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.com. It's him! Hey, good evening everyone. It's
time for ham talk live. It's episode 117 It's
the one we've been promising. It's the full -length
Walmart parking lots on the air recorded live
on Thursday, May 31st 2018 I'm your host Neil
rap WB 9 VPG. Thanks for tuning into this episode
of ham talk live tonight We're joined by Adam
Whitney K0FFY and Josh Ward W3ARD from the Wmplota
organizers and we'll take your calls live in
a little bit. Last week here on the show Matt
Thomas W1MST was here to talk about amateurradio
.com and blogging and if you missed that you
can listen anytime just go to HamTalkLive .com
or you can listen to the podcast edition on Apple
Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Podcasts, Google Play,
TuneIn, SoundCloud, your favorite app and we're
also over on YouTube so you can catch us there
so get your Wimploda questions ready to go yes
there's going to be another one we're going to
talk about it after we talk to Adam and Josh
tonight for a while in the interview you can
give us a call so I'll go ahead and give you
the phone number so you have it but it's not
time to call just yet but the number is 812 netham1.
That's 812 -638 -4261 for the alphabetically
challenged. Or you can call us on Skype at HamTalk
Live. You can also tweet us or at HamTalk Live
on Twitter. So this one should be a lot of fun.
So I'll be back with Adam and Josh right after
this word from Tower Electronics right here on
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.com anytime Tell them you heard it on ham talk
live. Well tonight we have Two guests, Adam Whitney,
K0FFY, is from Des Moines, Iowa and the webmaster
and chief organizer of Walmart parking lots on
the air. Adam became a ham in 1998 while he was
working at a... hydrogen line telescope in college
at Iowa State and after a 20 -year hiatus he's
back on the air after catching the satellite
bug and also with us tonight is Josh Ward W3
ARD he's in Waco Texas and just gained a newborn
daughter and lost all the people he was following
on Twitter. So we'll talk about that in a little
bit. Josh enjoys working satellites and APRS
high altitude balloons. And Josh is known as
the overnight stalker of the group. He's the
night owl. So Adam and Josh, welcome to the show.
Finally, we got you on. Hi, thanks. Hi, Neil.
How's it going? It's going great. We're going
to have Have a lot of fun here tonight and, and
now, oh my goodness, Twitter's already already
blowing up. I just hit the button over here and
oh my goodness, 14 already. Uh, so yeah, this
is going to be a fun episode, but you know, we've,
we've, we've talked about Walmart parking lots
on the air a little bit and, and it got me going.
I I've been kind of. listening and trying to
do some satellite stuff and then I was like okay
I got to go do this and it was just a lot of
fun and it was just some random conversations
out there on Twitter and and all of a sudden
this this came up so Josh has got a little bit
of the history of how in the world Wimploda started
So Josh Go right ahead. Sure So first of all,
is that how we're officially calling this? I've
never actually verbalized. I've never spoken
the Akron I kind of ran with that. So I guess
I'll tell you that works. Yeah, or whamplota
Yeah, so Roughly the history, and I'm going to
kind of go with the pilot rule that all stories
have to be at least 10 % true. The best I can
recall, the best I can find on Twitter was around
about April 12th. K7TAB Chris was on family trip
and he was headed to West Virginia and had advertised
or announced that he was going to be working
the Morgantown, West Virginia. Grid line, I believe
it's echo Mike nine nine Fox Mike zero nine And
I'm sure a lot of followers understand what grid
lines are but whenever you're working satellites
that's one of the things that you know, we kind
of mark our progress and that's kind of the way
we Kind of what we enjoy doing is, you know checking
the box and collecting grid squares And so anytime
somebody's doing something kind of rare like
a grid line we follow along and, you know, try
to work that past. And I, you know, Chris in
between whatever family obligation he had and
said, you know, I'm going to work in Morgantown
and I'll be operating from this particular Walmart
parking lot. And I chuckled and Googled, mapped
and noticed that, by goodness, there actually
was a Walmart parking lot dead right in the middle
of this grid line. And I commented to that fact.
And then the conversation started from there.
