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Welcome to Botches Off-Road. Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to

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trail stories, tent camping to rock landing, and all things to do with the outdoors. Today's

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episode is pretty special. I got the chance to go on Snail Trail and talk about a little bit of my

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day job, a little bit of Meshtastic, a lot a bit about Meshtastic, and a little bit about the

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botches and how we started. It was a great time getting to talk to Jimmy and Tyler and I'm really

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glad to be able to share this episode with you. Go ahead and go over to theirs and at least give

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them a download. Even if you listen to this one, at least give them a download for theirs. They're

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pretty much the same, I'm sure. So yeah, I'll get right into it and I hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome back, ladies, gentle ladies, kiddos, boys, girls, all the trail dogs out there.

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This is a Monday episode, of course, which means we have a really fun topic with a really fun

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individual here. Professional podcaster over here, man, getting him on the show. Finally,

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he's called in a couple of times. We have Alex here from botches off road, man. How you doing,

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bud? Hey, how's it going guys? I'm doing pretty good. Nice. We're doing pretty well as well.

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And of course, we have Jimmy here as always. Hi. I was going to just skip right over. Thank you.

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Yeah. What is it? What's his nickname this week? Jimbo Jimbo Jet.

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That'll work. That's that's one of the better ones I've heard.

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So, yeah, man, welcome to the show, Alex. I think it's gonna be a fun episode. I was wanting to just

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dive right into radio talk, but Jimmy said that he wanted to be involved a little bit more. So,

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yeah, he's got to push us back. Well, I mean, you guys are more than welcome to jump right into radio

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talk. And if for all those people that are like me, you can just skip to like the 50th minute,

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Mark, and then I'll join you guys again. After Jimmy's had four whiskies, Jimmy comes in all

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sloppy. Are there did you leave any of those proofs here? No, I took him home and had him last night.

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They're fantastic. I had a whiskey. So I'll keep sipping on my glass of water. There you go. That

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looks like a giant jar of vodka. That's what that really. Yeah, we have our coffee. Our coffee's

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over here. Yeah. As we are recording in the morning. Well, morning for us. Is it noon for you?

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One o'clock. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Time travel is crazy. Yeah. Well, call me and we want to know a little

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bit more about you. So you've been listening to us for a long time and you've called in and left

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some messages on the snail mail a couple of times there, which kind of led us into a fun discussion

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about mesh tastic versus APRS, which I think we're going to dive into a little bit here in the future.

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For sure. But we want to know a little bit more about you botches off road,

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maybe get into some turkey farming and and yeah, I don't know. I think it should be fun.

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The first thing I want to know, though, is botches off road. You guys do an off road podcast,

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you and two other guys. Tell us a little bit. What's your elevator speech for botches off road?

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So I'll go right down to the beginning. So we started a few years ago. We had a group chat

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called the the bitches and then we had to change the name of it and screwed up and named it the

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botches. And then ever since then, our our little off road group was known as the botches.

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That's pretty funny. So Jimmy was sitting over here writing down a notes on his little notebook

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and I looked over and I was like, that looks like bitches. I read it as bitches off road at first.

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And then I was like, oh no, he wrote it as botches. I was like, I wonder if that's where

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that came from. Now I can't be. I wonder if something else. No, you got it. I got it.

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I nailed it. First time you've done something right. So then we we kind of got into Toyotas.

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I come from Jeeps. I had a TJ. I had a J for a seventy three J four thousand. I had a CJ

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like that's where I J four thousand. I haven't heard of that alphabet yet.

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It's an old pickup. Mine was one ton J forty eight hundred and then you could go down to

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like a J two thousand, which after seventy three, I think seventy four is when they change the name

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to J 10 and J 20. OK, OK. That makes I've heard of I know the J 10 and J 20. So I never knew that

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they were four thousand and two thousand. Yeah, that's really what year did you say yours was

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seventy three. Oh, cool. Nice. Yeah, that was my first quote unquote overland rig.

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Dang. I used to throw I had a PVC frame I made and I throw a tarp over it and camp in the bed.

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There you go. Yeah. I didn't I've done that, but I just put the tarp over the cab and shut it in

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the doors and then angle it down and bungee it over the tailgate and down on like to the trailer

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hitch. And that would be your shelter right there. It was perfect. I didn't have the PVC stuff.

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That's cool. Mine looked like a covered wagon, which I mean, it was Arizona. So it made sense.

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OK, so you had a Jeep and then a couple of Jeeps. Did you have other Jeeps than the TJ and the J four

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as a CJ? My first car was an eighty three CJ seven. OK, OK. That's a long.

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I sold my TJ back in seventeen, I think, seventeen or eighteen. And then I didn't have anything until

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twenty twenty two and I was just like, you know what? I need a new car. I'm tired of just driving

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a power stroke everywhere. So I went and bought a four runner. Nice choice. Third gen for runner.

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So that's a good choice. Third gen best gen second and best. But

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just got to change a lot of stuff on the second gen to make it the best gen. But you're changing

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everything and taking it from a third gen and putting it in. Once you have a third gen engine,

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a first gen drivetrain and Ford axles and Tundra diffs on it, it's second gen is the best.

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I will say your second gen is the best second gen I've ever seen. It's there's a couple up

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here in NorCal that give it a run for its money for sure. There's some cool builders up here that

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like to do some fun things with second gen's. But over here in Michigan, they're all rotted out. So

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I can believe that. Yeah. So you got it. Even my third gen, the frame looks like a quilt. So

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that's sad. That's about we need to send you one. Yeah.

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I'll just send it. Yeah. So we got into Toyotas. Mark bought a Tacoma not long after I bought my

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third gen. He's got his first one was an 09 Tacoma and he rolled that about six months after he

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bought it. Ouch. Just hit an icy spot on the road and she just kept going. Michigan stuff. So

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Michigan stuff. So he replaced it with a new one. So that's a good choice.

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Yeah. Michigan stuff. So he replaced it with a 14 Tacoma and we were just the two of us. We had

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our little group botches off road and we do a lot of stuff with a Facebook group called Minton State

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Tours. And another guy, we're from a really small town of about 700 people. And another guy from our

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town happened to be in there, which is Gavin, and he drove an FJ and then we were out wheeling one

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day and we're just like, you know what? We should start a podcast. Yeah. How hard can it be? Yeah.

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Well, little did I know that famous last words, those idiots, Jimmy and Tyler figured it out and

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we could probably figure it out. Yeah, that's cool, man. So were you guys just kind of like,

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hey, we thought we love talking about off roading. So let's just start a podcast or.

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Yeah, pretty much. Nice. Other people like listening to us. So why not? Yeah, there you go.

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As long as people are listening, it makes it kind of fun, right? Yeah. So cool, man. What all do you

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have done to the third gen forerunner? Then I've got right now it's kind of got a cheap lift. I've

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got a freedom off road, adjustable shocks in the front set to three inches. And then I've got a

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three inch eye box in the rear with currently rough country shocks in the rear, but I've got icons

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sitting on my bench that I need to rebuild to put on it. I got them. I got a full set of fifth gen

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icons, three fronts and three rears for two hundred dollars. And I'm like, whoa, even if I

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don't like icon that much, it's worth the it's worth the two hundred dollars. Yeah. It's still

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like a decent product. So yeah, they do. They seem all right. OK, well, cool. You said you to

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rebuild shock. Do you have a lot of experience with rebuilding shocks or I will be learning?

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OK, I do everything. I haven't taken my truck to a shop ever. So nice. Do you have a big

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mechanical background or what's your what's your what's your background?

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I mean, when I was in the army, I did radios and I just built a bunch of race cars and

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Jeeps while I was down there. So it's always been a hobby and it's just it's cheaper to do it myself

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than take it to someone. So I'll figure it out. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Cheaper. But we are

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I was literally talking about this this morning. It's cheaper to do it yourself, but you're also

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spending the time. So it's where's where's that balance? How does it work? Yeah. Yeah, that's

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cool. All right. So I will. So you went from Arizona, it sounds like, out to was it Minnesota?

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No. Michigan, Michigan, Michigan, Michigan. Yep. And then somewhere in the middle there was

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the army. So did you grew up in Arizona originally? I grew up actually a mile down the road from where

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I'm at right now. Oh, wow. I grew up, but I was stationed in Fort Wichita, Arizona. OK, years.

