This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For connectors, cables,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit PL -259
.com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it, logged
it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash amateur
for more information about ICOM radios. Here
we go, with Neoprap, here we go Welcome to Hamtoply,
call in, let's talk, Neil's your guy Hamtoply,
here we go, on Hamtopradio Good evening, everyone.
It's time for HamTalk Live. It's episode number
183, the host of So Now What, recorded live on
Thursday, September 26th, 2019. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight, we're joined
by Joe Karsha, NJ1Q, and Michelle Patno, W3MVP.
and we'll take your calls live in just a few
minutes. Well last week here on the show Andy
Malusi KK4LWR and Tony Malusi KD8RTT were here
to talk about the Collegiate QSO Party and if
you missed the show you can listen anytime at
HamTalkLive .com or on your favorite podcast
app or over on YouTube or you can catch the re
-broadcast on WTWW that's 5085 AM Saturday evenings
at about 630 PM Eastern Time. I do want to remind
you that fallout is coming up. It's fallout season
and the third annual event is being held by the
100 Watts at a Wire podcast. That's 11th through
the 13th of October. And Christian K0SDH says
it's time to get outside and enjoy the outdoors.
enjoy the radio so there's all kinds of giveaways
some prizes and some points involved this time
so we're not going to get into all the details
here but you can find out but you But we're going
to tell you where to find all those details.
It's 100wattsatawire .com slash activity. So
be sure to check that out. We'll get your questions
ready to go for Joe and Michelle. If you're listening
to us live on Thursday night, you'll be able
to give us a call after the interview. Let me
give you the telephone number so you can write
that down and have it ready to go. It's not time
to call just yet, but let me give you that number.
It's 812 -638 -4261. That's 812 -NET -HAM -1.
You can also tweet us. It's at HamTalk Live on
Twitter. We'll be watching that as the night
goes on. So I'll be back with Michelle and Joe
right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Thank you for a lovely
dinner. Aren't you going to ask me in to solder
some PL259s? Well, I do have some from Tower
Electronics. How can I refuse? Consider the sophisticated
quality of PL259s from Tower Electronics. From
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has the parts you're looking for. Well? Just
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Then by all means. Take some with you. Don't
be caught without PL259's. Visit Tower Electronics
at a ham fest near you. Or visit them online
anytime at PL -259 .com. Or call 920 -435 -2973.
They also have ham sticks, mobile antennas, and
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.com. Tower Electronics. The Ham's Dime Store
since 1978. Ham Talk Live. Who is the most dangerous
person in the world? A ham with some wire, a
potato gun, and an idea. Thanks to Tower Electronics
for sponsoring the show again tonight. Hamfest
season again at September 28th this weekend.
They'll be in Sweetwater, Tennessee. And then
October 4th and 5th, they'll be in Belton, Texas.
October 12th, they'll be in Chickasaw, Alabama.
And October 19th, Greenville, Tennessee. But
you can find them anytime, anywhere at PL -259
.com. Joining us tonight is Michelle Patno, W3MVP.
She is the ARRL communications content producer.
She is the co -host, editor, and producer of
the So Now What podcast. She co -hosts the show
with Joe Karsha, NJ1Q, the W1AW station manager,
and ARRL lab member. Both Michelle and Joe work
at ARRL headquarters and reside in the general
area of Newington, Connecticut and together they
work through questions for new and returning
hams every other week on So Now What. So Joe
and Michelle, welcome to the show. Wow, thank
you very much and thank you to the listening
audience out there. Hey Neil, thank you so much
for having us on your show. And we had this discussion
before this that we went to air tonight that
you know yes Joe and Michelle are going to be
their jovial normal selves tonight so who knows
what we'll talk about so that's why this is good
it's just audio right Michelle it's yeah yes
we agree yes we like to have fun on the podcast
and someday we're planning on releasing a gag
reel of all the stuff that goes on while we're
trying to record the podcast. Well you know it's
kind of funny for amateur radio news line we
put together this presentation to take to club
meetings and and one of the things that I put
in there was a bit of a blooper reel and so we
would you know collect some of the bloopers that
I've done over, you know, the last year or two
and some of the other anchors and, and we put
it in there. And then, then we also had, you
know, my favorite part, which was the, the world
of DX or as I like to call it, the world of unpronounceable
names and countries. And so we, we, we Give people
the script and they'd try to read it and then
we'd play it back. And so, yeah, you just never
know what's gonna happen. It's kind of fun. Yes.