And I think Glenn, AA5PK, maybe Doug, N6UA, everybody
kind of chimed in and realized at some point
in time that they had activated a grid line also
from a Walmart parking lot, some random Walmart
parking lot. And then the conversation, you know,
kind of being silly, kind of geeky, we all talked
about, you know, With the sheer number of Walmart's
I wonder how many grid lines actually run through
a Walmart parking lot and the conversation, you
know at 140 characters 150 characters at a time
people kept chiming in on you know They started
looking at maps and realizing that they actually
had a Walmart that had a grid line running through
it And how fun would it be to activate? And there's
a few other characters, you know, we also kind
of chase special QSL cards. I've got one that
my wife designed for me because I tend to be
a bit of a night owl. I like to work late night
passes and so there was some conversations about
you know if we if we work a Walmart grid line
maybe we should have some special QSL cards and
before you knew it and I mean literally 36 hours
it had gone from being a conversation to we should
do this sometime and you know Uh, it went from
the thing that didn't exist to all of a sudden
there was a date on a calendar and a URL registered
in a website and a wiki up. And when people go,
are we really doing this? And the answer was,
I guess we are. That's sort of where it started.
Well, uh, Adam has come up with, uh, with a lot
of this, uh, this stuff and kind of put it, uh,
together on the website and managed that kind
of thing. And one thing before I let Adam talk
about how the first Wimploda went, we want to
mention one thing that we were talking about
before the show, that this is longer than the
two of you have ever talked before, because it's
always, you know, call sign grid square. QSL,
and that's it. Yeah, the average satellite pass,
if you get the right one going directly 90 degrees
overhead, the average satellite pass might be
11, 11 and a half minutes. And because it's a
shared resource and it's not operating full duplex,
you can only get in and talk if you're going
to be fair to the rest of the community. It's
call sign grid square, call sign grid square,
done, move on to the next one. I actually, I
kind of enjoy it. I don't really want to bash
the HF guys. I just don't have a lot to sit around
and talk about on HF radio. And I love being
able to look at my phone and know there's a satellite
overhead in two hours. I can commit to like eight
or 10 minutes, get a couple of QSOS, get out
and go about my life. And I looked at the log
this morning and I realized that Adam and I have,
we've traded two QSOS. If you average maybe six
to eight seconds per cue, so we've probably spent,
you know, about 12 seconds talking to each other.
So tonight during the pre call, we like quadrupled
the amount of time that we'd ever talked. So
it's, it's been fun talking to Adam. I've never
talked to him before except for communicating
via Twitter, which is a great place to find us.
Well, Adam, let's talk about how the first one
went. And we've got some things that we definitely
want to. throw in here we've talked about, but
tell us how the first one went. Yeah, I mean,
Josh did a great job kind of introducing it.
I definitely was one who added a lot of fuel
to the fire. And one of the things was, you know,
hams are kind of natural experimenters. So I
wasn't sure I was going to go. It was kind of
an experiment, like Josh said. And I think all
of us, especially the people who are just kind
of you know, couldn't help but do it. We're pretty
amazed at the participation and just the fun
that was had. That was kind of when I really
kind of, like I say, added fuel to the fire.
I registered the web domain, you know, created
a Twitter account, sent some QSL cards to the
printer. My whole idea on the experiment, there
was a couple things that I wanted to see if they
would work and they definitely did work. One
of the things was just How much fun and how much
inclusiveness could we bring about with an event
that just sprung out of nowhere? So with the
website, the rules, awards, scoring, it was a
wiki. And people just from the internet were
just adding whatever crazy and fun and wacky
awards they could. Anything to do with Walmart,
really, there was an award for it. And that definitely
turned into a fun event during the event. The
things that stand out in my head, so it was two
days on a weekend. It actually started midnight
UTC on Saturday, so for most of the U .S. that
was late evening. So there was, like you mentioned,
an overnight stocker award for late night QSOs.
On that first night there was a Black Friday
award, so just tie in the awards and bonuses
to Walmart. That was definitely a fun aspect.
But the other things were the things that I wanted
to see and especially that the community kind
of, you know, tries to get a strong interest
in is operating portable. And so, you know, like
Josh said, everyone had a Walmart, half of them
were on grid lines out there. So it was really
like, how many people can we get out? You know,
people that there was a lot of people that had
never operated portable before they'd been on
satellites. But I counted at least a dozen people
that cobbled together HTs and other antennas
to go portable. So that was really cool to see.
