WEBVTT NOTE Transcription provided by Deepgram 00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:03.860 Mike tells world number four twenty seven for 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:07.440 the what is it? The twenty first of 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:09.780 November twenty twenty five. 00:00:13.280 --> 00:00:16.005 When I was a young boy, there wasn't 00:00:16.005 --> 00:00:20.265 any Internet. There wasn't any World Wide Web. 00:00:22.404 --> 00:00:25.685 There wasn't any egghead sending you texts saying 00:00:25.685 --> 00:00:27.125 those are the same thing. You don't have 00:00:27.125 --> 00:00:29.125 to say Internet and World Wide Web. They're 00:00:29.125 --> 00:00:33.540 the same thing. There weren't any video games 00:00:33.540 --> 00:00:36.380 when I was a boy. Well, there was 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:38.880 Pac Man. That was a game, I guess. 00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:46.795 And Asteroids, Wizard of War, Scrambled. Defender was 00:00:46.795 --> 00:00:48.114 a hell of a lot of fun. Those 00:00:48.114 --> 00:00:52.195 were what we called video games. Did I 00:00:52.195 --> 00:00:54.515 say we didn't have video games? Because that 00:00:54.515 --> 00:00:57.315 would have been a mistake. But there is 00:00:57.315 --> 00:01:00.030 one thing you have now that we didn't 00:01:00.030 --> 00:01:02.190 have when I was a boy that I 00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:03.170 wish we did. 00:01:04.830 --> 00:01:11.575 Mike Dell's World. Yep. And we also had 00:01:11.575 --> 00:01:13.895 ham radio back in the day, although I 00:01:13.895 --> 00:01:17.995 didn't participate in ham radio. I did participate 00:01:18.135 --> 00:01:21.035 a little bit in CB radio. CB radio 00:01:21.975 --> 00:01:25.575 is, not the same thing. It can be 00:01:25.575 --> 00:01:30.430 close in some regards, but CB radio is 00:01:30.430 --> 00:01:36.190 really limited to forty independent channels, so exact 00:01:36.190 --> 00:01:39.710 frequencies and nearly don't deviate in between those 00:01:39.710 --> 00:01:46.475 frequencies. Starts in around twenty six megahertz, twenty 00:01:46.475 --> 00:01:49.354 six point nine megahertz up to about twenty 00:01:49.354 --> 00:01:54.395 seven five in that vicinity. And, it and 00:01:54.395 --> 00:01:56.634 if you think about it in meters, and 00:01:56.634 --> 00:02:02.310 that's the wavelength of the radio wave, it's 00:02:02.369 --> 00:02:05.990 eleven meters. And ham radio is a lot 00:02:06.369 --> 00:02:09.569 deeper than that. Ham radio, first off, has 00:02:09.569 --> 00:02:12.230 a lot of traditions when it comes to, 00:02:12.815 --> 00:02:16.895 you know, just how people communicate via ham 00:02:16.895 --> 00:02:22.355 radio, but that's where it all kinda diverges. 00:02:22.495 --> 00:02:26.275 There's, there's UHF. There's even some higher frequencies, 00:02:27.770 --> 00:02:32.010 than UHF, ultra high frequency. But, you know, 00:02:32.010 --> 00:02:35.370 the most commonly used bands are, you know, 00:02:35.370 --> 00:02:43.325 in the UHF and VHF, and HF. So 00:02:43.865 --> 00:02:45.625 I kinda go I'll go through some of 00:02:45.625 --> 00:02:49.405 those. Like I said, CB would be considered 00:02:49.465 --> 00:02:53.625 eleven meters. In fact, CB radio was of 00:02:53.625 --> 00:02:55.865 a a ham radio band when it first 00:02:55.865 --> 00:02:59.510 started, and then the FCC and other places 00:02:59.510 --> 00:03:02.390 around the world decided that they should have 00:03:02.390 --> 00:03:06.710 a citizen's band where people can talk with 00:03:06.870 --> 00:03:09.270 well, at first, you needed a license, but 00:03:09.270 --> 00:03:11.030 it wasn't hard to get