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And that's where Arizona was for the army. Yep. Arizona was for the army. And that's where you're

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building race cars. Yeah, I built a 96 Cobra and a 2004 Ram 1500. Wait, Ram 1500 race car?

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Yep. How does that work? Enlighten us over here.

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It was a single cab short bed Hemi. OK, good. So I slammed it, put a turbo on it, made it fast.

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Yeah. And then blew it up.

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Dodge problems. Yeah. All right. Well, that sounds fun. And then so after the sin in the army,

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you found yourself coming back home. Yeah, just it made the most sense.

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You know, I could stay at my dad's till I got stuff figured out and then I just kind of never left.

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It happens. Yep. I'm, you know, living in the same house as my childhood house. So

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I fully understand that. Nice. OK. And then in the military, you did radios, it sounds like. So

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OK, that's where your affection for radios came from. Or was it before then?

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I'd say that I did radios for the army because I like radios.

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OK, so as radio, were radios already a big hobby of yours before you got in the army then?

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I wouldn't say so much a big hobby. I was more into tech, but my dad's a ham. So it's always

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just kind of been there. Yep. Is that kind of funny how that works out? Yeah.

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Yeah, that's typically how like people end up getting into radios is somebody in their family

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is a ham operator and you're just around it all the time. So it just kind of comes naturally then.

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And I'm from a small town that used to not have very good cell service. So we all had C.B.'s anyway.

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So. Yep. I never got my C.B. to work, so I never liked him. And then I met this guy and he's like,

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you should try the ham radio. And I was like, wow, this actually works. This is great.

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Yeah, I still do not have my ham license. So, yeah, you're one of those guys.

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I just I keep putting it off. Yeah, it's I mean, it's not too bad, especially for you.

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If you already know radio stuff, the tech license will be super easy for you. So

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it's just a matter of finding a spot and doing it, I guess. A testing location.

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The test I've taken multiple practice tests. They're pretty easy. So yeah,

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it's yeah. Yeah. If you're familiar with radios, the tech is easy. I've had it's funny.

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I've talked with people who are the test givers out at different testing locations and different clubs.

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And every once in a while, they'll get together and take the three tests, the technician,

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the general and extra. And they say that like usually most of them will pass the technician.

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Every once in a while, there's like one person in the group that won't pass it for whatever reason.

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And then like usually like 60 to 70 percent of the group will pass the general. And then like

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only like 20 or 30 percent will pass the extra. And they're all extras, too. So it's just funny how

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the the test changes over time and updates and they're they don't stay current with the updates,

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but they already have their license or like, oh, whatever. Well, that's cool. OK, so I'm going to

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avoid jumping into more radio talk. Yeah, let's go back to the podcast. Let's let's get back to

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let's get back to off road podcast stuff. You went to the military for radio stuff.

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You built cars all the time. So if you just pretty much always just kind of been building

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stuff, I mean, it sounds like you grew up in this town of 700 people. So

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not a whole lot of resources, I imagine, for repairing things, which is why you got

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we've got quite a few mechanics in town. It just my family, we never really had money to go to them.

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So we just always fixed our own stuff. Gotcha. OK, so what is the I mean, what is the is so

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that I'm going to allude to turkey farming now? Is that is that a family business that you're

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doing because you you do turkey farming now, right? Yeah, yeah, I know. I I applied for this job

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because it was a mile from my dad's house. OK, and I had lots of poultry experience because when I

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was a kid, I raised birds. So after a year of trying to get them to hire me, they hired me

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and I've been managing a farm of about 40000 birds for five years now. Holy crap. 40000.

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40000. Wow. But it's not even Thanksgiving. Yeah, we do more sandwich meat. We don't do

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the Thanksgiving turkeys. OK, all right. So you told us, I think off air that they're primarily

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Tom's, which is a boy turkey. And so boy turkeys is turkey meat for like sandwiches. Yeah. So a

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Tom is usually bigger and tougher. So it makes better sandwich meat, whereas a hen is smaller

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and more tender. And they make better Thanksgiving turkeys. Yeah. OK. What do the transgender

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turkeys make? They don't exist. Christmas turkeys. That's your Christmas duck. I got the turducken.

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Yeah, that's what's inside of the turkey. OK. Wow. 40000 fricking turkeys. That's a lot of birds.

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That's at max capacity right now. I've probably got closer to like 36. That's still a lot.

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That doesn't sound like any less to me. I have a hummingbird feeder, so you know.

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I know I get like five hummingbirds that show up at mine.

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Have to refill it like once a week. But yeah, that's gnarly. So being in your geographic location,

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I'm assuming everything's pretty much inside. Oh, yeah. We've got I've got four barns,

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one brooder coop and then three finisher barns. What does that mean? A birder coop and finishing

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barns. So a brooder is a brooders where a bird goes when they're a baby. OK. And then a finisher

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or a grow out barn is where they go to live the rest of their life. OK, got it. OK. So I didn't

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that's interesting. So you move them from barn to barn throughout their life cycle. From one barn

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to another barn one time. Yeah. How many turkeys are you moving at a time between barns? Between

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nine and ten thousand. How do you move nine to ten thousand turkeys between two buildings?

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So we've got the Stig almost I'd say it's probably a 20 foot long trailer with a conveyor belt on the

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floor. So we heard a thousand of them onto the trailer and then go into the next barn and turn

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the conveyor on and they just kind of fall off. That's good to say. Another covered wagon joke.

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Wow. OK. And so what ratio is your brooders to the finishers?

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I don't know exact. Yeah, but I know that the finishers like three hundred and fifty yards.

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I think the finishers big. I don't know exact on that, but I know that the brooders two hundred

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yards. OK. And so right now you said you have roughly thirty six thousand. But are they are

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they all in the finisher at the moment or are they split up? You have some and some adults.

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So I've got about nine thousand that are two weeks old today. I've got about eighty five hundred

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that are 20 weeks tomorrow, but they leave tonight, so they'll never hit 20 weeks.

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And then I've got where do they go?

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They go to the sandwich shop.

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Arriving at your local subway tomorrow. Actually, Subway is one of our customers.

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All right. Sorry to interrupt. So you got and then over you got nine thousand that are six.

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Nine thousand that are about two weeks old. OK. Eighty five hundred that are about 20 weeks old.

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Probably seventy six hundred that are just now eight weeks or no, 12 weeks old.

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And I've got some that are in between there somewhere. Right. OK. So you really are rotating

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your your I want to say crops, but your inventory inventory, your livestock almost every six weeks.

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Six. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, that's it. So every six weeks you're getting a new

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flock in and a flock is leaving pretty close. Yeah. There's a couple of weeks for clean out time.

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So I make sure the barns are clean, but that's crazy. Wow. That's yeah. It's just a thing I've

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never thought about. Right. You know, it's just it's a different game, different different job.

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Interesting. Very kind of wild. So you applied for this job. It took you a year to get it.

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Did you why did they not want you? Why? Why did it take a year to get over?

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So they had another manager here who they wanted gone, but he kept acting a little better.

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So they held on to him for a year. Got it. OK. Yeah. And then did you walk in straight as the manager

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or did you have to work your way up the ladder a little? No, I got I applied as a manager and got

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hired in as a manager. Perfect. Do you have a lot of I mean, you said you were a manager.

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Do you have a lot of I mean, you said you raised birds in your kid. What kind of birds were you

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raising as a kid to get this experience to be a turkey farmer? Forty thousand birds.

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I did for each I showed chickens and turkeys on average as a kid. I think we had about 300

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birds on the farm at a time. Wow. Most of those were exhibition birds. So not so much your egg

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layers, but like, you know, your fancy chickens or fancy turkeys. Yeah. Yeah. OK. See that's just a

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different for each. Yeah. Out here, like a kid raises a pig. Yeah. Like, you know, like one only,

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not 300. Yeah. Wow. OK. That's really I'm intrigued. I think it's really cool. I think it's a you know,

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it's just a different side of America that, you know, a lot of people probably don't realize or

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follow along with me. I mean, at least out here in California, you know, it does. I don't see it very

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often. We see the cow farms occasionally when we drive down I-5. But yeah, it's just a different

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world to me. It's every day. That's all I see is farms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Tulare and

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Visalia, which is like agriculture, central of the United States, pretty much. So like farming isn't

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any kind of like new or unknown thing for me. But it was all it's all cow and dairy stuff. Right. So

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but learning about bird farming, I'm like, what? That's just crazy. Yeah, that's like I think it's

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us, Missouri or Minnesota are the two biggest places for bird farming. Wow. Wow. Why is that?