I know when our listeners hear this, they go,
man, that is like so seamless. If they only knew.
Only knew, yes. There were times, I mean, honestly,
when... And Michelle can certainly agree with
this, and I think sometimes I'm worse. There
could be something really simple we want to say,
like soldering a connector. There were times
when you cannot say soldering a connector without
either laughing or just totally screwing it up.
And yet by time you hear it, it sounds just like
we want to do soldering a connector. So it's
a lot of fun. You don't have the luxury of editing
so So we will we will be good I Don't do that.
We promise but Michelle don't let them know that
our fingers are tied, you know cross behind our
backs and stuff Oh my goodness. Well, let's dig
in here and let's talk a little bit about, you
know, what's going on. We've seen that actual
rise in the number of licensed amateurs here
in the U .S., but one of the issues is that many
still are not active. They get their license
and then that's the last you hear of them or
last you see of them. Sometimes they become frustrated
and give up sometimes, you know, there's there's
stuff going on and I get that you know We all
are are busy but You know, it's there's just
a lot of You know stuff going on but We'd like
to see more people That are doing that, you know
that are getting active and I need to reset something
here real quick Hopefully that took care of it.
Ah, oh, he did. Okay. Thank you, Jill, for telling
me. We had some audio issues here and the usual
one, so I got it fixed. But, you know, there's
just a lot of reasons why people aren't active
and so there's a push to mentor people and get
people back in. to the world of ham radio or
get into the world and be active and stay active
and You know some podcasts have kind of targeted
that like a hundred watts to wire They took on
the aspect of the new ham and really geared it
for that and now a RL has added your show to
Help out the newer ham. So tell us how that came
about and and how to find your show Well, Neal,
this actually started a couple years ago. Bob
Allison, WB1 GCM of the ARRL lab actually said,
you know, it would be really cool if we did a
podcast. So one day Bob and I went into our media
room, we recorded a demo and the CEO at the time
said, this is cool, let's go with it. And as
it developed, the podcast actually became Joe
Karsha and I, and it evolved into a podcast for
newer hands. And here we are, so now what? You
mentioned that mentoring, and quite frankly,
that is the main reason. With everything you
said, the main reason why a lot of hams, especially
new hams, maybe not every single new ham, but
a lot of new hams, they'll contact us and they'll
say, well, I'm not seeing the mentorship I should.
And that's not to denigrate the clubs out there,
whether they be affiliated or special service
or even just a local radio club. There was a
lot of great mentoring taking place. The downside
is there's also not a lot of great mentoring
taking place and a lot of hams have commented
to us that they get their license, they go through
that with the club, they go through the motions
and... in a nutshell and we're and we're really
not exaggerating this point they are essentially
given an ht and said here you go and that's not
what it's meant to be it's it's meant to be amateur
radio it's meant to be all encompassing all the
stuff you can do in ham radio And they're not
seeing that, or they're not seeing it at the
level that it used to be many years ago. And
we hate using that term many years ago, but it's
true. So that was one of the reasons why Michelle
and Bob actually went through this process of
starting the podcast, was to say, you know what?
We're seeing this coming in from newly licensed
hams. What can we do about it to help? One of
the reasons why. Well, how would people find
the show and listen to it? How do they get to
that? So you can find Sonawa either on Blueberry,
Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or whichever podcast
app that you use. Okay. Well, that's easy enough.
And so wherever you find HamTalk Live, you're
probably going to find Sonawa as well. that makes
it easy to find. So in all of the shows that
you've done so far, what is the most interesting
question you've received? We receive a lot of
questions. We do, we do, which is really great
and we really appreciate all the questions and
feedback that we get. By the way, I should mention
that We're at W1AW here. We just wanted to put
that little, you know, thing in there for whiskey,
one -off whiskey here in Newton, Connecticut.