There was at least two that chimed in on Twitter
that were first -time satellite operators. That
blew me away. That was awesome. Yeah, that was
awesome. There was one, Scott was his name. I'm
trying to remember his call sign. It was W, here
it is, W -Y -1 -L -I -E. He actually did a live,
you know, Periscope on Twitter of his very first
ever satellite QSO. So that was just cool to
see, you know, just his excitement. That's one
where his kids, his kids were in the car? Yeah,
yep, that was, brought his kids in. And that
was the other thing, it's like I had a couple
bonuses that I threw in. The other thing is there's
been a lot of talk in ham radio in general about
encouraging youth to get involved in ham radio.
I think it's perfect for encouraging the kind
of STEM academic learning movement that's going
on right now. So there was bonuses if you brought
your kids along with you or if you were a student
operator. I threw a huge bonus in for that and
it was really cool to see. If you go onto Twitter
and do a do a search for the hashtag WMPLOTA.
You'll see all the photos out there, and there's
just a lot that had people bringing their kids
and including them in the event. So I thought
that was really cool. It was just silly enough
to really connect with some folks, but I mean,
it was done. I mean, it was, for a first time,
completely organic grassroots thing. It just
exploded, and it was awesome. I don't mean to
step on Adam's story, but like a lot of people
that host a lot of events, I only work two passes.
I work two late night passes because that's kind
of my identity. I work late night passes. It
was more fun for me to actually follow Twitter
all weekend, see all the photos, see all the
videos, listen to people and watch people planning
passes. You got people that are traveling, you
know, in big metropolitan cities. There's like
nine Walmarts in their city. And, you know, they're
hitting like seven of the nine over the course
of the weekend. And I'm like, it just, I don't
know, it blew me away that people really took
to it the way they did. And it made me proud.
I mean, it's, and nobody even owned the event.
I mean, there's, it was, there's like six or
eight of us that kind of got it started. And
then we just got to back away and just watch
the community do it. And it was so much fun to
just monitor the traffic. So thank everybody
that participated. Thank you, everybody that
participated, because you really made my weekend.
Yeah, definitely. I had fun doing it. I had fun
talking about it. But I got to admit, the most
fun that I had with it was after I saw that Ol'
Roy Award. And I went, wait a second. let's take
every brand that Walmart has of their own and
Let's make a bonus for it. And so you have me
to blame for special kitty and and all those
Ridiculous faded glory and I just kept going
Yeah, so I I'm guilty of that too Whenever Adam
put to the wiki together, you know, there was
a suggestion that was hey, go populate the award
list. And I wasn't sleeping real great at the
time. The daughter was a few days away from being
born, a little keyed up about that. So I just
hopped in and I decided I was gonna start kind
of seeding some ideas, fully expecting Adam or
somebody to come and veto. So some of the working
one store express lane, working five stores,
regional manager. I'm the one that put a lot
of those numerical ones in, but I didn't know,
I mean I just assumed that maybe somebody would
work two or three passes and that would be it.
So I put some big numbers out there, come to
find out people were actually trying and chasing
those numbers. But the whole award structure
was put together on a wiki page. and what was
fun was there were people that i think had some
ideas of what they could accomplish that weekend
and they were basically like calling their own
shot they were calling their own award and it
was like i think i can hit five stores and do
it from the back of my truck so i'm going to
create a four stores and a truck award and then
none of the awards the wiki wasn't even locked
until about two hours before the event started
so pretty much anybody could put anything down
they thought they could accomplish And it was
awesome. And my favorite is still Olroy with
Roy. Olroy with Roy. Yeah. And then we had the,
uh, the two for two, which was the Doug and Chris
Tabor. And I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing the
last name. I don't, again, this is ham radio.
I've never met you guys. It's all via Twitter.
but you know if you could work the same you know
you could work this that both the tables in one
pass you know you got an award for that i think
we were just inventing anything that sounded
fun and you know and then the macgyver award
i'm gonna shut up and let somebody else talk
about that there's the macgyver award that was
awesome all right adam there you go yeah i know
that was my favorite and that award Because if
you were a homebrew ham, that was your award.
