot of the same I've taken a lot of the same personality with her and with with communications

[00:11:43] as I have with a lot of other preparedness skills where I've said, if it's not your thing,

[00:11:47] you don't have to learn as much of it as I have, but you have to learn enough to get by.

[00:11:54] When you get a cell phone, give her a ham radio instead or a GMRS radio instead of cell phone.

[00:12:00] Then that's that's a great point for anyone who wants to get into radios for like preparedness.

[00:12:04] Just try to go a week without your phone and just taking notes of like,

[00:12:10] well, I really wish I could have contacted the X person. I know like when AT&T went down,

[00:12:16] there are a lot of people that just couldn't couldn't tell their friends or family what was going on.

[00:12:21] Dude, there were people that were acting like they were going to jump out of windows when

[00:12:25] when they couldn't check their Instagram status. Like, I don't know. Like I have this personality

[00:12:31] where like because of my job and because of the things I do for a living, like I am forced

[00:12:36] to be connected to all my coworkers during business hours. My phone is technically ringing

[00:12:44] with text messages and calls throughout the day. I have a focus on my iPhone set that literally

[00:12:49] prohibits anyone from contacting me except for Andrew, my wife, my daughter, and like my family.

[00:12:57] And that's it. Everybody else has to wait until 3 30 in the afternoon because I just can't take

[00:13:03] the time away. And the only reason Andrew is on that list, even though he never calls me because

[00:13:07] he doesn't like me very much is well, I am always working. But my point is the only reason

[00:13:12] you're on the list is because sometimes you hit you reach out to me in the middle of a day and it's

[00:13:17] podcast related stuff. It's stuff that I can take like five minutes and answer a quick question. I

[00:13:21] can move on. You and I are going to sit there and have 40 45 minute long conversation during

[00:13:26] work hours, you hang up. No, you hang up. You make it sound like we're dating, which is weird.

[00:13:35] I swear. But anyway, awkward. But yeah, I mean, but because of all that, like the idea of

[00:13:46] not being able to call people on my cell phone is actually amazingly refreshing. And I look forward

[00:13:51] to going camping because I'm going to be so far in the middle of nowhere, my cell phone's not

[00:13:54] going to work reliably. Like that to me is a good time when there's nothing that runs on

[00:14:00] electrons that works. It's just me and maybe the humming of the compressor on my 12 volt fridge

[00:14:06] and you know, coffee and cigars and peace and quiet and birds and squirrels. But we do live

[00:14:14] it. We do live in a hyper a hyper connected age where everybody wants to be able to reach

[00:14:19] another pocket and pull out their sofa and call people from around the country. And

[00:14:23] I find that I find that given the given the world we live in conversations about comps

[00:14:28] inevitably go in one of two directions. Either a there is that group of people who are so

[00:14:34] overwhelmed by the information they don't know like it's difficult to get the information across

[00:14:41] to them in a format they can accept and digest or you get the people who say I have a cell phone.

[00:14:50] You know what I'm saying, Sam? Like it's so even after the AT&T outage, it's still so

[00:14:55] difficult to get people to understand that they need to have a backup form communication

[00:14:59] because cell phones are so reliable and they are so ubiquitous. Bear in mind that like, okay,

[00:15:05] your 10 years past high school, Andrew and I probably got at least 10 years on you. But like,

[00:15:12] I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 19 years old. I paid for it myself. I

[00:15:18] like I grew up in this weird time between the millennials and Gen Xers where like

[00:15:24] people didn't have cell phones were something that only a few people had like beepers were more

[00:15:29] common back then when I was younger. And it was this time when the only way you were going to

[00:15:35] find your kids half the time was to yell out the front door or like call their friends and

[00:15:39] see where they find out who had seen them last. And to go from where I grew up to now where

[00:15:46] everybody has a cell phone, they almost always work like even in the most secluded areas,

[00:15:51] can you get a get one or two bars on a cell phone signal? It's hard to get through some people and

[00:15:56] make them understand like, Hey, that thing might stop working one day. You know what I'm saying?

[00:16:01] Yeah, I like a couple months before I started the class, I had this, my phone died,

[00:16:09] just break itself. I wasn't able to get one for a week. And that entire week, I was like,

[00:16:15] ah, really? Wish I could tell my girlfriend I can't come home right after work. And I just had no

[00:16:21] way to do that. I think like that experience alone would be a really good eye opener for some

[00:16:27] where it's all the very small sort of communications that you can't do that sometimes

[00:16:32] hit the most. I mean, for somebody trying to get into

[00:16:41] Ham, I mean, what's one of the easiest ways for someone to get into ham?