That's where we're actually speaking with you
from. So just W1AW. Yay, go W1AW. Anyway, we're
here at the station. Anyway, we're trying to
be serious here, folks. Well, like I told you
earlier, we did eat a lot of candy before we
started this interview. But anyway, it's going
to go downhill from here, I can tell. I think
she's laughing. At least we're laughing good,
yay. Exactly. And he's writing a note saying,
never again, never again. We told you we need
editing. Yes, we need a lot of editing. We do
get a lot of different questions. A lot of them
actually come after the podcast because we sparked
something. We've had a couple of really, really
good podcasts. I mean really popular with the
listeners. The CW one actually just recently,
the one on contesting, the one on antenna cables.
Earlier on when we had the one setting up your
starter station, these actually generated more
questions than we answered. So it's really hard
to pinpoint any one particular question. You
know, some of us will ask us about, say, the
history of amateur radio or a particular venue
with an amateur radio, something like that, but
there's so many different questions that we get
it's hard to pinpoint them, but we do try to
answer them the best we can, and if we can't
answer them, and by that I mean it's a question
not intended for the, so now what, podcast. It's
not a newbie question or it's just not a question
like that at all. We will actually redirect those
questions to other staff members. So whether
that be a question that should go to the laboratory
or the Aero VEC or to membership, because we
actually get that. We get a lot of non -podcast
questions, I think because people say, oh, there's
an email address, I'm going to send my question
to it. So we will redirect them if necessary,
but I would have to say out of all of them, maybe
the questions concerning coax. If someone near
does is, which one? It's got to be the coax one.
It generated a lot of good questions and I think
we were able to answer them really well. Michelle,
anything to add there? Anyone that stood out
to you? I'm really, I'm with Joe on that one.
We really do receive a lot of questions from
all ages. But there was one that actually did
stick out to me. It was actually a project that
Joe created, the six meter dive pole. Oh, the
six meter dive pole, yes. After one of our episodes,
a lot of listeners wrote in and said, hey, you
know, I really want the instructions. I want
to try that. Let's build it. Yeah. And that's
awesome. The history behind that was a few years
ago. I was tasked to, and this is just like when
the podcast was still in its infancy's infancy,
we were trying some new things and I was tasked
with building simple stuff that a brand new ham,
especially one on a budget, because we know that's
something that has taken consideration, but building
really simple antennas. And one of them was a
simple code hanger antenna for two and seventy
centimeters of satellite which is still here
in the floor at the station and actually generates
a lot of conversation but the other one that
Michelle is referring to is the six meter dipole
project and we wanted to come up with an extremely
simple way of making a hard using aluminum six
meter dipole that you can build using materials
from your local improvement store and that we
know that there's videos online how to do this
and there's instructions on how to do this and
so we figured okay well let's let's go to the
hardware and hardware store and pick stuff out
and say can we make an intent out of this and
so we did and we talked about that on our podcast
and I actually had written down the instructions
for that And it essentially is an extremely simple
six meter die pole. You make it, you put it on
a painter's pole, you can raise that painter's
pole up if you have one of the extendable things,
and it actually works quite well. And just after
I built it, our CEO at the time had taken it
out and used it in one of the VHF contests. Now,
it was on top of a building, but it actually
worked out well. when people would ask about
that we would send them the instructions on that
antenna and again, it's it's something simple
and I think some of the The more seasoned amateur
radio operators out there we go. Yeah, but it's
just it's just a six meter antenna It's four
feet nine inches either side, but for a lot of
new amateur radio operators What we think is
really really simple to do. Well, we all start
out the same. It's actually difficult for them
to visualize it so That was a very long explanation,
wasn't it, Michelle? But it was very thorough.
Oh, thank you, thank you. Very thorough, yes.
Well, what are you two have planned in the months
to come? Where are you going with this next?
Oh, that's a secret. We would have to do terrible
things for ourselves. Well, as you can tell from
our podcast, we try to be all -encompassing.
I mean, one thing might be technical, one thing
might not be technical, one thing might be social.