one. You know, 00:03:11.030 --> 00:03:13.695 getting a ham radio license is a little 00:03:13.695 --> 00:03:18.595 more difficult, although, nowadays, it's not too bad. 00:03:19.215 --> 00:03:24.355 But the most commonly used bands, for VHF, 00:03:24.575 --> 00:03:29.700 UHF would be, well, twenty three centimeters. Nobody 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:31.220 even calls it that. We call it twelve 00:03:31.220 --> 00:03:34.580 hundred megahertz, but it's between twelve forty and 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:38.660 thirteen hundred megahertz. Not very many people use 00:03:38.660 --> 00:03:43.215 that. It's, you know, usually used for linking 00:03:43.515 --> 00:03:46.475 things or talking to satellites, which you can 00:03:46.475 --> 00:03:49.755 do on ham radio. The next band that 00:03:49.915 --> 00:03:51.995 I don't know anybody that uses it. We 00:03:51.995 --> 00:03:53.835 used to have a repeater around here on 00:03:53.835 --> 00:03:58.260 it, but nine hundred megahertz or thirty three 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.200 centimeters. It's three or nine zero two to 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:04.640 nine twenty eight megahertz, mostly FM, but there 00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:10.135 is some other modes on it. I guess, 00:04:10.495 --> 00:04:12.415 I'll explain the modes a little bit. How 00:04:12.415 --> 00:04:17.535 about that? FM, frequency modulation. That's, what you 00:04:17.535 --> 00:04:21.535 listen on your FM radio, and, it's usually 00:04:21.535 --> 00:04:26.210 pretty clear and more high fidelity. Although, not 00:04:26.210 --> 00:04:29.169 as good as this podcast, but, pretty high 00:04:29.169 --> 00:04:32.310 fidelity. You know, not a lot of static, 00:04:32.530 --> 00:04:37.430 lot not a lot of interference. FM does 00:04:38.025 --> 00:04:41.625 have what's called the capture effect. Meaning, if 00:04:41.625 --> 00:04:45.165 you're listening to two people talking on FM 00:04:45.545 --> 00:04:47.385 and one's stronger than the other, you're only 00:04:47.385 --> 00:04:49.225 gonna hear the one that's strongest, and you're 00:04:49.225 --> 00:04:50.985 not gonna hear anything from the one that's 00:04:50.985 --> 00:04:54.600 not strongest. They don't mix well. Then there's 00:04:55.220 --> 00:04:57.860 AM, amplitude modulation, which is kind of the 00:04:57.860 --> 00:05:01.699 opposite. That's what airplanes use because of this 00:05:01.699 --> 00:05:05.139 effect. When two people are talking, you might 00:05:05.139 --> 00:05:07.060 hear both of them or you can hear 00:05:07.060 --> 00:05:09.575 at least the fact that somebody else is 00:05:09.575 --> 00:05:13.335 talking at the same time. So, that that 00:05:13.335 --> 00:05:18.375 helps. And it doesn't, isn't affected by the 00:05:18.375 --> 00:05:21.095 Doppler effect. And what the Doppler effect is 00:05:21.095 --> 00:05:24.389 if you're moving and it's right. Especially moving 00:05:24.389 --> 00:05:27.910 rather fast. FM might get a little bit 00:05:27.910 --> 00:05:32.310 of weird warbly effect, because you're moving where 00:05:32.310 --> 00:05:35.289 AM didn't matter. So that's why an airliner 00:05:35.350 --> 00:05:38.070 going five hundred miles an hour can, talk 00:05:38.070 --> 00:05:41.795 to a tower, sitting still or, you know, 00:05:41.795 --> 00:05:44.615 or or an air traffic control facility, and 00:05:44.675 --> 00:05:47.955 the communication is pretty clear. And it goes 00:05:47.955 --> 00:05:49.795 for a long ways because they're usually up 00:05:49.795 --> 00:05:52.275 in the twenties and thirties and forty thousand 00:05:52.275 --> 00:05:55.540 feet range. So, you know, higher the better. 