[00:16:48] I just might sound silly, but YouTube, there is so many good things on YouTube to look into.

[00:16:55] Then there's there are some bad channels out there like anything on YouTube. But

[00:17:03] what a lot of people do on YouTube and those channels is that they'll actually

[00:17:08] show what they're doing with the radio that you can't always get from

[00:17:12] like books or other publications online. And a radio to recommend basically it's pretty easy

[00:17:22] to use is the the Beow Thing UV5R, correct? Yeah, there's a lot of contention in certain

[00:17:32] communities about the UV5R, but there's so much stuff out there for it. Books,

[00:17:39] YouTube channels that are just dedicated to that that it's it's really easy to

[00:17:45] get a baseline for it and start using it right away. I know there's that NC Scout guy that has

[00:17:54] complete manuals on Amazon. A gorilla guide to Beow Thing radio? Yeah, for the UV5R.

[00:18:00] No, we talked about on this show not too long ago. It's a cool book. It's not just for the

[00:18:08] Beow Thing UV5R either like there's discussions in there about Comsec and about how to build

[00:18:13] gorilla or how to build jungle antennas. I mean it's an awesome book for anybody that hasn't read

[00:18:18] it. There's also the Technician Class Ham Radio Prep books by Gordon West. Those things help

[00:18:27] me more than anything else. The way the questions and explanations are broke down are awesome.

[00:18:38] So what I mean, what's a common mistake that you find that people do with the

[00:18:45] ham? What's one of the mistakes that you find? Honestly it's the failure to prep before it.

[00:18:53] Radios are really easy and I covered in the class for about half of it is just getting

[00:18:59] the radio ready before you even step out the door or go to go use it. A lot of my friends in

[00:19:06] particular will show up if we're out camping or whatever and just hand the radio to me

[00:19:13] to program it. I can't get it set up to the same level as mine because I either

[00:19:21] don't have my computer or I don't have all the things to program it beyond the front panel

[00:19:28] programming to get it to the same level. Especially when it comes to digital radios like

[00:19:35] the Yasews, DMR radios stuff like that. Yeah and I mean that does bear point out because

[00:19:45] that's one of the things that I was very insistent on when I got into radios was I wanted to learn

[00:19:51] how to program as much of them as humanly possible by hand on the front panel using

[00:19:58] the keypad on the mic. I never wanted to be completely subservient to have and have a program

[00:20:04] cable on a laptop to change something on these things but I am finding the more I dig into it

[00:20:12] way above and beyond just ease of use to type it all out and then push a program

[00:20:17] it is like with a lot of these radios I'm finding there are notable features that

[00:20:23] you will not access and they cannot be done or they cannot be done easily through the keypad.

[00:20:28] Like having a laptop and a program cable and knowing how to do that is definitely a skill

[00:20:33] that's worth having but I think it's also super important for people to understand

[00:20:38] like how to operate the radio beyond turn it on and hit the button. You know what I mean?

[00:20:43] Yeah when you get into the more less user friendly radios like some of the motor

[00:20:50] rollers are really difficult to program even on the computer the software is less than ideal or

[00:20:59] even my YSU mobile radio I really struggled getting that one set up

[00:21:07] just because I didn't have all these publications that are out there like the UV5R

[00:21:11] you know you just have the user manual. Yeah and I mean that is one thing I kind of bear

[00:21:18] pointing out is like I have gotten very heavily invested in a web forum and several Facebook groups

[00:21:27] specific to GMRS and I see at least once a week I see a person come in who's looking for help

[00:21:34] programing a radio or setting up an antenna or doing something and the first thing they

[00:21:39] butt heads with is the fact that they don't have any local friends who can help walk them

[00:21:43] through the process like the communities around individual pieces of gear or around ham and

[00:21:49] GMRS are so robust and at least in my experience with GM on the GMRS side they tend to be filled

[00:21:56] with people that really do want to be helpful and help you figure out your problem you know

[00:22:00] like I haven't found a ton of gatekeepers in the GMRS world. No I think I think a lot of the

[00:22:09] guys at radio want to talk gear they want to help you out the best they can.

[00:22:16] Kind of like to prepare in this world man I mean we've had that discussion several times about how

[00:22:23] you show up around a campfire and start talking techniques or gear whatever else and

[00:22:27] we're going to get into it pretty quickly because like these are just these are communities

[00:22:32] that don't like to hoard the information they have they want to spread it they wanted to grow

[00:22:37] because like if we don't then these communities all die with us and that's just not going to work

[00:22:43] it's not why any of us got into these it's not why you started teaching you know what I'm saying

[00:22:48] like if you didn't want to spread your knowledge you would have kept it to yourself.