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We do. I think it's a temperament, a temperature thing. It's easy to maintain a temperature in a

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barn when it's cooler than when it's warm. Oh, okay. Because you can heat a barn for cheap,

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but you can't cool a barn for cheap. Gotcha. Though we do have a listener. His name is screen

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name is Magnolia Mayhem. And he manages or doesn't manage works at a chicken farm in Mississippi.

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Oh, OK. So they're all over. They're all over. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. That's really kind

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of farming. Yeah. I wonder. So this is something I wish I knew more about just in my my family's

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background. My grandmother's father apparently like wrote the book on poultry farming. And so he was

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he was a massive chicken professor, doctorate of chickens down at I think it was Cal Poly.

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And so I've always kind of wondered like how big is this? I've always heard that he's like

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wrote the book on poultry farming. Right. And so I'm like, what does that mean? How far is

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this reach really out there? So, yeah, I want to I'm now I know that I know somebody in poultry

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farming, bird farming. I kind of want to go and find some of the stuff that he did. He created

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and see it, ask you about it and see if you've heard of them. So I would love to look at that.

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Yeah. I'll see if I can look up more information about him. His plaque is still at Cal Poly as like

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the the head of the poultry department for years and years. So, OK, well, that's good to know.

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I'm going to have to hit you up about that later. Yeah. Well, now that you're bringing that up,

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it made me remember that my my great grandfather on my father's side raised chickens in Texas.

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Really? Yeah. They had a chicken farm and they actually ended up closing it

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and then moved to California. And that's why that side of the family is here now.

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I wonder if your great, great granddaddy knew my great granddaddy.

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They probably went off roading together. Yeah.

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As I'm over here, my great granddaddy was a funeral director and everyone else was a funeral

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director. Yeah. Your great granddaddy probably met ours, but ours were passed away by then.

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Yeah. Too funny. All right. So circling around, let's let's kind of close this off with podcasting

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again. So do all the guys now have Toyotas? Are you going to just a Toyota based podcast

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that just raises chickens or turkeys on the side? Like it's it's not necessarily Toyota based.

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I mean, currently me, Mark and Gavin all drive Toyotas. We do have a Jeep build that we're

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kind of working on in the background. OK. Why would you devalue your podcast like that?

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We're putting a Jeep. We're putting a Jeep YJ tub on a third gen forerunner frame.

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Oh, that could be interesting. Does the frame look like a quilt?

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Yeah, no, no. This one's clean. So it's going to be a three, four powered Jeep YJ with long travel.

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Yeah, it's going to be a really the YJ is a pretty short tub compared to a forerunner frame.

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It is. How much are you chopping that frame down? So everything behind the last mount for the rear

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axle is getting cut off. And then we're going to tub. We're going to tub the YJ because that's

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going to put the rear axle right on the back of the YJ tub. And then it puts the front axle

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right in the front of the YJ fenders. Oh, that's going to look goofy.

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It's going to look like a stretched YJ. It's going to look like a super stretched YJ.

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You're going to leave it I.F.S. Yeah. Long travel.

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OK, OK. So three, four power to doing anything with the transmission and transfer case.

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I'm trying to think what's on that frame right now around that build right now. I think so it's got

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dual stick stock dual stick transfer case right now. Well, obviously dual stick isn't stock,

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but it's a stock transfer case with dual stick. But I think that's going in our buddies forerunner.

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So it's probably going to end up with a factory transfer case for now. OK. Those work great.

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Yeah. We figure make it run and then we'll go from there. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be really

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interesting. How are you dealing with the electrical or is there a lot of electrical

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from the YJ that you have to be concerned about? We ripped all of it out. We're going to rewire

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all of it basically to be a Toyota. Yeah. So what about the dash? Are you going to

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wire the Toyota stuff into the YJ YJ dash or are you going to put the Toyota dash in the YJ?

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Well, we ripped the YJ dash out. We're going to make a flat just a flat like a CJ dash for it.

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OK. And then we'll just put aftermarket gauges for GPS speedometers. We don't even have to

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mess with ABS sensors and then everything else will just be hard plumbed. Nice. That sounds like

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a fun build. It's going to be different and it's going to be unique and awesome. Are you going to

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put a rooftop tent on it too? No, no. Oh, come on. We are going PVC pipes and a type. Me and Mark are

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it's not that we're anti rooftop tents. It's just that they don't make sense in Michigan.

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Why is that? What are the benefits of a rooftop tent? Get off of the cold ground.

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Really? But then you've got air running directly underneath you cooling your tent off.

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Kind of. Yeah, I mean, yes, you are right. But I think there's the foam insulating pad on the inside

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that prevents a lot of intrusion of the cold weather as long as it's not memory foam because

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that freezes here. Oh, interesting. And I hate memory foam. I don't sleep well on memory foam

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at all. So, yeah, I don't have any of that. It's not that I'm against them. I just it's a lot of

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money when I could just go buy a hundred dollar Walmart tent and set it up in two minutes. Yeah.

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Yeah. Or get a military sleeping bag set up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I sent you that picture of us

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at Benji's. Yeah. He went to Benji's open house when he set up and is there set up.

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Was that you and Mark? Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Me and Mark, both of them sleeping in like what looked

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like Bibby sacks, which were there, the military system just out on the ground, no tent or anything.

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That's how my grandfather did it. And I always did as a kid. If it was fair weather outside,

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we just laid down a tarp, no tent or anything and put our sleeping bags on it and slept in the open

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sky. So I mean, it got kind of cold that night, but with the our military bags, you really don't

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feel the cold. Nice. Yeah. I supposedly I got invited to try a military bag when I go down to

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King of the Hammers this year. Oh, nice. Nice. But I'm also kind of like, should I really try a military

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bag sleeping in my rooftop tent like with my electric heated mattress pad like you might only

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need this? You might only need the summer bag. Yeah, exactly. The winter bag. Maybe I'll just

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sleep outside under like underneath the rooftop tent that night and put down a tarp. Yeah,

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that could be fun. But yeah, that was pretty cool. How did you like Benji's

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new celebration of him starting the off road, the shop? It was really cool. I think Benji put on a

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really fun show. There are a lot of cool people there. It was a good chance for us to network

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since, you know, Michigan, we don't have a whole lot of stuff going on up here, but

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it was a lot of fun. That's cool. I really wish I could have gone. How long was the drive down

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there for you? Eleven hours, 12 hours. Wow. Okay. In my third gen forerunner with no cruise control.

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I had, you know, I have cruise control. I almost never use it. I don't know why I don't use it that

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often. I at home, I don't use it, but man, on the expressway, it'd be nice to just set cruise and

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let it go. Yeah. I will say dynamic cruise control. I use that all the time and the duly. That's nice.

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I bet those are fun. You can just have it anywhere. You just leave it on everywhere and you just just

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set it for 90 and it'll just adjust to traffic as you go. Yeah, I've never used one. No,

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neither have I. The newest car, the newest car I've ever had was the 2004. So I like dynamic cruise

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control because I'll just cut them off and they have to slow down. Exactly. You find somebody

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that's running it. You troll them all day. Yeah. I wish they had it on the rear so I could push them.

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Getting too close. This car needs to go faster. That would be very useful. Yeah. But unfortunately,

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I think they're smarter than that. And they're like, we don't need it on the rear.

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That's awesome. Cool. All right. So when does your podcast get released? And I guess when,

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what general topics do you kind of cover? We usually we release one on, we just changed this

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too. So I got to think now we released one on Monday night at 1130. That's just a 30 minute

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episode. Right now we're playing the game radio chatter, which is okay. So we're going to be

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playing the game radio chatter. What is that? Hold that back up. Okay. Is it a, like a, just a

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question, a prompt of what's your, what's one of your favorite outdoor activities that you've ever

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done or whatever? That might actually be a card. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So they're just general topics.

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Yep. And it, it's pretty fun. We, the radio, the guy who started radio chatter is local to us. So

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we figured it'd be kind of a fun thing to go through. Then on, I think it's Friday night now,

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Friday night at 1130, we release an hour long episode. And that one could be anything from,

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we went on a trip and we're going to talk about it to, we're bored and have no idea what to talk

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about. It's just a mixed bag. And then once a month we read an article from Northology.