It was basically, and I think it was KM6NJL came
up with the idea, threw that on the page. But
you had to buy all of your materials in the Walmart
that day, take a picture of your receipt, and
then walk out in the parking lot and build your
satellite antenna. And there were people that
were just you know in that came out a few days
in advance of the event and people had their
plans on oh I think I can buy this and I think
I can make this and we got tons of questions
about Well, you know, can I bring my multi -tool?
Can I can I bring a piece of coax? How's this
work? But the results of the people at what one
person pulled it off soren Soren won the award
But there was, you know, several attempts and
just the plan that went into that was just awesome
to see, you know, what kind of crazy, you know,
spur of the moment things you can grab off a
shelf on Walmart, walk into the parking lot in
the sun and heat and build the antenna. And actually
you had to make a QSO, a satellite QSO with it.
Yeah, that was my favorite. And that was the
favorite of a lot of people. And the pictures
that are out there of the people that built antennas
and the attempts that were made are pretty cool.
In fact, on the leaderboard page, there was a
couple of folks that made the antenna but didn't
make the QSO. But they put so much effort and
time and put pictures on Twitter. I had to award
them an honorable mention because that was just
awesome to see. See that come together and then
see soren pull that off with just it the antenna
look terrible It was like marshmallow toasting
forks for the element. They were toaster They
were like toaster forks like from a Coleman camp
stove Toaster tongs. Yeah, so I look terrible,
but yeah, he made like six QSOS with it some
on linear some on FM Yeah, so I guess on that
note sort of one of the fun parts to me was you
know I'm the one that kind of threw out the,
I don't even remember what we named it, but it
was like the first contact. So whenever you set
the time at 00 Zulu, we knew that it was gonna
be somewhere between, I guess, like 6 p .m. and
like 8 p .m. for most of the country. Everybody's
like, when you set that time of, you know, midnight
Zulu, I didn't even take the time to look and
see. Are there any satellites even overhead?
And it just so happened that it was an SO -50.
I don't remember. It was a linear bird, one of
the Chinese linears. Right, right. But the first
FM satellite was like four minutes after the
event started. So there was going to be this
clamor, like everybody was racing to make the
first contact on the first FM satellite. And
my rule was you had to log. It wasn't just making
the contact. I wanted official confirmation in
LOTW. So there were all these people racing around
trying to figure out, OK, if I make contact,
can I log it in LOTW? And how quickly can I get
it done? And then I got a private message. I
got a DM on Twitter. And basically it was, hey,
don't advertise this. but there's actually a
linear bird that's gonna be like directly overhead
at the exact moment the event goes live. And
I think we can make contact on this linear bird
and we can beat everybody by like four minutes.
And I was like, the fact that somebody wanted
playing that out and two was so invested in winning
the award that they contacted me directly and
said, will this count? I was like, okay, this
event has turned into something. This event has
turned into something that there's like this
back door like hey everybody's going for the
you know, the 004 satellite But I think we can
make contact at exactly the moment the event
goes live. Will that count? Yeah, sure. Okay,
whatever Well as expected we're already running
over time here So we're gonna have to take a
break here soon. But first before we do Adam
you got to talk about old Roy Yeah, so you that's
the one of the pictures are the best thing on
Twitter just to see the fun that people are having
having with that But three people did get old
Roy and in fact one of those got old Roy with
Roy. It was Roy Dean K3 RLD who is named Roy
But yeah, basically people took the time to bring
their dog out operating with them in the Walmart
parking lot and snap a photo of them and their
dog while they're operating. You post it to Twitter
with the hashtag and that was just great to see,
you know, people bringing their dog. I don't
know how, maybe that happens all the time. People
bringing their dogs out with them while they're
out operating portable, but. Yeah. So that was
one of my favorites. And the fact that Roy Dean
said, well, you know, I, I'm one of the few people
that can get old Roy with Roy. In fact, who knows?