[00:22:52] Right yeah it's it kind of it goes hand in hand with the gun world man

[00:22:59] you want to talk about the shiny toys you wanted to show other people to use it

[00:23:03] even just so you can talk to them later about it hopefully on the radio.

[00:23:09] Yeah so talk talk me through like I'm curious how you went from you know like in high school

[00:23:17] you got bit by the radio bug and how did you transition from that to standing up in front of

[00:23:23] other curious radio nerds and teaching classes about how do you use a beofang?

[00:23:29] Like so I was part of the the civil air patrol in high school really big into it and

[00:23:36] what where the radio bug bit me was in like the search and rescue academy

[00:23:43] where we that's where all of our communications through or through a radio

[00:23:47] that was bounced from an airplane back to someone else or just from person to person

[00:23:52] and I went into the workforce and where now I manage

[00:24:01] 50 some radios at work and I see the same thing over and over and over where

[00:24:08] person doesn't care what I'm trying to tell them at the beginning of the day

[00:24:12] when I'm standing in the radio and then they have to come back to me with like within an hour

[00:24:18] it's like oh my radio doesn't work I just tuned to the wrong channel

[00:24:22] so it's going from that and then Trek actually pulled me out of our crowd because he saw me with

[00:24:29] some sort of radio coming on I don't even remember what it was and he just asked for help with his radios

[00:24:36] and off it went somehow that that that origin story doesn't shock me

[00:24:46] that Trek Trek just saw you with a piece of gear on and immediately like it was like

[00:24:51] that's a person that knows something I need to know but it pretty much what happened I

[00:24:58] I don't even remember what it was but he's he invited me up one day to

[00:25:05] talk about it with him and some of the other cadre and off it went

[00:25:10] yeah I actually I remember um so I remember I was helping him around his house one day and

[00:25:15] we were talking about ham you know ham and all that stuff and he I remember him telling me about

[00:25:20] the uh about you you know about how he had you come up and talk to him and his guys and

[00:25:26] you know you guys he basically ran you through a bunch of stuff and how to do it and and then

[00:25:31] I remember him saying you I remember him saying something about a class and then all of a sudden

[00:25:36] like popped up on their website was like hey the ham basics ham 101 you know kind of thing so

[00:25:45] yeah it was interesting to see it was really cool I mean it was really cool saying like I

[00:25:48] said I took your I think I took one of your first classes last year and you break things down really

[00:25:53] well to where it was easy to understand I think you got some really good feedback from people and

[00:26:00] I mean I hope that people kind of took it and ran with it and learned more I mean I know like I

[00:26:05] said it kind of got me it kind of got a bug in me and you know I need to I don't know maybe I

[00:26:11] just need to connect with you some more since you're not far from me but uh you know just

[00:26:17] to kind of get back into it I can't hear pressure him very well from halfway across country

[00:26:23] see with the proper UHF VHF setup I bet you could look at that setup sometime yeah that's the biggest

[00:26:31] thing is just got to figure out how to I just got to figure out how to do it and you know if I

[00:26:35] start if I start doing I'm more I'm just I'm just so hands-on to where like I hate I'm I'm

[00:26:40] not big into like just reading and I hate watching I mean I don't mind I don't mind watching videos

[00:26:45] every once in a while like YouTube and stuff like that and like the how to's and and everything but

[00:26:51] when it comes to doing I'm just like can someone just come show me like I learned more like when

[00:26:55] someone's actually showing me and I can do it hands-on versus all right I'm just going to read this

[00:27:00] manual and hopefully I don't fall asleep yeah I mean it is also one of the cool parts about

[00:27:06] Hamm is that you can you can kind of just try it out you know if you both have a set

[00:27:11] frequency and during certain weather conditions you're like all right well I'm gonna try it

[00:27:14] right now tell me if you hear me it's I know me and my buddy have done that just from here to

[00:27:22] another town about an hour hour and a half south of me and sometimes you can sometimes you can't

[00:27:29] just with just 50 watts from my my man pack he just has a hand talking so he can't talk back

[00:27:37] but he can hear sometimes interesting no I mean that that is I guess one thing that

[00:27:48] I feel like that's the one place where like we have to we have to the conversation has to turn

[00:27:53] at some point is like you know our podcast is largely focused around like the preparedness

[00:27:59] community and by extension we dip our toe into lots of different subjects but like from the

[00:28:06] preparedness standpoint like I think what a lot of our listeners are probably concerned about and

[00:28:10] I know that I've had at least one who is expressed like I know I need to do this I know I need to

[00:28:15] invest time in it but it's overwhelming I don't understand it but like most people in the

[00:28:19] preparedness community are looking for how do I talk to people that I'm not standing right next