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It's a virtual magazine started by Cindy Pope. So we read one of her articles and we kind of

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talk about it. That's a really, really fun episode. We just started that this month, but it's probably

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one of my favorite ones we've done. That'd be great. I've heard of Northology. I want to,

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I've gotten ads to subscribe to Northology, but I've never looked into what Northology is.

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So like what, what kind of content are they covering? Oh, that's a sweet. Hold on, hold your

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arm back up. Trees. That's cool. Just a bunch of trying to show you the Jeep. All we noticed was

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the trees. Yeah. Oh, I see it now. It's a negative space. Cool. That's sweet. Anyways, sorry, I got

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distracted. Yeah. So what's Northology? What are, what do they have? What are they covering?

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Mostly Overland content. Cindy Pope has, man, she's got Overland, the red,

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and I'm trying to think of what her one in the UP is. It's in Q&A.

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But yeah, they just do, you know, different Overland type content, all sorts of articles

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about different things. It's core. That's the one in the, in Q&A. Okay. So Cindy Pope's a really

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big part of the Overland community here in the Midwest and Northology just kind of like her,

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her contribution to everybody. That's kind of cool. I've never heard of Cindy or what she does

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there. So, I mean, is she just really involved with the communities? Does she run some businesses?

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Is she in industry stuff or what is she really doing over there? Core is what really started Cindy

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getting involved. Core is Overland Expo that happens in the Keweenaw Peninsula every year.

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Okay. Then it's been so long since we interviewed Cindy. Yeah. We have an episode. I can send you

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the link to it. And Benji has interviewed her too, right? I don't know if Benji has,

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because when we talked to her, Benji had not interviewed her yet. Oh, really? Okay. And maybe

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it was your guys's podcast that I saw it, but I could have sworn that either that or I think Benji

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is going to start working with her or something like that. I'd hope so. Those two would be an

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awesome duo. Okay. Well, that's cool. We'll put a link in the show notes to your episode with Cindy.

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That'll be nice to have because I want to go listen to that now too. So,

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okay. Well, cool, man. We're a little far along here. Shall we transition into

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Meshtastic and talking about- I'm up for it. Okay. All right. Now,

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nice talking to you guys. Have a good rest of your day. Jimmy out. All right. So this

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originally came up. You called in or wrote in or something asking about comparisons of Meshtastic

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to APRS. And I didn't know, I haven't heard of Meshtastic or know how it works or anything,

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but I know how APRS works and how those, those, those things work. And I'm going to go ahead and

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talk about how it works and how those, that network is all kind of runs. And you, sounds like you know

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quite a bit about Meshtastic and how their networks work and run. So what is Meshtastic?

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Cause I tried to guess as to what it was. You weren't too far off. Okay. Go ahead and describe

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what it is then and how it works and what are kind of some of the benefits of it. So Meshtastic is an

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APR mesh communications network. So if you've got, let's say you're in a group of six guys out on a

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trail, if each of you have a Meshtastic node in your truck, it has GPS connectivity, the ability

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to send small packets of data and text messaging. So, I mean, this is, this is what my pocket

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Meshtastic node looks like. Okay. So that's about the size of a credit card, but then maybe an

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a three quarters of an inch thick. Maybe half of a credit card and then about three quarters of an

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inch thick. Okay. But then they can get really big. Like my keyboard standalone one here. Oh,

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it's like a Blackberry. Yeah. It's a Blackberry keyboard. And so they can talk to, you know,

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let's say truck number one can only see truck one through three, but then truck three can see truck

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four through six. So then because it's a mesh network, truck one can see everybody and it'll

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send your location onto a map, which we use ATAC, which is the, the arm, well, not the military

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released the software behind the blue force tracker, which is just a way to keep track of where

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everyone on the battlefield is. Okay. So with ATAC, we're able to put in all the trail maps that

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we're using and then we can see where on the trails everyone in our group is as long as they're

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connected to the mesh network. That's pretty rad. It's, it's APRS on steroids on cocaine. Really.

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And I mean, it's license free. The farthest connection I've made was like 130 miles. Someone

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was flying overhead. Nice. And how to mesh tastic on. They're everywhere, man. Out by you,

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out by you guys. So California has like 400 some nodes that are on our, our MQTT network,

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which is the online network. Okay. I don't know how many non-connected nodes there are,

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but I know there's like 400 some connected nodes. So just for comparison, like how many

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connected nodes does Michigan have? I think like 10. Oh, okay. Yeah. California I found with,

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you know, silicone Valley and all the nerdy people out here, any kind of like radio communication

364
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:22,960
stuff, it seems like they're just, it's a high density here in California. That makes sense.

365
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:32,000
Okay. Here, here in my hometown, me and my dad have six or seven nodes, like, you know,

366
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:38,640
stationary nodes, repeaters, basically. We've got one on each of our house. Well, one second.

367
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,360
We would have one on each of our houses if I could go up and put this on the roof, but

368
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:54,160
it's a snowy and cold up there. So I put that off. That's probably smart, but we've got one on each

369
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:59,280
roof, one in one of the barns at my dad's house. And we've got one on the church steeple. Okay.

370
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:05,520
Um, and that gives us, usually we can connect to them, the network up to about 10 miles from

371
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:14,080
our little area. Okay. Um, and then Mark's got one, he lives 30 or 40 miles away and he's got

372
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:19,760
one on his roof and every once in a while we'll be able to see each other, but interesting. So

373
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,120
you're like 10 mile range. How much power are those putting out then? What's your ERP?

374
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:29,760
Uh, that's a good question. Very little. I was going to say that sounds like very little

375
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:36,480
cause with APRS here in California, I can be up at the Rubicon and hit DigiPeters and iGates over

376
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:46,240
in San Francisco. And that's 150, 200 miles as the crow flies. Um, and that's on, I guess my radio

377
00:40:46,240 --> 00:40:53,360
and my rig, I'd be pumping an APRS signal about 30 Watts, 35 Watts. Um, so I don't know. I don't,

378
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:59,600
I don't even know if these are pushing a watt to be honest. Yeah. I would, I would guess half a

379
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:04,400
watt to a quarter watt, something like that. That sounds pretty accurate. Yeah. Interesting.

380
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:12,080
And they don't need much power. Um, like I said, they can transmit, you know, 130 miles or more

381
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:19,440
if they have clear range, but yeah. Okay. Um, are, are they, what frequency range are they working on?

382
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:26,960
915. Okay. So up in the, the getting close to gigahertz. Um, so yeah, you pretty much have to

383
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:33,440
have pretty good line of sight with them, like flat areas or like you said, depending on the mesh

384
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:41,840
network of a bunch of rigs traveling together. Um, are they easy to hack and maybe bump up the

385
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:47,360
power or are they very limited legally by the FCC and quote unquote, what you're allowed to do there?

386
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:55,440
It would be easy to hack them because it's open source, but we try to stay in the legal range

387
00:41:55,440 --> 00:42:02,240
for them. Usually. Um, I do know that there is a setting cause they connect to a phone. That's how

388
00:42:02,240 --> 00:42:07,520
you interact with them is through your phone, Bluetooth. Okay. Um, so there's an app, an app

389
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:14,800
interface for these. The mesh task app. Cool. And I know that there's a setting for you to turn on

390
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:21,680
if you're a ham and then you can bump up the power from there. Ooh. So are they operating within the

391
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:29,440
900 megahertz ham range then as well? I have no idea. I'm not a ham. I've never played with it.

392
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:36,240
That would make sense. Okay. Um, I'm interested. I want to be getting on and playing around these

393
00:42:36,240 --> 00:42:42,560
now. Um, are the, the nodes each individual node, is that like a ready buy thing or is it pretty much

394
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:48,320
like a kit you put together each time? Uh, you have to buy, I use Heltech boards. Uh, this one's a

395
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:54,880
Heltech that's my portable. And then I've got this, which is a rack whiz block and they're just little

396
00:42:55,600 --> 00:43:01,520
production boards that you buy and then you flash the software onto them. Okay. And then there's

397
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:06,960
3d printed cases galore for them. I mean, everyone's got a case for these things. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm,

398
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:12,480
I'm surprised I've never heard of mesh tastic before and it sounds like it's a pretty big thing.