Yeah, definitely. Anything that looks like it
would affect a brand new licensed amateur trader
or operator, obviously with a little bit of tinges
of they're needing mentorship, but we get a lot
of stuff from people. And actually, she's pulling
up the list of our upcoming podcast. So what
do we want to say? What can we say? Well, we
can kind of mention this. And I hear it a lot
at W1AW. And it's the old I'm just a technician.
And I will tell these licensed amateur operator
operators when they come here, no, you're not
just a technician. You are a licensed amateur
operator. And you went through the same procedures
as everyone else. So that upcoming podcast is
not so much a technical one, but we're gonna
try to deal a little bit with some of the things
that new amateur operators have to deal with.
Especially if they're brand new, coming into
a club, they're coming up against a lot of older,
well -seasoned hams. And I think you kind of
get where I'm coming from here, Neil. And so
we just want to talk about that. But, Michelle,
anything else? Well, that one will be released
next week for October 3rd for our next episode.
And then shortly after, we're going to get into
the ham language, the ham lingo, and really just
code it for everyone so everyone knows what everybody's
talking about, because not everybody knows the
lingo or the shortcuts for it. Exactly. And that'll
be helpful, especially just for newer hams, or
just starting out or a refresher. And we do have
a really special one for Halloween. Oh yes, the
Halloween special. If you haven't noticed, Ham
Radio has really been popping up in pop culture
lately, especially in horror movies or horror
TV shows, which is my favorite, so I have to
put a plug for it. And yet, but why? Why? Right.
So we'll be kind of diving into that and talking
about the significance there. That sounds like
some some good stuff and I look forward to To
hearing all this because you know, it's one thing
to You know come out there and and visit which
I got to do again this summer which was really
cool, but you know As part of it on and and yes
because of the Teachers Institute out there and
when we did the show from from Teachers Institute
out there while I was there. But it was a great
opportunity, you know, to hang out with you guys.
But you also, you know, have a chance to share
these things over the podcast. And I think that
that gives people more of a connection. You know,
it's easy to connect with you all when you go
out to Newington and you drop by W1AW and you
say, hey, Joe, can I use the station for an hour?
Do you mind putting me on the 40 meter bulletin
array? And you do that. But, you know, it's not
always easy to associate, you know, with people
that are trying to mentor. And I think this fills
a bit of a gap and many of the shows out there
give this gap some attention and trying to find
new ways to mentor hams and answer questions
and do this kind of thing and connect with people
and I think that's really important. For folks
who look at our Facebook page, they undoubtedly
saw the picture last week that was taken of everybody
in front of W1AW. It was taken via drone. And
part of that was because there was this like
staff appreciation picnic. But before that, we
had the ARL HQ Sprint. And it's a 15 minute,
two meter FM only on Simplex Sprint where there's
zones around the organization and it's a sprint
and staff will go to these different zones and
you have to work other staff through three only
on each frequency. There's a whole bunch of frequencies.
We hand out these pre -programmed two meter HTs
and we had a lot of either brand spanking new
licensed staff or we had some staff that are
just not licensed at all. And the point of it
was to not only have this fun sprint, because
it really was fun. It really was. It was fun.
But also we were mentoring non -licensed staff.
And not that we're experts by any means. We all
have to be open to learning. Every single one
of us. Even those of us who have been hams for
a few years. That was me clearing my throat.
So we had a really good time mentoring. the new
the new amateur operators here, but also the
non licensed staff and there's a certain level
of enjoyment in doing that because You're able
to say okay. This is how you do this This is
how you do that and oh by the way like for this
sprint Come with me in my zone because like W1W2
was considered a zone and you can help log or
as long as I'm there you can be actually making
the contacts and There's a certain level of fun
You know, what would be the right a personal
reward to know that you're helping somebody you're
you're helping them to help them for no other
reason then it's it makes you feel good about
yourself and for a lot of the the amateur radio
operators out there that are thinking well should
I help the newbie should I not you know maybe
you should because someone was probably there
for you and you got to pay it forward and you
have experience they're looking for experience
they may be hungry for that experience because
they want to have fun in amateur radio and the
best way to do that is to is to give it to them
Because then that makes them a better ham and
then they become a really awesome ham because
everything is awesome in ham radio and Then they
pass it on and it keeps amateur radio alive and
vibrant We're very honestly we are passionate
about amateur radio here and not because we just
play them on TV So Michelle how's the so now
what podcast doing so far So currently, just
from starting this year and having our first
episode go out in March, we're at already over
82 ,000 downloads. And currently, we're on iTunes
chart for hobbies in the US. We're currently
number 18 right now, and that's really, really
exciting. Very good. Well, it sounds like some
people are listening, and that's the goal. Well,
it's time for a break, so we're going to take
a break and when we come back we're going to
take your questions and comments for Joe and
Michelle right after this word from ICOM America
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Give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk Live! This
is your announcer, Andy Morrison, K9AWM. Why
else would I be talking like this? You're listening
to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Thanks to ICOM
America for sponsoring the show once again tonight.