[00:28:26] to and so when we start talking about like off-grid communications we're accepting the fact

[00:28:32] that cell phones modern in modern conveniences and incredible pieces of tech that they are

[00:28:38] are all beholden to a network of antennas scattered around the country as a matter of fact

[00:28:44] I was talking to my wife the other day because we were driving up to my brother and my sister-in-law

[00:28:50] is for a baby shower and we just happened like in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi we

[00:28:54] just happened to pass a cell phone tower and I pointed out to my wife probably more

[00:28:59] information that you want to know but I started explaining to her like why the antennas are arranged

[00:29:03] the way they are and why they're the size they are and she glazed over but she humored me but anyway

[00:29:08] but like I pointed out to her I'm like you know you have to understand that like the frequency

[00:29:13] range that cell phones operate in is even higher than UH it's even higher than like

[00:29:18] GMRS radios it's it's above UHF frequencies and as a result the range is even less so the only

[00:29:28] way you have a cell phone signal everywhere is because these towers are scattered all over the

[00:29:32] place like you can't you can't go anywhere in the freaking civilized world and not find a couple of

[00:29:37] them and so I'm always point out to her I'm like every one of those towers is an opportunity

[00:29:44] to have service or not have service every one of those towers is an opportunity to get on this

[00:29:49] side of a hill or a mountain and now you don't have a signal like I'm just trying to get

[00:29:53] people to understand it like yes as ubiquitous the cell phones are and as well as they work

[00:29:59] they're still based on an infrastructure that is incredibly complicated and if the AT&T outages

[00:30:05] cause anything an infrastructure that is so complicated doesn't take much to choke it to

[00:30:11] death right I mean a cell phone is is just radio that's all it is and then you can

[00:30:22] decentralize it into your now instead of relying on a different network you just have your own network

[00:30:28] instead of lower frequency you know the police radios they use a frequency range that is very

[00:30:38] similar to cellular and they all rely on different repeaters to do the exact same thing

[00:30:46] yeah uh chat snow is in the chat saying I'd be interested in talking to a local guy about

[00:30:52] ham I'm just south of bobo you should look into mdfi's ham radio class and then you can beat Sam

[00:31:04] but anyway but yeah I mean so we talked about kind of like where you where you envision people

[00:31:09] getting started and you know I do I feel like the baofang whether you no matter what flavor

[00:31:15] you're talking about if you're talking about ham or gmrs I feel like the baofang is it gets a

[00:31:20] gateway drug man it's the pot that gets you in all the hard stuff because they're freaking stupid

[00:31:26] cheap they're not the hardest thing on earth to friggin work with and there's just such a

[00:31:31] community there's such a community base out there for you to lean on to learn how to use them

[00:31:36] but beyond that that initial step of getting a getting a baofang handheld like

[00:31:44] how do you how do where would you send a person to kind of navigate them through if they start there

[00:31:50] and they say I want more my my next recommendation is always like you have the baofang if you then

[00:32:01] look into a more robust analog like a mobile radio or something that opens up much of doors

[00:32:10] uh they also look into like a digital hand talking it it kind of depends on the person

[00:32:17] and from where they're coming from if it's just joe schmo from work I just like all right well

[00:32:23] how about gmrs how about a gmrs mobile radio set up in your truck and that that usually gets

[00:32:28] people going pretty quickly it's such a low barrier of entry it's so much fun to

[00:32:32] find someone to talk to them and they're super easy to set up yeah do you feel I mean do you feel well

[00:32:41] I was about to ask a question of do you feel like gmrs is easier to set than ham and I don't

[00:32:45] know about programming wise but like you know the thing about gmrs that makes it so user-friendly

[00:32:52] is the fact that it is channelized and those radios come out of the box set up for those

[00:32:58] channels I mean you're literally a couple of tones away from being able to talk to repeat

[00:33:03] or straight out of the box and I just don't think ham radios are like out of the box that ready to go

[00:33:09] that user-friendly no I mean with your standard ham radio you're looking at a blank canvas

[00:33:15] whereas like a gmrs radio there's at least some numbers to color by where you have your channels

[00:33:21] they're super easy to find if you type in gmrs repeater they're super easy to find

[00:33:26] they're they just come out of the box ready to go for you just like you said

[00:33:34] yeah and I mean you know there are online at least for gmrs there are online

[00:33:42] there are online forums that have lists of all the local repeaters and everything

[00:33:45] and even for those that don't publish their tones most radios give you the ability to

[00:33:51] search for a tone once you lock on a frequency so I'm just saying you don't necessarily have to

[00:33:58] talk to the repeater owner and get the tone you can figure it out without having a brute