399
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:18,880
So I was really surprised you'd never heard of it. It sounds super usable too. I mean, how big of a

400
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:24,160
text message, how many characters can you send with the, the mesh texting? You know, I've never

401
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:32,320
hit the limit and I've sent some pretty long ones. So let's see if it even 200, 200 characters. Yeah.

402
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:40,480
I mean, APRs, I want to say APRs is limited to 50 or 60 characters, 45 even maybe. Um, so that's a

403
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:48,160
good spot there. Um, you can, and then, so within the mesh tastic app, can you run, uh, the map

404
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:55,520
mapping overlays there for, so you, if you have the Atec app, there's a mesh tastic plugin. Okay.

405
00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:04,160
And then a tack handles all the mapping. You can even a T a C, a T a K, a T a K. I haven't heard of

406
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:09,520
that either. Okay. So then I'm pretty sure it's a T a K. Let me double check that.

407
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:21,760
I don't have it on this phone. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's a T a K, but, uh, yeah. So a tech

408
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:28,320
does all the mapping and then you can even mark on, yeah, it's a T a K. You can even mark on the

409
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:33,040
map. Like, you know, there's a down tree here and that will get sent across the mesh. So everyone

410
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:37,760
running a tech in your group will see that there's a down tree across the trail. So it'll put like a

411
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:45,120
flag on the map or something. Yeah. Cool. It's ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's ways, but for the trail.

412
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:52,320
Yeah, exactly. Uh, that's pretty cool. Um, what other, so if there's, there's repeaters and

413
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:58,400
connected, so you've got non-connected and connected nodes, right. Or repeaters, um,

414
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:03,680
which is very similar to APRS. You've got DigiPeters, which are non-connected repeaters,

415
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:10,000
and then you have iGates, which are connected repeaters, right? So if your signal can make it

416
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:16,320
into a connected repeater, then that then goes online and that data from your signal goes online

417
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:23,600
from your packet. So that, depending on how that, uh, that note is set up, cause there's different

418
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:30,320
channels, uh, within the mesh task, cause it's encrypted, which you can't do with your amateur

419
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:39,520
radio. Um, so depending on what channel the note is set up on, it goes to a group, uh, like, uh,

420
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:44,160
a large lobby basically is where your message would go. Okay. Like a, uh,

421
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:49,120
can't even think of what they're called, a chat room from when we were kids, you know?

422
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:55,600
So it goes to an AOL chat. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. So we've got one here in Michigan

423
00:45:55,600 --> 00:46:02,000
called, uh, Michigan Longfast. So every connected node in Michigan, if you're connected to it and

424
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:08,960
message to Longfast, it gets sent to the Michigan Longfast connected chat room. Okay. Gotcha. And

425
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:15,440
then, so once it's in that quote unquote connected chat room, um, I'm assuming people have servers or

426
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:21,840
bots set up to troll the data incoming and any particular protocol or particular use that posts

427
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:27,520
it does something with it or can you do that or I think they can do that, but usually it's just

428
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:34,800
anyone on the mesh in that area. So if I'm on the mesh and grant, um, someone on the mesh in Detroit

429
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:44,160
would see my message. Oh, okay. So that's it's okay. Got it. It's a chat room. It's literally

430
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:52,880
an internet chat room. And so if, if I want to, if I was in, uh, Detroit looking for you out in grant,

431
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:58,080
um, what could I search it and be like, Hey, what's, uh, you know, Alex up to and

432
00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:06,160
so if pop it up, if our notes had seen each other in the past, so let's say me and you had been within

433
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:11,280
you know, 10 miles of each other at some point and our notes had seen each other,

434
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,960
then you could private message me over that net internet network as well.

435
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:21,920
Okay. That's pretty nice. And you don't need any kind of user license or anything. Cause it's all

436
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:28,640
open source. It's all open source and it doesn't require any ham license or anything. Gotcha.

437
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:34,960
Cause that's one of the things I really like about APRS is that I can be out on a trail somewhere.

438
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:42,800
Um, and essentially send a text message back to my significant other at home to let them know,

439
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,160
Hey, I'm going to be an extra day. I broke something or Hey, everything's going great.

440
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:52,320
I'll be home at my normal time, et cetera, like that. But the problem with it is that my significant

441
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:58,560
other needs to have her ham radio call sign in order to reply and respond. Whereas this sounds

442
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:03,360
like you don't need any of that. It works very similarly now in that, for that use,

443
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:10,800
the downside to mesh task. It is that it's not quite as built up as APRS. So there's no guarantee

444
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:16,960
that you'd be able to send her a message from wherever you're at. That's fair. Um, yeah.

445
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:20,560
Which just means you need more nodes. People just need to go set up more nodes around the country.

446
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:26,240
So, yeah. I mean, it's happening. Europe's really full of them. They actually had to change the way

447
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:33,600
that the mesh infrastructure works because Europe was overloading the mesh. Wow. Wow. That's cool.

448
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:38,880
I wonder if we can talk to the powers at B and have one put at one of the Rubicon stations.

449
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:44,080
Probably. I know that he, they use APRS quite a bit, but I don't know if they've heard of mesh

450
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:50,240
tastic and it's benefits. So yeah, that's where we're working on getting a lot of them put up

451
00:48:50,240 --> 00:48:54,000
around here. Uh, the company I work for has some feed mills and I'm working on getting,

452
00:48:54,000 --> 00:49:00,400
putting, putting some on the feed mills. So those are 400 feet tall. So that's a pretty good,

453
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:06,080
yeah. Yeah. Nice spot there. Good reach from that while you guys were nerdy now, um,

454
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:10,640
I'm going to go backwards a little bit, but while you guys were nerdy now, you talked about how

455
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:17,040
California has like 400 in Michigan has 10. Um, I did some math and looked some stuff up. So

456
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:25,600
California has a population of almost 38 million, 38.9 million. So almost 40 million and Michigan

457
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:34,240
has 10 million. Right. So four times four times, which is right around 10, you know, 10, uh, uh,

458
00:49:34,240 --> 00:49:39,120
400 almost. Well, that's 40 times. That'd be 40 times. Dang it. My math wasn't as good.

459
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:44,000
But yeah, I think more long coverage you'd be looking at geographic size. Yeah. What's

460
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:48,800
the square mileage of California versus square mileage of Michigan? Yeah. You'd have to dive

461
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:52,080
in a little bit more than that though. You guys have mountains too, so you can get a little bit

462
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:57,760
farther than we can. Yeah. If we can, if we get nodes up on top of the, the passes or up high,

463
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:01,280
then it would cover down towards, you know, San Francisco and out towards the ocean really well.

464
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:08,880
You have me, you have my brain going now, Alex, which is a dangerous thing to be doing.

465
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:15,440
Yeah. Meshtastic is really cool and it's only like $30 to get into. So that's how many nodes

466
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:21,920
can you have? Like what is the, the bandwidth for Meshtastic? Like how many concurrent connections

467
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:25,520
you said, for instance, Europe is overloading their bandwidth. They're overloading the network

468
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:31,440
right now. So they're having to redo how it all structures. I know with APRS, each packet in APRS

469
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:37,680
is a second and a half or something like that. So like two seconds along something like that. So,

470
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:43,040
I mean, you can only have so many signals concurrently going within an APRS network

471
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:48,320
before you overload the bandwidth. And it's really not that many signals if you start thinking about

472
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:55,520
it. So what is Europe's problems started when they got to like 400 nodes per square. Well,

473
00:50:55,520 --> 00:51:02,560
for us per square mile, then what per square kilometer, 400 per square kilometer. There's

474
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:08,480
lots of them. Holy shit. And then when they started doing it for all of California,

475
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:14,880
and then when they started doing the internet connected thing, which there, there, a lot of

476
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:19,920
them did the MQTT and that just overwhelmed the mesh to a point where you could send a message,

477
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:25,920
but it probably wasn't going to actually send. Wow. Interesting. Well, I'm also thinking of

478
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:32,400
Meshtastic for racing applications for ultra four. Yeah. And a bunch of the races that we have around

479
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:41,920
here for like Vora, ultra four, Baja. So I think there's a lot of uses that the off-road industry

480
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:47,520
could really use of it. Ultra four. If you had a good repeater up, you could, I mean, almost anybody

481
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:52,080
could just get on and be able to talk to whoever's in their area. That's cause the big issue with

482
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:57,840
ultra four and the trackers they put on the cars is that they're all satellite based. So they,

483
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:02,400
they have to communicate up to a satellite and then that signal has to come back down to the

484
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:08,480
control bay, the control room, right? Right. Whereas with mesh tastic, every single car

485
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:14,640
on the race course is its own node. Yep. Which means your whole network is just wherever the

486
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:18,960
cars are, which is typically by lap three, which is where you're trying to find all the cars.