Make sure you check out all their gear at icomamerica
.com slash amateur. HamTalk Live is live on the
air every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time
right here at hamtalklive .com and of course
We're not live on all the podcasts and on WTWW.
So you can listen later on whenever you can.
But if you want to listen to us live, it's Thursday
night at nine PM and be sure to check us out
on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well. And
it's time for your calls now. So if you have
a question for Michelle or Joe, give us a call
at eight one two net ham one eight one two six
three 8 4 2 6 1 or you can tweet us at ham talk
live and if you're listening to us on WTWW or
on the podcast edition we're not here so sorry
but it's Thursday and we're not there so we're
going to talk a little bit about some of those
challenges that being a new ham that we kind
of alluded to, Joe did a little bit ago, but
let me run through a few things. First of all,
Laura into LJM from Western New York is listening,
so hello Laura, as well as Chris, thanks for
being there as usual, and Jill. And Jill wants
to know if the podcast is done live, and is there
a link that she can put into, she's one of the
moderators in the Dayton Hamvention Fanatics
Group. Is there a link that she can share or
put on the group whenever a new podcast comes
out? Hello. So the podcast is not done live,
but there is a link. We do post it to our Facebook
and Twitter page every time it comes out. So
you could absolutely reshare it to your Facebook
group. I'd be happy to send you an RSS feed link
offline if you wanted something automatically
to send. I'm like, imagine if it was live. Oh
boy. That could be painful. So Jill, we'll get
you set up here. And we got a tweet from the
one and only Matt Severin at 8MS. Matt! Just
wanted to share I've been enjoying both your
podcasts. And so now what? Always learning something
new, so that's what. So thank you, Matt, for
listening and commenting in tonight. And yes,
Matt, yes, we can always learn something, can't
we, Matt? And Matt knows what I'm talking about.
They're just a little inside joke, if you know
what I mean. So yes. Yes, we always can. There's
always something to learn. I won't mention the
big goof up that I made in the middle of Teacher's
Institute. Like, you know, how to, like, you
know, assemble an arrow antenna. You know, we
learn from our mistakes. Exactly. I make mistakes
all the time around here. I haven't electrocuted
myself yet, so. Well, let's talk a little bit
about this. challenge. And you alluded to this
before when we've been talking about it. There's
some comments of, you know, I'm just fed up,
I'm just tired of hearing all these people bashing
new hams and the radios and all that kind of
thing. What are some of those challenges of new
hams that they have to face? Do you want me to
answer this one, Michelle? I can answer this
one because I see it a lot when visitors come
here because obviously we get a lot of newly
licensed hams. Right. And I think aside from
the mentoring, again, we kind of mentioned that
earlier, it's this there's so much they can do,
but what can they do? And right now, as A lot
of us know, most of us know, we're at the absolute,
pretty much bottom of solar cycle 24. And it's
extremely disturbing, because especially for
a newly licensed amateur who may only be a technician
class license holder. Not just a ham, but they
hold a technician class license. So right now,
their privileges, if they want to do voice, place
them on 28 .3 to 28 .5 megahertz on the 10 meter
band. And unfortunately, because sunspot conditions
are horrific, you go on there, you call CQ interior
blue in the face, and no one comes back to you.