00:05:55.540 --> 00:05:57.140 It's all kinda line of sight. And same 00:05:57.140 --> 00:06:01.140 thing with UHF, VHF, FM, and whatever whatever 00:06:01.140 --> 00:06:03.380 other mode that's more or less line of 00:06:03.380 --> 00:06:06.980 sight. So, you know, the two antennas can 00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:08.915 see each other. Now we get into the 00:06:08.915 --> 00:06:12.435 more popular band of seventy centimeters or four 00:06:12.435 --> 00:06:14.275 forty is what a lot of people call 00:06:14.275 --> 00:06:18.375 it. That is four twenty to four fifty 00:06:18.515 --> 00:06:24.780 megahertz, and that's mostly FM, mostly, you know, 00:06:24.780 --> 00:06:27.419 repeaters. And what a repeater is is you 00:06:27.419 --> 00:06:30.300 talk into it on an input frequency, and 00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:33.199 it repeats it out on an output frequency, 00:06:33.259 --> 00:06:35.580 usually at a high level, or on a 00:06:35.580 --> 00:06:38.460 building, on a mountain, whatever. And then when 00:06:38.460 --> 00:06:41.395 you unkey, somebody else can key up, talk 00:06:41.395 --> 00:06:43.555 to that repeater, and you hear it. You 00:06:43.555 --> 00:06:45.235 know? So it takes, you know, these little 00:06:45.235 --> 00:06:48.695 handheld radios and makes it so that it 00:06:48.835 --> 00:06:51.475 goes a lot further. That's what's known as 00:06:51.475 --> 00:06:56.090 a repeater. And then, you know, like I 00:06:56.090 --> 00:07:00.270 said, the seventy centimeter band is fairly popular. 00:07:01.129 --> 00:07:04.409 Not as popular, but still somewhat popular as 00:07:04.409 --> 00:07:07.955 the we call it two twenty, but, it's 00:07:07.955 --> 00:07:11.635 one point two five meters. That's the, two 00:07:11.635 --> 00:07:14.935 twenty two to two twenty five megahertz band, 00:07:15.395 --> 00:07:17.895 and that's the same thing. It's mostly FM, 00:07:18.195 --> 00:07:21.920 you know, repeaters and simplex. Simplex just means 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:24.640 you're talking directly to somebody. Repeaters, you're talking 00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:27.780 through a repeater station and some satellite work, 00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:30.560 on that band. Same thing with the, you 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.200 know, four forty band, seventy centimeters. A lot 00:07:33.200 --> 00:07:36.435 of satellite work, there, and there are some 00:07:36.435 --> 00:07:40.755 ham and satellites. And the most popular band 00:07:40.755 --> 00:07:44.035 of all time on ham radio is two 00:07:44.035 --> 00:07:46.275 meters, and that is hundred and forty four 00:07:46.275 --> 00:07:48.840 to a hundred and forty eight megahertz, at 00:07:48.840 --> 00:07:51.560 least here in the US. Other countries, it 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:53.400 might go one forty four to one forty 00:07:53.400 --> 00:07:56.780 six rather than, all the way up to, 00:07:57.400 --> 00:08:00.860 you know, one forty eight. And that's VHF 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:07.425 high band, is another name for it. And 00:08:07.965 --> 00:08:11.324 that is probably the most ubiquitous ham band. 00:08:11.565 --> 00:08:16.099 You come into the ham radio license, level 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:19.039 of technician. That's usually the first level that 00:08:19.039 --> 00:08:21.680 people come in at. It used to be 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:24.879 one called novice, and novices couldn't use two 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:29.125 meters, but technicians could. We've done away with 00:08:29.125 --> 00:08:31.685 a