487
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,640
They're everywhere. So the whole Valley is just absolutely blanketed with coverage.

488
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:31,280
Yeah, that I hadn't even thought about you. We don't do a lot of racing, so I'd never even thought

489
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:37,600
about it in that aspect, but that worked really well. Yeah. So when you would in like this race

490
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:44,960
application, if somebody wanted to get in contact with a car that's not reachable directly within

491
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:50,720
the mesh network, but it would, could be reachable, you know, passing through some other vehicles.

492
00:52:50,720 --> 00:52:58,400
If you send a message, does it show up on everybody's interface or does it just like,

493
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:03,280
can you send it like a direct message to one person? Direct to one person.

494
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:10,960
So each node has its own, it's each node has its unique ID. Oh, it has a blast as well. Yeah. Long

495
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:17,600
fast is our open chat room. Anyone within the mesh on long fast can message and respond to each other.

496
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:23,600
Oh, interesting. And then you can direct message. So, and if I want to talk to Jimmy, but I can't

497
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:29,040
see Jimmy, but I can see Tyler. If I send Jimmy a message, Tyler receives it. He can't read it,

498
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:33,920
but then he sends it out. Jimmy gets it. And then Jimmy can decrypt it and read it.

499
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:37,920
Cause it's all, it's all digital protocol as well, which means you can encrypt everything and

500
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:43,760
make it so that only specific user IDs can open a message. Yep. Correct. That would actually be

501
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:49,040
really good. Cause I know at KOH there's a, every year people don't understand. They don't know when

502
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:53,520
course goes cold and they're like, am I still racing or am I out recreating right now? Like what

503
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:58,880
is, and that's always a big thing. So like that could be another thing for the main control booth

504
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:03,840
to say, Hey, course is cold. If you're still on course and you're not past this point yet,

505
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:09,520
you are recreating for the rest of the night. Well, and there, yeah, there definitely could be

506
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:16,080
a lot of good reasons to be able to do a blast for everything. Like car fire or whatever.

507
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:26,080
Or you can be like, Hey, you individual, you know, you're, you're off course or whatever.

508
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:31,920
Get back on. Yeah. Yeah. We've been figuring map out. Yeah. We've been really messed or playing

509
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:37,600
with ATAC trying to make everything work perfect before we introduce it to the larger group around

510
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:46,480
us. And we've got it pretty fricking good right now. Nice. So it, it's a really powerful tool.

511
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:53,120
Do you know if there's any APIs that you can plug into for? There are a lot of them. Okay. Perfect.

512
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:59,600
That's all I can, I can, I know some people that are much better APIs than I am. So if you go to

513
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:07,200
meshtastic.org, all the information you could ever want is there. Sweet. Okay. I'm definitely picking

514
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:13,680
up a new hobby now. Thanks a lot, Alex. It definitely took over my hobbies pretty quick.

515
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:20,240
Oh man. Dude, everything application wise, search and rescue. There's so many,

516
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:26,080
so many applications for, I don't remember where the city is, but I know there's a city in the

517
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:33,280
U S that uses meshtastic as a secondary alert for firefighters. Oh, wow. So they've got one on,

518
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:37,280
you know, a note up on their water tower. And then when they send out the alert over their normal

519
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:43,600
radios, they'll send it out with meshtastic as well. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's cool. Redundancy

520
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:51,680
in that case, which is very smart. Yep. Okay. Yeah, this is cool. So how does, you have that portable

521
00:55:51,680 --> 00:56:00,960
one, the small one. Yeah. What does that run on battery wise? Just a tiny little lipo. Really?

522
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:07,920
And how long does it last? That's a good question. Have you ran out of batteries with it? It dies

523
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:14,080
every once in a while. Yeah. It's just a tiny little, I think it's like 1200 milliamp hours.

524
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:19,040
And I've had it die about three times, but I plug it in every night. So,

525
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:25,760
so it'll last a day. Yeah. It lasts, it probably would go over a day. I just never give it a chance

526
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:33,680
to. Okay. Got it. And then when you use that guy, do you usually take that out on trail with you?

527
00:56:33,680 --> 00:56:40,000
Or is it like a, I'm just going to be walking around during the day. So this is the one I put

528
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:47,200
in my pocket and it's connected to my smartphone. And then I've got one in my truck that is connected

529
00:56:47,200 --> 00:56:54,720
to my tablet that I run onyx and stuff on. So I usually have both with me and then sometimes

530
00:56:54,720 --> 00:56:59,840
I'll carry around the one with the keyboard, but that one's kind of bulky. So. Right. Well,

531
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:03,520
and especially cause if there's the app, like you were saying, then is there's probably that

532
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:08,720
a typing feature within the app too. Yep. Yep. Speaking of onyx, I did have written down over

533
00:57:08,720 --> 00:57:13,840
here. Is there any way to merge onyx and mesh tastic? Have you figured that out? Not yet.

534
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:21,360
Okay. I would love for onyx to do a mesh tasking plugin. I was talking with onyx for a while about

535
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:27,520
trying to integrate APRS. But I think they just didn't want to do it because of the ham license

536
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:31,840
need for it. So it wouldn't be a big enough user base that would actually be able to make use of it.

537
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:38,240
Whereas mesh tastic doesn't need a license. Exactly. Do you know if mesh tastic has commercial

538
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:45,040
licenses that you can use, or is it like APRS and they're like, no, it cannot be commercialized. You

539
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:51,040
have to, you cannot use it as any kind of commercial backbone for comms. It's open source

540
00:57:51,040 --> 00:57:59,120
and it's in the open, you know, the free source license and even the free use frequency range. So

541
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:04,480
fair. Okay. Really you should be able to use it in a commercial side without any problem at all.

542
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:11,680
That's really cool. Okay. Well, maybe we'll, we have a connection at onyx.

543
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:17,440
Maybe we'll see if we can combine forces there and see if we can get that going.

544
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:21,360
I'm glad you brought it up because I was going to bring that up anyway. Yeah. Okay.

545
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:25,440
Because it's a feature I really want. Yeah. It's something we've been asking for

546
00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:32,160
years ever since I started getting into APRS, you know, whatever mapping software we're working with.

547
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:37,520
And we've had, I've had extensive talks with a couple of people at onyx about integrating something

548
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:42,960
like APRS and they are always wanting to, and they said that they've had people investigating

549
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:48,960
and trying to find a way to do it. They just haven't found a good solution yet. So well,

550
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:52,720
now we might have another alternative that might be able to work, which would be pretty cool.

551
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:58,000
Cause it would be rad to have this, an awesome mapping software that you can follow along on

552
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:04,720
the trail. You know where you're at, but also now you can follow, have your friends or people in

553
00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:10,400
your group following along with you. And you will always know where everybody is at. Yep. And it

554
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:16,000
would be really cool to not have to run my screen split screen with ATAC on one side and onyx on

555
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:21,840
the other. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a bonus. Yeah. And it would be, you know, we've, we've always

556
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:28,240
talked that I don't, you don't really need to be in eyesight of anybody anymore. If you have good

557
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:34,400
radio communications, you know, if, if Tyler's because with his new, uh, four wheel underground

558
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:41,440
suspension is blasting down the trail and me on my leaf springs is going, you know, almost trail

559
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:47,920
tampon speed. Um, he can go that far, but if I get into trouble and I get, um, high centered or

560
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:52,000
turtled or whatever, and I'll be like, Hey man, I need a tug. He's got to come back to me, but I

561
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:57,600
can still get ahold of him. Yeah. And we're still see that he's not moving. Yeah. And if you, if

562
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:03,360
we're using mesh tastic and it was on onyx, then we could see that I'm like, he could radio and go,

563
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:09,040
Hey, Jimmy, why is your miles per hour zero? What are you doing? I'm already a buck setting up camp,

564
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:15,360
man. Yeah. Where are you? Yeah. Where are you? Why? What are you doing? And then I'd be like,

565
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:22,560
I'm turtle. I need help. You know, put pitch your 10 and get back here. Save our spot. Yeah. Um,

566
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:27,760
yeah, that'd be really cool. Um, cool to do. Um, maybe we'll just send them this audio clip,

567
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:29,760
right? It'd be like, Hey, you guys need to listen to this.