[00:34:03] force your way through all the frequencies don't do that to yourself you'll hate yourself

[00:34:06] really really badly if you try that but yeah repeater book is a is a really nice resource

[00:34:13] for fried and repeaters what you can also do is if you go to different repeaters you can

[00:34:18] ask other people for the tones for whatever repeater you're trying to get to I've done that a few

[00:34:23] times now for uh repeater near me where I wasn't sure what the tone was I went to the repeater

[00:34:31] close to it and just called around never someone else was talking I'd wait till they finished

[00:34:39] call up ask for the tone and I got it someone else knew it yeah and on the gmrs side like I

[00:34:46] usually default back to my gmrs.com because they have a very very robust listing of repeaters and

[00:34:54] I have not found one yet where anybody was really shy or persnickety about giving me the tones on

[00:35:00] request matter of fact Andrew um I found a repeater I don't know if I'll be able to hit it

[00:35:07] from prep for camp in September but it's close enough that I'm going to try and I reach out to

[00:35:12] that repeater owner and basically just told me okay I'm going to be in your neck of the woods

[00:35:17] end of September can I get your tone so I can try to link up to your repeater

[00:35:21] he gave it to me said hey look forward to talking to you. Of course the other reason I

[00:35:28] reached out to him is because when we get a little bit closer I'm going to politely inquire

[00:35:33] what simplex frequency can I get on in that area and I had the least chance of

[00:35:38] pissing somebody off if we have a shite load of people from prep or camp all talking back

[00:35:44] and forth yeah I'm saying like I suspect if we get on like one through one through seven

[00:35:50] you know like the five watt channels I imagine we'll probably keep our noses pretty clean there

[00:35:55] but at some point I kind of want to get onto the 50 watt channel and find and like you know

[00:36:02] stand up my simplex repeater and see how it does for police in the whole campground

[00:36:08] my worry then is that if I if I wind up screwing with another repeater I'm not really being a good

[00:36:14] good guest in their area. I wish I could uh I mean I guess maybe figure it out with again

[00:36:23] YouTube University but basically like set up our own repeater at prep or camp to have got you know

[00:36:30] to basically connect that everybody could just connect to and you know you keep it

[00:36:37] I mean basically it's try to you know try to make it to where you could try to keep it

[00:36:43] within reason like monitored or secluded so not just not just anybody can log in or

[00:36:48] can can grab it it's uh just basically our group or something like that but

[00:36:55] I mean I basically plan to do that with the GMR house

[00:37:02] but you say I mean so what's your what you what's your license level that you have

[00:37:08] just uh technician just technician yep are you going to go fire yeah yeah then I took the winner to

[00:37:18] study to go for extra but we'll see we'll see I didn't do too well on the old practice tests

[00:37:27] yeah it'll take time yeah no I'm sure it will um so I mean anybody who like so I guess if you

[00:37:33] can explain for the listeners who might not know what the different levels of the uh of the ham

[00:37:39] licensure and then you know what it can cover yeah there are three licenses now it used to be four

[00:37:49] but it got rolled into different court uh different certifications or classes everyone like

[00:37:56] to phrase it and with each new class that you get you get more privileges to different frequencies

[00:38:08] and bandwidths so I don't quite remember what the extra

[00:38:17] yeah no I mean extra extra can go it's pretty high if I had my dad handy he could probably

[00:38:23] tell you this off the top his head he's had an extra license since I was born

[00:38:29] I'm gonna get him on the show one of these days he's a very private person but you know

[00:38:36] I'm determined I'm gonna get him on the show one day yeah for for the amateur extra they get like

[00:38:42] 80 meters 40 meters some really hf stuff that uh is really cool and I'd love to try out sometime

[00:38:51] that that's that's really pushing the distance with that stuff yeah yeah that's yeah that's nuts the uh

[00:39:00] yeah it it is pretty crazy with what you can do with ham and I'm even gmrs uh with it you know how

[00:39:07] far you can go with the stretch and what you can do but uh I mean yeah that's the thing is

[00:39:13] I guess it would have been interesting to have to have this available uh just like

[00:39:21] you know when you got hit by that hurricane fill and basically it's like okay well trying to reach out

[00:39:26] to in-laws and stuff to make sure you're doing okay well it's one of those things where if we had

[00:39:31] the high frequency to where I know you were out of power but once you got the genny you know that

[00:39:36] stuff or even currently you know it's it's one of those things like if you got the generator

[00:39:40] then you had some gear or even your pack and you have it set up with the battery backup and all that

[00:39:46] stuff uh what you know basically like how far you can reach and what you can do yeah and that's also