novice license altogether. There might be a 00:08:31.685 --> 00:08:35.365 few left. They're grandfathered in, but they don't 00:08:35.365 --> 00:08:37.925 get two meters. They get two twenty, two 00:08:37.925 --> 00:08:40.245 twenty two to two twenty five. They don't 00:08:40.245 --> 00:08:43.500 get two meters or four forty. But like 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:45.820 I said, it's the most popular. The radios 00:08:45.820 --> 00:08:48.779 are cheap. I mean, you can get a 00:08:48.779 --> 00:08:53.120 a Bofang, a Chinese little radio from Amazon. 00:08:53.259 --> 00:08:54.860 I think you can get get one for 00:08:54.860 --> 00:08:57.259 under sixty bucks and, you know, puts out 00:08:57.259 --> 00:08:59.115 a couple of watts and, you know, you 00:08:59.115 --> 00:09:02.235 can program it for repeaters and, you know, 00:09:02.235 --> 00:09:03.995 talk all over town with it. You know? 00:09:03.995 --> 00:09:06.095 And then that's about it for these VHF, 00:09:06.155 --> 00:09:10.795 UHF, frequencies. It's mostly line of sight. Now 00:09:10.795 --> 00:09:16.270 there are some propagation. Propagation just means, you 00:09:16.270 --> 00:09:20.270 can, talk longer distances depending on atmospheric can, 00:09:20.270 --> 00:09:23.310 you know, conditions. Being here, next to the 00:09:23.310 --> 00:09:26.690 Great Lakes, we get one called tropospheric ducting. 00:09:28.084 --> 00:09:31.685 I know it sounds sounds geeky, but, basically, 00:09:31.685 --> 00:09:35.524 what can happen is, say, right now, the 00:09:35.524 --> 00:09:38.325 lake is very warm, the air is very 00:09:38.325 --> 00:09:43.080 cool, and the troposphere can get confused and 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:45.100 get a little bit of a temperature inversion 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:48.780 going, and that sometimes carries these UHF, VHF 00:09:49.640 --> 00:09:54.200 frequencies longer distances. I remember one time, I 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:56.545 was out fishing, with a buddy of mine, 00:09:56.545 --> 00:09:58.385 and we were out on a lake and 00:09:58.385 --> 00:10:00.725 happened to have a two meter radio handy 00:10:01.265 --> 00:10:04.065 in the boat. And we, turned on the 00:10:04.065 --> 00:10:06.485 two meter radio while we were trolling and 00:10:07.345 --> 00:10:10.649 heard a bunch of people talking on a 00:10:10.649 --> 00:10:12.970 frequency that, we usually don't hear a lot 00:10:12.970 --> 00:10:15.769 of people talking on. And come to find 00:10:15.769 --> 00:10:18.810 out, they were in Oklahoma. Here we are 00:10:18.810 --> 00:10:24.110 in Michigan. That is extremely long propagation for 00:10:24.170 --> 00:10:26.465 two meters, but it was kinda neat. It 00:10:26.465 --> 00:10:27.985 came in you know, it comes and goes, 00:10:27.985 --> 00:10:30.385 kinda fades in, fades out. But we had 00:10:30.385 --> 00:10:33.185 a fairly good conversation with a couple people 00:10:33.185 --> 00:10:38.145 in Oklahoma, on two meters. That that is 00:10:38.145 --> 00:10:41.420 very rare or at least rare that there's 00:10:41.420 --> 00:10:43.660 people on when that's happening. I I, you 00:10:43.660 --> 00:10:45.980 know, I think what happens sometimes is just 00:10:45.980 --> 00:10:48.780 nobody's talking, so nobody knows that that duct 00:10:48.780 --> 00:10:51.980 opened. You know? And that happens on some 00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:53.820 of the lower bands. As you get lower, 00:10:53.820 --> 00:10:58.774 the distances can get longer and, you know, 00:10:58.915 --> 00:11:01.954 in frequency, lower in frequency and higher in 00:11:01.954 --> 00:11:05.975 the number of meters. The wavelengths get bigger. 