And I can see where a lot of these newly licensed
amateur operator operators would be frustrated
over that, because I'm sure they're thinking
to themselves, well, why did I bother? I can't
talk to anyone. There is not as much activity
on FM just generic analog FM repeaters. So why
and to them I'll say to them, you know, you're
you're not relegated just to 10 meters But if
you want to be on 10 meters in addition to voice
You could run digital and and I and I know that
there might have to actually be this collective
grown when I say Ft8 but Right now, FTA is a
decent mode to use, especially because we're
at the bottom of the solar cycle. And while you
may not find any activity on voice, maybe not
even CW, because again, they have CW privileges
as well, which we always recommend you learn
CW because it's a fun mode. They could try digital
communications. They could try FTA. They could
try PSK 31 or Olivia or MFSK 16. There's a number
of multimode programs down there that they can
download and use. So if they find frustration
in not working other amateur operator operators
on one part of the band, go to a different part.
And then, of course, you have all that experimentation
that you can do if you don't want to just operate
above 50 megahertz. There are a lot of hams up
there that are working with mesh networks like
the Arden systems. They're experimenting with
their Raspberry Pis. I mean, I do that myself.
I actually have a Pi that I will remote into,
and Neil, I think we actually talked about this,
to do ham radio stuff. So there's experimentation
open to them. They can they can integrate Arduino
with radio so if If they're finding they just
can't get on the air to talk to somebody well
then investigate all the other stuff because
there was so much out there and You know, we
kind of talked about this earlier before the
start of the show and that yeah, there were some
radio operators out there that are just disgusted
they they don't want to do it anymore they're
selling their equipment and I just we can't understand
that mindset it's now Michelle is a brand new
ham she has so much to look forward to that she
can do and for me I've been doing it since I
was a little kid I mean literally starting out
in kindergarten and it's still fascinating there's
still stuff to do you're you're sending out radio
waves and you are, they're cutting across the
ether and they're coming down in some other country
or some place and you're communicating back and
forth and I guess if there's some frustration
they need to find that passion again. What got
them into amateur in the first place, reignite
that, play with some of the other modes, look
at all the technology that's out there. 812 -638
-4261 is the phone number so if you'd like to
give us a call you can do that right now and
we'll check the tweets here again too so if you
want to tweet us it's at HamTalk Live but but
totally agree it's just there are going to be
problems anytime you have a group anytime you
have you know multiple people there's going to
be problems And we've run into that at school.
Occasionally we get some hecklers on. I've got
15, 16, 17 -year -old kids in high school trying
to get them on the air and get them encouraged.
And somebody starts jamming them on the frequency
and take the frequency away and that kind of
thing. And the advice is the same. Turn the knob.
Exactly. And they have to look at the benefits
of it. If an individual wants to get into any
STEM or STEAM, because we have the two terms
now, they want to get into engineering or technology,
amateur radio is an incredible stepping stone.
And I'm sure some listeners are probably going,
yeah, but it's kind of narrow in its focuses.
Well, actually not really. Look at how many medical
advancements or experimentation are being done
by amateur radio operators. Steps in military,
in high -speed communications. It's not a stretch
to say many of the innovators, many of the movers
and shakers in these various technologies are
probably or were amateur radio operators and
maybe they got that spark for the technology
from being a ham because it is yes it's a hobby
I refer to it as a service because while it is
also service it is a technical service but you
don't have to be an engineer but it sparks it.
I mean, I was lucky. I got to him radio when
I was really young. I was always into radio.
So when I got to college and was taking electronics,
it was like, this stuff is like second nature.
Except the calculus. The calculus was scary.
And now my son, who's also going to school to
be an engineer, has to take calculus. And I just
sit back and laugh. But anyway, because now he
has to deal with that. But it can just spur a
lot of stuff in their head about what they can
do. Who knows? Maybe the new ham now is the engineer
in the future that finally figures out a way
for warp drive technology. And I'm not saying
that to be funny. I actually mean maybe they
do finally figure it out. Or maybe the ham now
figures out a way to, oh my gosh, I could break
the code in cancer research or other medical
problems, Alzheimer's, you name it. And it all
starts by being a ham, being an amitradio operator.