[00:39:54] part of my motivation for the project I'm working on is is the fact that like I I can't see myself

[00:40:00] ever putting up a really tall tower in the backyard because you know hurricanes high winds

[00:40:05] trees falling I don't have to go back through everything I live through during hurricane Ida

[00:40:10] but let's say I had had a hundred or a hundred and five foot tower in the backyard that damn thing

[00:40:15] would have been sitting on my house after Ida you know so like that's just not going to happen

[00:40:21] but what I do think there is you know like a good discussion to be had is for the person who says

[00:40:29] I want post-emergency off-grid communications and in that case something like you know

[00:40:36] a something like a 20 watt mobile or even a 50 watt mobile that you can run off of a battery or you

[00:40:41] can run off of a jackery or something run off a solar setup you can take an antenna and string it up

[00:40:47] into a string it up into a tree and you can punch a pretty reasonable distance with a very

[00:40:53] simple setup that you can sit that you can put up and take down and not have to be the radio

[00:40:59] nerd with the hundred foot tower in your backyard like no if no offense to the radio nerds among

[00:41:04] us it's just that like I imagine that there's a large percent of our listeners that look at this

[00:41:14] like they do most other things like it is for the utility that I am interested in it

[00:41:19] it's not for the hobby necessarily so I don't think there's a lot of people that would be that

[00:41:25] amongst our listenership that'd be super interested and like you know putting up a

[00:41:29] tower and all that but I do imagine there's quite a few that'd be like I would like to

[00:41:33] know how to get an antenna up in a tree after the power is out so I can talk to a person

[00:41:37] further way than I can by shouting at them mm-hmm like that's where I see a lot of this getting

[00:41:43] really really useful really really quickly but yeah so saying back to what you were talking

[00:41:53] about earlier when we kind of nudged you away from a person that like a person is just beginning

[00:42:01] where do they where do we where do you think they're going to wind up if they get

[00:42:05] quote-unquote serious about amateur radio like you know what I know that progression

[00:42:13] if I'm judging it based off of my own it's start with handhelds or HTs usually they wind up getting

[00:42:19] a mobile shoved into their vehicle because that that's that that's the next step down this

[00:42:24] gateway drug where does a person end up I mean once they get much past that entry level

[00:42:31] I fear they'll end up like me trying to really push the the low wattage as far as I can

[00:42:42] I do see a lot of guys getting into HF there's a lot of

[00:42:49] like data that people can push through HF

[00:42:53] the tech prepper on Instagram and YouTube is a fantastic example of that he

[00:43:01] has like an entire blog that he does through HF radio and just pushing you know data packets

[00:43:11] GPS with radio is also one of those next big steps like my my ac radio has GPS in it

[00:43:20] that I've been trying to figure out for a while

[00:43:24] yes it was a pretty uh they're crazy

[00:43:28] the the the yesu

[00:43:31] FTM 200 actually has it where in the little screen it'll actually point me in the direction of

[00:43:37] whatever station I'm receiving from so in the little screen when I'm picking up her

[00:43:46] or Peter 50 miles or whatever away it'll actually point me towards it like uh

[00:43:54] like you go to the direction finding radio how it works I do not know that's interesting because

[00:44:00] it uh I mean you know that you think about triangulation and everything

[00:44:07] and then that just is like hey go left like go this way you know and then it's I'm assuming

[00:44:13] you know as it as you start getting closer or if you if you turn the wrong direction or something

[00:44:18] you know it'll it'll do something but or show something different or you know point you know

[00:44:23] try to point you in the right direction but but yeah that's just interesting for thinking about

[00:44:28] triangulation or even you know you think apocalypse scenario kind of thing and everybody's all

[00:44:32] paranoid about the government uh triangulating their uh their position for some reason I mean

[00:44:40] you got to think about the other people that are out there that are just listening to what

[00:44:43] your conversation is over the radio and then there if you know your radio is able just to say hey go

[00:44:49] this way uh the amount of people that it's people that are going to get that it will find yeah when

[00:44:56] you uh when you get into like direction finding with radios it can turn out to be pretty easy

[00:45:02] one of the big things we did back in high school was uh like fox hunts with oh yeah radios

[00:45:08] super fun and all you need is a directional antenna that's all you need and you just follow the

[00:45:14] the breadcrumb trail that in an attenuator for when you get a little too close yep

[00:45:22] but once you use like uh uh strs are pretty pretty cool you can use those to look at where people

[00:45:30] are talking without ever being on a radio that's my uh that's my next big project I'm working on is

[00:45:38] getting uh an str set up on an old uh like factory blank android phone and then having that connected

[00:45:46] to a directional antenna. That'd be kind of cool. Yeah well and the other thing that's worth pointing