00:11:06.115 --> 00:11:09.450 The frequencies get smaller. Another one that is 00:11:09.690 --> 00:11:12.570 somewhat popular, but definitely not as popular as 00:11:12.570 --> 00:11:15.770 two meter, and it's considered the VHF low 00:11:15.770 --> 00:11:18.970 band, and that is fifty to fifty four 00:11:18.970 --> 00:11:23.365 megahertz or six meters. Six meters does have 00:11:23.365 --> 00:11:29.845 a mix of, sideband AM, FM, repeaters, kinda 00:11:29.845 --> 00:11:31.845 has the gamut of stuff. A lot of 00:11:31.845 --> 00:11:35.690 hams call it the magic band. The openings 00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:39.370 on that, propagation wise are a little more 00:11:39.370 --> 00:11:43.130 often and can consist of different kinds of 00:11:43.130 --> 00:11:48.670 propagation, not just like tropospheric ducting or ionospheric, 00:11:49.875 --> 00:11:53.815 you know, propagation that, mostly is what is 00:11:54.835 --> 00:11:57.255 kind kind of the thing. But, you know, 00:11:57.475 --> 00:12:01.235 six meters can be pretty active, but it's 00:12:01.235 --> 00:12:06.089 not highly used. Most HF radios come with 00:12:06.089 --> 00:12:09.370 six meters included, but you gotta have a 00:12:09.370 --> 00:12:13.149 different antenna. And, you know, again, it's not 00:12:13.210 --> 00:12:16.110 highly used, but, you know, kinda neat band. 00:12:17.904 --> 00:12:21.105 First of the HF or high frequency bands, 00:12:21.105 --> 00:12:23.045 I know it makes no sense. High frequency 00:12:23.264 --> 00:12:27.524 is lower than very high frequency VHF or 00:12:27.584 --> 00:12:34.700 ultra high frequency UHF. HF is anything below 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:37.720 thirty megahertz, and the first band in there 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:41.640 is ten meters. Ten meters is twenty eight 00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:44.920 megahertz to twenty nine seven megahertz. And notice 00:12:44.920 --> 00:12:48.645 that eleven meters, which was CB, is twenty 00:12:48.645 --> 00:12:51.525 six twenty seven. And then there's another one, 00:12:51.525 --> 00:12:53.925 twelve meters, which I don't know anybody that 00:12:53.925 --> 00:12:56.404 uses twelve meters, but that's at twenty four 00:12:56.404 --> 00:13:00.165 megahertz. So, you know, ten meters is just 00:13:00.165 --> 00:13:04.740 above what the, typical CB band is. And 00:13:04.740 --> 00:13:08.680 that one, when it's open, is very active 00:13:08.980 --> 00:13:13.139 and, very long distance. Not always long distance, 00:13:13.139 --> 00:13:17.715 but pretty long distance. I remember when I 00:13:17.715 --> 00:13:20.115 first got licensed, I got licensed as a 00:13:20.115 --> 00:13:23.155 novice and radio operator, and one of the 00:13:23.155 --> 00:13:26.435 bands we could use was ten meters on 00:13:26.435 --> 00:13:29.075 voice. You could use Morse code on other 00:13:29.075 --> 00:13:33.710 bands, otherwise known as CW, but, this was 00:13:33.710 --> 00:13:36.590 the lowest frequency that we could use voice 00:13:36.590 --> 00:13:39.950 on and also, you know, allowed you to 00:13:39.950 --> 00:13:45.650 talk long distances. We call it DX for, 00:13:45.834 --> 00:13:48.654 you know, talking to somebody outside the US, 00:13:48.714 --> 00:13:51.834 you know, or outside your country. That's that's 00:13:51.834 --> 00:13:55.435 DX. Well, that was the the the lowest 00:13:55.435 --> 00:13:58.175 frequency that a novice operator or a technician 00:13:58.315 --> 00:14:03.530 operator can use on voice. And I I 00:14:03.530 --> 00:14:06.170 just got licensed, so it's, I think, back 00:14:06.170 --> 00:14:08.730 in nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight, something 00:14:08.730 --> 00:14:11.050 like