568
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:36,400
Listen to this 10 minutes. Yeah. Well that'd be rad. Um, and it would be a cool feature for

569
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:42,160
any of the off roaders out there to be able to keep track of everybody in their party, um, while

570
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:48,240
being on a map, um, in regards to that, how do you, uh, and not knowing the background of how it might

571
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:56,320
work on onyx and stuff, but how do you know who to follow on a tech? Like does it point the,

572
01:00:56,320 --> 01:01:00,800
does it say these people are around you or do you just see every node in the general area?

573
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:08,080
So there's a couple of different ways to set that up. Um, we usually set up a party. So with

574
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:13,440
a tech, you can say, I want these devices on in my party. And then it only will show you those

575
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:19,120
devices. Cool. Um, and every device has a call sign so you can see who's in what vehicle. Okay.

576
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:23,440
Um, can you create your own call signs? Yeah, we create our own call signs.

577
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:32,000
Nice. Yeah. Perfect. My, uh, Mark's Mark, the one on Mark's roof is called trailer trash because

578
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:39,600
he lives in a trailer park. Okay. Nice. Yeah. I would, I was just running through ideas of what,

579
01:01:39,600 --> 01:01:48,400
yeah, what kind of snail should I be? Yeah. But okay. That, well, that could be curious. What's,

580
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:54,240
what's your call sign then? And Gavin's call signs. Gavin doesn't, hasn't gotten into it.

581
01:01:54,240 --> 01:02:03,600
We've tried so hard, but he's so, he's just like radios. Okay. He's got a GMRS radio.

582
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:09,360
Yeah. But he still wants to talk to you guys, right? Yeah. That's how I was. I just was like,

583
01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:14,320
Tyler, hook me up with a radio so I can just communicate. He's like, I'm not going to do that

584
01:02:14,320 --> 01:02:23,280
until you get your ham license. Like, damn it, Tyler. But I am eight five, six five. Cause that's

585
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:32,400
my username for like all my, uh, online presence. Okay. It was, it's the username the school gave

586
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:39,440
me when I was in high school. That was your number. Your school number. Five, six, five. Yeah. Yeah.

587
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:47,600
All right. Do you spell it out or do you just numbers? The numbers. Okay. Damn. What I just

588
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:54,880
saw on a good day, which is a news radio, uh, thing, um, out here in this general Sacramento area.

589
01:02:54,880 --> 01:03:00,320
And, um, Auschwitz is having their 80th anniversary of the release date of the

590
01:03:00,320 --> 01:03:05,360
Holocaust people. So I don't, your, uh, your numbers just reminded me of

591
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:12,720
the 80th anniversary that's happening. I did just finish watching masters of the air. So I'm right

592
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:19,600
in that head space. Okay. Yeah. So congratulations. That's funny. Yeah. All right. Well, this has been

593
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:26,240
awesome, man. Um, I'm definitely going to be doing a deep dive into mesh-tastic now. Um, we might,

594
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:32,800
it sounds great in theory and in application, everything. So we might end up seeing a node

595
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:38,720
pop up on the Rubicon here too, if I can convince the right people. Um, so it sounds great. Um,

596
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:43,840
I'll definitely looking into it. Um, it's been fun learning about turkey farming as well. Um,

597
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:49,280
I'll hit you back up after kind of, uh, do it, uh, some more background information on my granddad.

598
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:54,080
Um, yeah, for sure. But, uh, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks for sitting down and taking up.

599
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:57,360
I, it's been more time than I thought we were going to do, but it's been a lot of fun doing it.

600
01:03:57,360 --> 01:04:02,320
So yeah, absolutely. Joy chatting with you. Thanks for all the feedback that you always

601
01:04:02,320 --> 01:04:07,360
pass on to the snail mail episodes there and contacting us and giving us all the insights of,

602
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:12,800
uh, life, not in California and outside of California. So I have to say your snail mail

603
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:18,240
segment is one of my favorite thing any podcasters doing right now. Oh, cool. Yeah. That's definitely

604
01:04:18,240 --> 01:04:22,480
one of our favorite things we're doing right now. So we, we enjoy that a lot and we couldn't do it

605
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:27,760
without listeners like you and the other ones out there that actually call in. And you know, we've,

606
01:04:27,760 --> 01:04:31,760
we're fortunate enough that we have so many people that call into that episode that we

607
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:37,200
can't keep up. What are you up to right now? I don't know. We haven't looked at it. We haven't

608
01:04:37,200 --> 01:04:42,960
looked yet, but we were at 19 last time and I think we got through seven and, uh, yeah, so we

609
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:48,960
always have this backlog and it's, it's fun. It's a blast. I wish we could be within a week

610
01:04:49,600 --> 01:04:56,960
of a podcasting kind of coming out, but you know, to have so much wonderful feedback coming in,

611
01:04:56,960 --> 01:05:01,440
it's, it's, you know, not a bad thing to have for sure. A little backlog like that,

612
01:05:01,440 --> 01:05:04,720
but yeah, it's definitely one of our favorite episodes that we do as well.

613
01:05:05,600 --> 01:05:10,720
Yeah. It's, it's a blast. You need to start a Google, a voice number and get on this.

614
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:15,680
We're, uh, we're working on it. I keep, we keep talking about it and I have to say,

615
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:22,240
I love hearing Zach from Oklahoma's updates. I feel like I know him and I don't, I've never even

616
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:29,920
seen his truck. Yeah. It's two wheel drive, second gen pick up. Actually, Zach should let us know. I

617
01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:35,680
don't know if it's an extra cab or double cab. Oh, that's a, I have no idea. Yeah. And what color

618
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:43,040
is it? Zach? Yeah. Yeah. And I want to, we need an update on his camper shell. So yeah, the

619
01:05:43,040 --> 01:05:47,920
extruded aluminum on here. That's going. Yeah. Oh yeah. I forgot he was doing that too. But no,

620
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:52,960
definitely. Yeah. Zach's that I've, yeah, we've never met him either. I mean, we did give him,

621
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:56,960
we gave him a little donation from snail trail four by five for that bike ride month, that thing

622
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:01,520
that he was doing. But yeah, that's the, besides him calling in, that's the only interaction that

623
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:06,240
we ever get. It's a weird one-sided relationship, podcasting. I'm sure you, you know, you're on

624
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:12,400
season two. I think this might be episode eight for you guys. Um, that you'll eventually, and maybe

625
01:06:12,400 --> 01:06:16,560
it's even happened. People will come up to you and they'll know absolutely everything about you.

626
01:06:17,120 --> 01:06:23,600
And you have no idea who they are or what they do or anything about them. It's, it's very bizarre.

627
01:06:23,600 --> 01:06:29,600
Yeah. I'm, uh, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to that part. Yeah, it does. It does get a little

628
01:06:29,600 --> 01:06:33,840
weird at times because you forget that you talk about some things on the podcast, some personal

629
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:38,000
life stuff. And then people are like, Oh yeah. How's this going back at home? And you're like,

630
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:43,440
yeah, how'd you know what I talked about that one? Exactly. How's the bathroom remodel going? Like

631
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:50,960
who are you? Yeah. Are you as cool as Benji's bathroom? No, I haven't been, she's got a really

632
01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:56,800
cool bathroom. Yeah. I didn't know that's really cool. That is the new shop. He spent a lot of

633
01:06:56,800 --> 01:07:01,440
time building a bathroom up. He probably spent more time on the bathroom than the rest of the shop.

634
01:07:02,640 --> 01:07:07,920
And apparently he finally put a door on it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause I guess it was doorless forever.