[00:45:52] out since we just tripped over that subject of like people are nervous about how how do I prevent

[00:45:57] someone to be able to find me with a directional antenna like literally fox hunting me but the

[00:46:02] other thing I point out and this is covered in um NC scouts book really really well where he

[00:46:07] talks a lot he has I think a whole whole big chunk of the book is all about communication

[00:46:11] security but he talks directly about the fact that like you will give yourself away just by what you

[00:46:17] communicate over the radio you know I'm saying like if you take my time for example if if I were

[00:46:24] to talk to my wife key up on frequency and say hey where are you and she said I'm at the Walmart

[00:46:29] guess what there's she has a you have a one in two chance of figuring out where she is

[00:46:34] based on that one piece of information because there's only two walmarts in the town so it's

[00:46:40] okay three if you want to go like way up north of us but the point is it's like you know people

[00:46:45] just don't think about people get all wrapped around the axle about what if I key up and somebody

[00:46:50] has a directional antenna and an attenuator and they can fair at what direction I'm in and I'm

[00:46:54] like what happens if the person you're talking about doesn't understand the basis of communication

[00:46:58] security and they tell everybody who happens to be listening which could be anybody what's

[00:47:05] street corner I'm sitting at you know I'm saying like it's it I think it's funny to me because

[00:47:12] I see a lot of the same parallel is like the conversations I had to have with my daughter

[00:47:16] about like internet security and about you know like when when we were young

[00:47:23] we always got told like don't talk to strangers and with my daughter playing online games we've

[00:47:27] had to talk about don't tell people your age your gender you can tell them your first name that's it

[00:47:33] they don't need to know your last name they don't need to know what city or state you live in like

[00:47:37] tell them nothing and I've literally sat there and watched people through these you know try like try

[00:47:43] to chat with my daughter while she was playing like among us and stuff and say hey where are you

[00:47:49] and she'll say them she'll say earth and just like totally totally shut like dude I'm telling you

[00:47:55] I've seen her go back and forth somebody like 12 or 11 messages where are you where do you live

[00:47:59] earth how old are you older than one I mean just give them the most bullcrap answers because she's

[00:48:04] already been told they're going to try to extract information from you don't let them I cringe if

[00:48:10] anybody ever tries to interrogate this little girl she's going to have them ready to jump out a

[00:48:14] freaking window because she's been trained to do this from a young age to give circuitous answers

[00:48:21] but I think that I think it's a conversation worth having about it kind of goes back to what

[00:48:24] you were saying earlier about Sam is that like when you pick up a radio and you key up there is no

[00:48:29] privacy whatever you pump out into the airway if somebody could be hearing and I feel like

[00:48:37] I feel like people get a preconceived notion in their head about well I need to avoid this I need

[00:48:42] to avoid that and then I point out to them like we need to avoid saying things on the on the open

[00:48:47] airwaves that lets people find you or identify you if you don't want to be identified or found

[00:48:53] all right as long as you you know practice those rules and he is taking a second to think about

[00:48:59] however many frequencies are out there there's a lot of frequencies that

[00:49:06] it's going to be really hard to find you if they got no information

[00:49:11] kind of like have reasonable expectations yeah so what uh I mean before we start wrapping up

[00:49:20] I mean I guess we have about 10 minutes or so but uh I mean what so what's the

[00:49:27] we talked about mistakes that some people make what's one of your mistakes that you look back

[00:49:33] now on your journey through ham and uh you know we always say that people you know basically

[00:49:38] Phil and I we this whole podcast we've always tell people you know learn from our mistakes

[00:49:43] what's something that a mistake that you made that you wish that you could go back to yourself

[00:49:48] and be like hey no don't do that uh or do you tell people uh you know don't do something um

[00:49:55] for me is there's been a few times where we're gonna rely on our radios for like communication and then

[00:50:03] either myself or one of my friends didn't do the beforehand prep if I had to go back every

[00:50:11] time I'd make sure that that happens every time batteries are charged frequencies are in

[00:50:18] it's ready to go you know you know turn on your radio to to to talk and then the radio doesn't turn on

[00:50:28] that's always been my my big thing is making sure everything is ready beforehand

[00:50:33] this sounds like somebody is cute has been guilty of not planning ahead and a bit him in the ass before

[00:50:38] way too many times my friend as long as you learn from it eventually we'll count as a win

[00:50:45] but I think that's important though I mean because you like you are an instructor and I think that's

[00:50:48] important for an instructor say hey I did this it bit me in the ass don't do that like don't

[00:50:53] don't learn from my miss don't learn the hard way from my mistake just take my word on it's a