that. Boy, I've been at this a 00:14:11.050 --> 00:14:15.075 while. And the, the cool thing was you 00:14:15.075 --> 00:14:19.875 could modify a CB radio to, transmit on 00:14:19.875 --> 00:14:22.435 twenty eight megahertz instead of twenty seven, and 00:14:22.435 --> 00:14:25.075 that was totally legal. As a ham radio 00:14:25.075 --> 00:14:28.680 operator, you're allowed to modify your radio as 00:14:28.680 --> 00:14:32.439 long as it stays in technical specifications. You 00:14:32.439 --> 00:14:34.920 know, your bandwidth is not too wide, and 00:14:34.920 --> 00:14:37.639 you're not splattering frequencies all over the place, 00:14:37.639 --> 00:14:40.725 and you stay within the power limit. On 00:14:40.725 --> 00:14:43.765 ten meters, for novices, it was two hundred 00:14:43.765 --> 00:14:46.245 watts as opposed to four watts for a 00:14:46.245 --> 00:14:50.085 CB or twelve sideband, but that's a whole 00:14:50.085 --> 00:14:52.565 another ball of arms. I don't wanna get 00:14:52.565 --> 00:14:56.500 too technical, but I had a, an old 00:14:56.500 --> 00:14:58.980 CB radio that I put a different crystal 00:14:58.980 --> 00:15:00.740 in and modified it so that it would 00:15:00.740 --> 00:15:05.380 talk on twenty eight megahertz. And for about 00:15:05.380 --> 00:15:07.685 two weeks, I would drive to work. I 00:15:07.685 --> 00:15:09.045 had you know, I was in the air 00:15:09.045 --> 00:15:11.285 force, and I would live ten miles away 00:15:11.285 --> 00:15:13.525 from the base. So I had this thing 00:15:13.525 --> 00:15:16.485 in my truck, and I could get on 00:15:16.485 --> 00:15:18.405 there. And, I got out of there, and 00:15:18.405 --> 00:15:22.810 I talked to a guy in Japan. His 00:15:22.810 --> 00:15:26.570 call sign was, what is it? I don't 00:15:26.570 --> 00:15:29.690 know, mate. J o j o four h 00:15:29.690 --> 00:15:32.410 q q, I think, was his call. I 00:15:32.490 --> 00:15:34.575 now I don't remember exactly, but he was 00:15:34.575 --> 00:15:37.935 my first official ham radio contact. And I 00:15:37.935 --> 00:15:39.535 talked to him every day on my way 00:15:39.535 --> 00:15:42.675 to work for about two weeks. The conditions 00:15:42.895 --> 00:15:44.975 were such, and then, you know, the conditions 00:15:44.975 --> 00:15:47.443 went bad and whatever. But, yeah, I used 00:15:47.443 --> 00:15:49.950 to it was j o one h q 00:15:49.950 --> 00:15:51.790 q. There we go. It just popped back 00:15:51.790 --> 00:15:54.190 in my head. And at my at that 00:15:54.190 --> 00:15:57.330 time, my call sign was k b seven 00:15:58.670 --> 00:16:03.125 f g t. Fun and good times. But, 00:16:03.505 --> 00:16:09.425 anyway, I quickly upgraded to technician. Yeah. And 00:16:09.425 --> 00:16:12.545 when I got my, novice license back then, 00:16:12.545 --> 00:16:16.625 two general class operators could give you your 00:16:16.625 --> 00:16:19.660 novice license test. It didn't have to be 00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:22.760 a volunteer examiner or the FCC to give 00:16:22.760 --> 00:16:25.580 you the test. Just any two generals could 00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:27.640 sign you off on the test, and you 00:16:27.640 --> 00:16:30.440 had to pass a, five word per minute 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.775 code you know, most Morse code check, and 00:16:33.775 --> 00:16:36.255 you had to pass a written test, which 00:16:36.255 --> 00:16:39.135 was, I don't know, thirty questions about rules 00:16:39.135 --> 00:16:42.655 and regulations, whatnot. Wasn't wasn't that hard. It's 00:16:42.655 --> 00:16:44.915 novice. You know? It's just a learning permit, 00:16:45.295 --> 00:16:53.060 basically. But, anyway, I got my I upgraded 00:16:53.060 --> 00:16:54.820 to my