635
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:14,720
Did he have a door in the Madonna in his bathroom or he's been in there? Oh yeah. That's a pretty

636
01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:20,000
epic bathroom. That's an epic bathroom. Yeah. There's a hotel down in, um, central coast of

637
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:25,760
California called the Madonna in, and it's a pretty well, it's pretty well known to being just

638
01:07:25,760 --> 01:07:30,960
every absolutely everything about it is way over the top. Yeah. And they have like themed rooms,

639
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:36,160
like the jungle, you can stay in the jungle room or the room is a different thing. Yeah. It's crazy.

640
01:07:36,960 --> 01:07:42,960
Yeah. I've driven through California exactly once in my life from bottom to top and well twice,

641
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:49,440
if you count from top to bottom, but I don't know if I've driven through Michigan. So I think you

642
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:56,000
might have me there. Well, come out, man. It's beautiful. Everything's flat. There's no hard

643
01:07:56,000 --> 01:08:01,760
obstacles and well, yeah, there's no hard obstacles cause they took out marble head.

644
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:09,600
I think I have been, my sister lives in Michigan and I still have yet to go visit her and to see

645
01:08:09,600 --> 01:08:15,760
her place there since she moved to Michigan over a decade ago. So yeah, I've driven from Chicago

646
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:27,120
to Sandusky, Ohio. That doesn't quite count. That's very sad. I'm so sorry. Well, but I,

647
01:08:27,120 --> 01:08:32,240
I don't think I went to Michigan. I think I just like went right underneath it. Well,

648
01:08:32,240 --> 01:08:41,120
actually we drove from Chicago to, um, Quebec, Canada on that trip. Oh, but, um, so I went,

649
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:46,560
I was just pointing out that I went underneath Michigan. Yeah. So you went up into from Toledo,

650
01:08:46,560 --> 01:08:54,160
probably. Yeah. When I went to Detroit, maybe, I don't know. I don't remember. It was a while ago.

651
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:59,120
We went to Quebec, Canada to see the international competition of fireworks.

652
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:05,360
Okay. That sounds fine. Actually, it was so random, but it was really cool.

653
01:09:05,360 --> 01:09:11,280
Like you think like your general, you know, celebration, new years or fourth of July firework

654
01:09:11,280 --> 01:09:16,160
thing. Cool. Well now try doing it on an international level where people are competing

655
01:09:16,160 --> 01:09:22,640
against each other. There's fireworks everywhere. Floor, ground, like things in the sky to music,

656
01:09:22,640 --> 01:09:28,720
you know, just, yeah, wild. Wow. All of my, uh, opinions of Quebec are from the show letter Kenny.

657
01:09:28,720 --> 01:09:36,320
So, uh, I've never seen this show. Well, now you got another thing to do. That went to my list.

658
01:09:37,040 --> 01:09:43,280
Yeah. No Quebec was, it was an interesting place. I mean, it's that that's the G the province of

659
01:09:43,280 --> 01:09:49,600
Canada that speaks French, right? So it's like this really bizarre area. The rest of Canada is

660
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:58,960
fantastic. But anyways, Alex, this was fun. Great to finally put a face to the name and a voice to

661
01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:04,400
the, to the face to the name and all the above. Uh, thanks for joining us on the podcast. This

662
01:10:04,400 --> 01:10:10,000
was cool. Yep. How can people want to check out botches off road, see what you've been up to? How

663
01:10:10,000 --> 01:10:13,760
can, what's the best way for people to do that? Where are you guys all located? Uh, well, you can

664
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:22,480
go to botches off road on face or on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram. Um, and then you could go

665
01:10:22,480 --> 01:10:32,400
to four runner 98 on Instagram and that's F O R R U N N E R. Okay. Um, and is that you? Yep.

666
01:10:32,400 --> 01:10:39,680
That's me. I, I could send you the RSS feed. We don't really have a website set up yet.

667
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:43,760
Okay. But you're on all the podcasting apps. You've got it all fed into all those,

668
01:10:44,320 --> 01:10:50,240
all of them, except for apple and I heart interesting. Was that a conscious decision

669
01:10:50,240 --> 01:10:57,040
or you just set it up yet? I heart requires me to have an I heart account and apple requires me to

670
01:10:57,040 --> 01:11:02,160
have an apple account. And since I don't have either of them, we haven't gotten them on there

671
01:11:02,160 --> 01:11:08,320
yet. Okay. Gotcha. No, the other gentlemen don't have an iPhone either. No, we're all Android users.

672
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:16,160
Oh boy. Good guys. We liked you guys. I, uh, I use a fancy imported fair phone.

673
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:23,120
Never even heard of that either. Dang. You're all techie. Yeah, that's kind of my thing.

674
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:29,920
It's fully repairable. Whoa. Battery removable screen tape has eight screws to take it off.

675
01:11:30,560 --> 01:11:34,320
Wow. It's fantastic. And what OS does it run?

676
01:11:34,320 --> 01:11:40,960
Androids. Okay. Just the standard Android, whatever. Well, it can mine runs EOS,

677
01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:43,920
which is a private Android that doesn't have Google or anything on it.

678
01:11:44,720 --> 01:11:52,480
You're like the Linux of Android phones. Got it. Um, I w I'm currently talking on a arch Linux install.

679
01:11:55,600 --> 01:12:02,480
I, uh, I haven't touched a windows computer in a few years. Okay. Dang. Yeah. Like I said before,

680
01:12:02,480 --> 01:12:07,680
you're the tech guy, huh? If anybody has any questions about how anything techie get a hold

681
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:18,800
of Alex here at what for runner nine 98 for runner. Yup. For under 98 F O U R F O E F O R F O R.

682
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:30,640
Like for the word for runner. Okay. Oh, okay. Every other variation was taken. Gotcha. F O R R U N N E R.

683
01:12:30,640 --> 01:12:36,800
Got it. Awesome, man. Well, this has been awesome. A lot of fun. Um, like Jimmy said, it's great to

684
01:12:36,800 --> 01:12:43,040
put a face to the name and everything. So, um, yeah, if everybody wants to know more about some

685
01:12:43,040 --> 01:12:49,920
tech stuff, see how a YJ tub can go on a third gen for runner frame, um, and work with long travel.

686
01:12:50,640 --> 01:12:55,200
Definitely check that out. Um, and any other fun things you guys got coming up?

687
01:12:55,200 --> 01:13:01,520
Uh, that's about it. Other, I mean, our next trips all the way in June. So I guess pay attention to

688
01:13:01,520 --> 01:13:05,360
our builds cause they're going to change a lot before we go to leatherwood in Kentucky.

689
01:13:05,360 --> 01:13:10,880
Gotcha. Any chance you guys are going to make it out to cruise Moab in Utah? Not this year,

690
01:13:11,600 --> 01:13:19,360
maybe 2026. Okay. Good. We'll meet you out there. Then if you guys have Moab as in our sites for 2026.

691
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:25,280
Cool. And Rubicon in 2028. So once you guys are ready for that one, let us know. We'll be there.

692
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:32,480
Yeah. All right. Well, awesome, dude. Uh, thanks for coming on, uh, Jimmy, any final words to wrap

693
01:13:32,480 --> 01:13:38,480
it up? I thought this was a fantastic episode. We learned so much about the mesh tastic stuff. It's,

694
01:13:38,480 --> 01:13:43,840
uh, was nice to hear from somebody that has experienced instead of somebody that was completely

695
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:50,800
making it up. It wasn't too far off, but we learned a lot and it's really cool. And I think that, uh,

696
01:13:51,360 --> 01:13:57,920
it will be a good implement implement. What's the, it'd be great to implement an implementation, um,

697
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:03,120
on trails out here in California if, uh, people have not already started doing so. So we'll,

698
01:14:03,120 --> 01:14:08,240
we're definitely gonna look into that. So thanks for sharing. Yeah. I, like I said, I haven't seen

699
01:14:08,240 --> 01:14:12,560
it a lot in the off road sector, but I really think it's something we need to start looking into.

700
01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:19,600
Yeah. It's a, it sounds like a really cool protocol and uses. So, uh, Alex, any final words

701
01:14:19,600 --> 01:14:24,080
to send off everybody today? It was just nice to finally get to meet you guys.

702
01:14:24,080 --> 01:14:42,000
Yes. Did Oh man. Well, cool. I guess with all that, my friends keep crawling.

703
01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:57,360
Hey, Mark. Hey, what's up? I got one for you. Why did the Turkey bring a microphone? Why?

704
01:14:57,360 --> 01:15:11,920
Why he was ready to roast.