It's not that far a stretch. We're very passionate
about amitradio. We are, definitely. Well, let's
give one more opportunity here at 812 -638 -4261
if you'd like to call in or tweet because we're
just about out of time. So let's get one last
chance here to chime in or ask a question if
you'd want to. We're talking with Michelle W3MVP
and Joe NJ1Q from ARRL's New Ham podcast. So
now what? Michelle, share with us a little bit
about what goes into making an episode of So
Now What? And here comes the expert because I
just walk in from off the street. This is Michelle's
baby. I'm telling you folks, this is... She's
the expert. So what happens is... We all come
together and that's David Isger, Joe Karsha and
I, we all come together, we discuss topics and
ideas for future podcast episodes. Then David
writes the script notes and then me and Joe come
together and we discuss it further. And we really,
we just go through it and say, you know, what
will be valuable to newer hams or anybody listening?
Because from our comments, we realize too, it's
not just new hams that are listening to us. We
get a lot of questions from well -seasoned hams.
It's phenomenal. Yeah, it's really exciting,
too, that just more experienced hams, they like
what we're doing, which is great. That's our
goal, and they like listening to it. So we come
together, we think of new topics and ideas, and
a lot of them are based on questions or responses
as well. And we do have a media room here at
ARRL HQ. Joe and I go in there, we record, and
as we mentioned before, of course, lots of editing.
Yeah, we have editing. Lots and lots of editing.
And then it's really just putting it putting
it together. I mean, I have the audio tracks
and we have Sabrina Jackson of AWRL HQ. And she
actually she's the voice of the intro and the
outro on the show. So we have that track on there.
I put everything together. We use Adobe Audition,
and once everything is set with the metadata
on everything, it's uploaded to Blueberry, and
it goes out to Stitcher, Apple Podcast, and it
filters through all the other podcast apps. But
it really does, it really does take a lot of
time. The planning process, the recording process,
the editing process, but, you know, we're We're
pretty happy with the end result, and we really
just want to keep trying to make it better and
hope it's helping everyone out. Yeah, because
we're not experts in this. Right. Although, in
our defense, we did take podcast classes. We
did. Oh, wow. Actual classes for that. It was
like two months or something like that. We went
through a podcast training. And we did not say,
ah, throw that all out. We'll do it on our own.
No, we said, no, that's a good point. That's
a good point. So we kind of took that into consideration.
Yeah. No, we actually followed it, really. We
just didn't take it into consideration. We followed
it. We wanted to know, you know, the ins and
outs of what to do for a podcast. And it was
super helpful. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Well,
I had had some requests for you to come on and
when we talked about that this summer when I
was out there that we had some requests for you
to come on the show and share a little bit of
what goes into the podcast and the goals of the
podcast and so you did that tonight wonderfully
so thank you so much for being on the show and
you're really Really glad that we were able to
get it worked out and have you on and look forward
to hearing more from you two. That's awesome.
Thanks so much, Neil. Thank you very much, Neil.
This has been a lot of fun. And I'm glad those
requests are for us to sing. We could have sung,
but you know. Well, now, Joe, you can play. So,
you know. I can play. I can play. I can play.
You can play a pre -player. I could play an mp3
there. That is pretty much the level of my talent
when it comes to singing. Listen to all Joe's
greatest hits right now. So no, we don't do that.
Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much and best
of luck with the show and I appreciate you being
here. Thank you for the opportunity, Neil. We
really do appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much.
It was really great being on the show. Alright,
well that is a wrap! for this week's edition
of HamTalk Live. Thanks to my guests, Joe Karsha,
NJ1Q, and Michelle Patno, W3MVP, and everybody
out there in cyberspace for typing in tonight
and listening. And I invite you back next Thursday
night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time, right here at hamtalklive
.com. And for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
you can find that at hamtalklive .com as well.
And if you like the show, please leave us a review.
That helps others find us faster and and do the
same for for so now what and this is uh... a
good one and you need to uh... to let us know
what's going on uh... on on all of these podcasts
uh... we appreciate your feedback so for now
this is neil rap WB9VPG saying seven three seven
five and as always may the good DX be yours Thanks
for watching!