technician so then I could get 00:16:54.820 --> 00:16:56.660 on two meters, and that was kind of 00:16:56.660 --> 00:16:58.260 the thing. You know, where I was in 00:16:58.260 --> 00:17:01.140 Idaho, you know, we had mountaintop repeaters, and, 00:17:01.140 --> 00:17:03.145 I mean, we could talk for miles and 00:17:03.145 --> 00:17:06.505 miles and miles with a, with a HT 00:17:06.505 --> 00:17:09.705 or a, you know, walkie talkie style little 00:17:09.705 --> 00:17:12.825 radio. And that was a lot of fun. 00:17:12.825 --> 00:17:15.100 And, you know, I I met a lot 00:17:15.100 --> 00:17:16.700 of people and had you know, I have 00:17:16.700 --> 00:17:19.100 a lot of friends to this day that 00:17:19.100 --> 00:17:21.340 I used to talk to on two meters 00:17:21.340 --> 00:17:23.260 there in Idaho off of the mountain top 00:17:23.260 --> 00:17:27.340 repeaters. But, on ten meters, you know, I 00:17:27.340 --> 00:17:28.955 used to use that. You know, we'd get 00:17:28.955 --> 00:17:30.875 on ten meters. I'd go, you know, climb 00:17:31.035 --> 00:17:32.715 we we had a couple of mountain top 00:17:32.715 --> 00:17:36.155 parking spots, you know, kinda overlooks or whatever, 00:17:36.155 --> 00:17:38.315 and I'd go up there and set up 00:17:38.315 --> 00:17:41.115 my radio, you know, my my bigger antenna. 00:17:41.115 --> 00:17:42.920 And it's at there and talk, you know, 00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:44.760 for two or three hours with people all 00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:46.760 over the country, all over the world on 00:17:46.760 --> 00:17:49.560 ten meters. It was, it was pretty cool, 00:17:49.560 --> 00:17:51.340 but that was the top of the sunset 00:17:51.560 --> 00:17:57.835 sunspot cycle. And, you know, again, odd conditions 00:17:57.975 --> 00:17:59.655 that was, I I you know, like I 00:17:59.655 --> 00:18:02.875 said, in the late eighties, early nineties. And 00:18:02.934 --> 00:18:04.455 the we're right now, we're at the peak 00:18:04.455 --> 00:18:09.275 of another sunspot cycle, and, those bands are 00:18:09.690 --> 00:18:12.490 are wide open right now. So, it's kinda 00:18:12.490 --> 00:18:16.250 cool. Twelve meters, that's, that one I was 00:18:16.250 --> 00:18:18.970 telling you, that's just below where the CB 00:18:18.970 --> 00:18:22.409 frequencies are, and that's around twenty four megahertz. 00:18:22.409 --> 00:18:25.175 It's a kind of a weird cutout of 00:18:25.175 --> 00:18:28.535 bands. It's a it's twenty four point eight 00:18:28.535 --> 00:18:30.935 nine to twenty four point nine nine. So 00:18:30.935 --> 00:18:34.795 it's not very much bandwidth, but, you can 00:18:34.935 --> 00:18:39.910 use twelve meters to, to talk. I I've 00:18:39.910 --> 00:18:42.630 never heard anybody on there, and I've never 00:18:42.630 --> 00:18:46.230 used it myself. One of the legacy bands, 00:18:46.230 --> 00:18:48.870 the older bands that, people use a lot, 00:18:48.870 --> 00:18:52.904 it's it's especially popular in Europe and, on 00:18:52.904 --> 00:18:54.985 the East Coast of the US. I don't 00:18:54.985 --> 00:18:57.625 know. I guess worldwide too probably, but, the 00:18:57.625 --> 00:19:01.784 most usage I hear is East Coast US 00:19:01.784 --> 00:19:05.040 and Europe. But it's fifteen meters, and that's 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:08.560 twenty one megahertz to twenty one point four 00:19:08.560 --> 00:19:11.680 five megahertz. So, you know, four hundred and 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:16.560 fifty kilohertz worth of, bandwidth there, and, yeah, 00:19:16.560 --> 00:19:21.664 that can can get busy. And then there's 00:19:21.885 --> 00:19:24.125 seventeen meters, and that's what's known as a 00:19:24.125 --> 