[00:50:59] bad idea and don't do it but I think that's like super refreshing because you know you talked

[00:51:06] about the gun community earlier the firearms community I don't want to say as a whole

[00:51:10] I don't want to say as a whole because it's not as a whole but there are a lot of instructors in

[00:51:13] the firearms community that are very guilty of this they only want to show themselves in the

[00:51:19] best possible light they never want to admit they make mistakes or be seen to make mistakes

[00:51:23] and I just think it's super important to like you know square up with your your students and

[00:51:29] tell them hey I goofed up it bit me in the butt don't do that learn from my mistakes do it

[00:51:33] this way because I think this way works better and like you try to make sure that your students

[00:51:39] don't have to tread over the same broken ground you did to get to where you are like you want

[00:51:44] you want them to stand on your shoulders and go further than you did

[00:51:49] agreed 100%

[00:51:52] so for anybody if you're in michigan or honestly if you just want to travel

[00:51:59] uh MDFI is hosting you and so they have right now they got two classes

[00:52:07] one uh saturday may 11th in mount pleasant and then another one saturday september 15th

[00:52:15] in Baldwin michigan I don't think um yeah I don't think it doesn't look like um

[00:52:24] it doesn't look like the mount pleasant one is sold out yet and it does not look like the bald one

[00:52:30] bald in the one is sold out yet either so um so yeah get in on the get out on these and uh you

[00:52:37] said that uh barracks has reached out to you too yep yeah those should be in there hopefully soon

[00:52:43] so that I'll get all that worked out yeah so barracks 616 anybody familiar with grand

[00:52:49] rapids area let's say it's a firearm range uh that you can indoor firearm range you can go to

[00:52:54] but they also have they also host classes uh as well so you can go in there and uh track goes in

[00:53:00] their mdfi teachers and they're quite a bit and they actually I think they do have a few other

[00:53:03] places another couple other companies that come in but if anybody is interested uh in your ham radio

[00:53:12] balefing basics uh you guys can all go to train mdfi.com and then if you go to courses at the top

[00:53:22] under hosted courses it's a ham radio balefing basics so and actually that's the land

[00:53:30] navigation one not that one um so yeah so courses ham radio balefing basics but uh yeah

[00:53:37] so you can go that or you can go to northerwoodstraining.com uh that's another that's actually where the

[00:53:43] the class is being held is up at the northern woods training facility now that track has so

[00:53:50] but yeah um are you are you on youtube are you should have you just start I've even thought

[00:53:55] about doing a youtube channel for this kind of stuff or is it just do you think that it's just

[00:54:00] there's so much out there already that it's not even worth it um I've thought about it and I'm

[00:54:05] probably going to in the future uh I've started working on a few things but it's not it's not out

[00:54:11] there yet but it will be um all right well working working people find you if they want to bug you

[00:54:16] or uh if they want to follow you on anything uh they can find me on instagram um it's at t o n k s

[00:54:23] underscore f al for an old gun I used to have you can you can hit me up on there um also

[00:54:32] so yeah that's that's actually it okay easy button I'll have that down the show description and uh

[00:54:41] I mean insofar as you know anybody that wants to learn more about ham radio I encourage them to

[00:54:47] go and avail themselves of the knowledge because the the scariest thing someone can say to me is

[00:54:52] I'll figure it out when I need it because in my experience everybody that's ever said I'll figure

[00:54:57] it out usually doesn't figure it out when there's things like adrenaline and fear and everything

[00:55:02] else involved so I wholeheartedly encourage you to go take sam's class or a class in ham radio

[00:55:09] or read the freaking book or ask questions or do something but I sam I'm glad you came on because

[00:55:16] I really feel like we have we have started taking this subject that you know then the title of

[00:55:21] the show is comms is still sorcery which is kind of a good nature jab at a friend of ours that has

[00:55:27] said comms is sorcery over and over and over but I think we have to start demystifying it a little bit

[00:55:33] like people in the preparedness community really need to take hold of this subject and start figuring

[00:55:39] it out and at least to the degree they feel like they have to they need to start putting some

[00:55:46] things in place so that they can have a communications plan with people they

[00:55:49] need to communicate with couldn't agree more all right well we'll go ahead and roll this one up so I

[00:55:58] can go take some I can go kiss the green fairy on the lips and drown myself in nightquail while

[00:56:02] Andrew makes fun of me for having a man cold so matter of fact podcast had now the door if you

[00:56:08] want to take sam's class check out train mdfi.com if you want to harass him on instagram it's

[00:56:14] tongs underscore foul and I'll have all that in the show description and we'll talk to y'all

[00:56:19] another week bye everybody yep see you