00:19:29.005 work band. Work was the World Amateur Radio 00:19:29.005 --> 00:19:34.900 Conference carved out this little frequency, range, in 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:38.580 the seventeen meter band at eighteen point six 00:19:38.580 --> 00:19:41.780 eight to eighteen point one six eight. So 00:19:41.780 --> 00:19:43.700 it's a pretty small band. You know, it's 00:19:43.700 --> 00:19:47.380 only a hundred kilohertz wide, but, people get 00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:50.965 on voice and they use digital modes there. 00:19:50.965 --> 00:19:52.885 And I'll explain digital modes when I get 00:19:52.885 --> 00:19:56.485 through the, the bands here. Twenty meters, that's 00:19:56.485 --> 00:19:58.725 also a legacy band, and that's probably the 00:19:58.725 --> 00:20:02.500 most busy HF band. And that one, you 00:20:02.500 --> 00:20:04.340 know, you can talk all over the world 00:20:04.340 --> 00:20:08.280 on, or, you know, you know, it's mostly, 00:20:08.340 --> 00:20:11.300 you know, kinda worldwide or cross country. Like, 00:20:11.300 --> 00:20:15.455 we, the group I belong to, has a 00:20:15.455 --> 00:20:17.475 net, which is a, you know, a scheduled 00:20:17.615 --> 00:20:19.215 time that we all get together on a 00:20:19.215 --> 00:20:21.775 particular frequency, and we have a net on 00:20:21.775 --> 00:20:26.575 twenty meters on Sunday mornings. And I can 00:20:26.575 --> 00:20:31.029 hear the people in California, Arizona, Texas, you 00:20:31.029 --> 00:20:33.669 know, that are on this group, but I 00:20:33.669 --> 00:20:37.350 really can't and maybe Florida from here in 00:20:37.350 --> 00:20:40.389 Michigan, but I can't really hear Ohio or 00:20:40.389 --> 00:20:43.110 other people in Michigan. You know, so it's 00:20:43.110 --> 00:20:48.275 it's a longer skip zone, longer propagation. It's 00:20:48.335 --> 00:20:51.615 never really short range unless we're really close. 00:20:51.615 --> 00:20:53.455 And then, of course, it's called ground wave, 00:20:53.455 --> 00:20:55.455 and I can hear somebody that's really close. 00:20:55.455 --> 00:20:57.215 Like, you know, when my dad used to 00:20:57.215 --> 00:20:59.970 get on it from eight miles away, I 00:20:59.970 --> 00:21:02.770 could hear him, but I couldn't hear the 00:21:02.770 --> 00:21:06.050 the guy twenty miles away from me. It 00:21:06.050 --> 00:21:08.050 was, you know but I could hear the 00:21:08.050 --> 00:21:09.970 people in California. And every once in a 00:21:09.970 --> 00:21:11.490 while, we have a friend of ours in 00:21:11.490 --> 00:21:13.810 Australia that gets on that, and we could 00:21:13.810 --> 00:21:18.185 hear him. So that's that's kinda interesting. There's 00:21:18.185 --> 00:21:21.465 another band, another warp band, thirty meters, and 00:21:21.465 --> 00:21:23.545 that's at ten point one to ten point 00:21:23.545 --> 00:21:27.245 one five megahertz. So it's only fifty kilohertz 00:21:27.385 --> 00:21:31.450 wide, and it's Morse code and digital modes 00:21:31.450 --> 00:21:34.330 only. There's no voice on thirty meters, so 00:21:34.330 --> 00:21:37.770 you can't talk. You can, you can do, 00:21:38.010 --> 00:21:41.070 Morse code or, some of the digital modes. 00:21:42.605 --> 00:21:45.165 Forty meters is another legacy one, and, we 00:21:45.165 --> 00:21:48.925 do another net on forty meters that pretty 00:21:48.925 --> 00:21:51.885 much covers the eastern half of the United 00:21:51.885 --> 00:21:54.445 States. And that's that's actually a really good 00:21:54.445 --> 00:21:57.559 band certain times of the day, usually mornings 00:21:57.620 --> 00:22:00.419 or evenings, not so much in the middle 00:22:00.419 --> 00:22:02.179 of the day. It all depends on, like 00:22:02.179 --> 00:22:05.700