I think maybe he even put the award in to the
Wiki, but yeah, I love that because it's, you
know, with, with Roy, well, you got to have somebody
that named Roy and then I put in Sam Walton where,
where it's, uh, It's got it. You got to get a
contact with a somebody named Sam. Yeah Is that
the photo where he's operating from inside the
basket? I think that's the one We tweeted it
out, right? Yeah There was also I like the fact
that we were also trying to promote, you know
putting the baskets back and, you know, try to
be a good steward of the Walmart parking lots.
It's just trying to give back a little bit. All
right. Well, we're going to have to take a break,
but when we come back, we're going to talk about.
The next one, there is going to be a next one.
So make sure you come back after the break and
hear about that right here on HamTalk Live. The
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talk live comm make sure you check us out on
Facebook Twitter and Instagram and We're gonna
take your calls here shortly, and we've got a
whole bunch of tweets out here to to get on but
first We had we had to jump ahead here a little
bit To catch up so Adam tell us about the next
Wimploda All right. Well, enough people got excited
and clamored for an encore. So Brian Karcher,
KG5GJT had the idea. Let's do it on the birthday
of Walmart. So mark your calendars if you didn't
take part or if you did take part and want to
do it again. It's July 2, which happens to be
the birthday of Walmart. First store opened on
July 2. And just Googling that date, we also
noticed that that happens to be World UFO Day.
Not quite entirely sure what that is, but it
sounds like we could have a lot of fun with that,
so I threw that in the description as well. But
yeah, so 00 UTC, July 2nd, so that'll be the
evening of July 1st. I'm imagining some of the
popular... like the Black Friday bonus will do
that again. The early bird, like Josh mentioned,
the race for the first QSO. Definitely keeping
all the fun awards and bonuses going through
2359 Zulu on July 2nd. So just a one day encore
this time. And I plan to very soon, there's been
some scores trickling in from the April event.
But I'm going to post the final standings here
in a couple weeks in June and then very soon
open the wiki up for ideas on awards and bonuses.
I'm kind of expecting some to go with the theme
of the birthday of Walmart and not quite sure
how the world UFO day is going to come in but
my imagination is kind of going wild. So it's
coming up July 2nd. You get a bonus for working
an alien. Is that the birthday thing? I'm thinking,
you know, there was, there was actually an award
and I, two, believe it or not, two people won
this and Neil, you may have added this, uh, the
great value award where you, if you, while eating
chicken obtained from the Walmart deli, posted
their photos of the chicken that they were eating.
So I'm kind of imagining there's a bird, there's
going to be a birthday cake variant. That's beautiful.
Ah, yes. I don't know about the world. Yeah,
the UFO thing. Yeah, well, you know, wait a minute.
That's the wrong show. That's Art Bell's show.
Right. All right. Well, yeah, go ahead. I was
going to say, the one thing that I have to ask
Adam, so I mean, What I need people to understand
is it sounds like we're like really well organized
and well thought out you got to realize that
This is so organic. I don't even know what Adams
doing half the time at some point There was a
question that was asked. Are we ever gonna open
it up to HF contacts? HF portable and I don't
know that we ever restricted it to satellites
But that would be kind of interesting and then
the other piece I would add is I did think it
was interesting the question came up for like
Mexico, Canada, Alaska you know, could people
sub in, you know, sort of a Walmart equivalent?
And that was a blast. Yeah, that question came
up and we said, why not? You know, it's all about
operating portable and, you know, just kind of
having fun going to a store parking lot. So we
did have, we didn't have a lot, but we had, you
know, AL60 from Alaska kind of counted as a DX
entity because, you know, we kind of that. But
we did also have an operator from Brazil make
one QSO on A07, but he won the long distance
award, you know, with an operator in Rhode Island
from Brazil. So that was, yeah, the international,
it became an international, intercontinental
event, I guess, by opening that up. And yeah,
like Josh says, it kind of just, it's an organic
thing. And I wasn't on the site, I didn't exclude
HF. I just know so little about HF contests and
I don't really operate HF. So people that ask,
I kind of encourage them and I'm like, sure,
why not? If you wanna help organize that, go
right ahead. But yeah, it was mostly just sticking
with what we knew, which was the satellite QSOs.
Yeah, I could totally see this going with HF
too. Bring it on. All right. Well, I'm gonna
get to these tweets because because they're they're
racking up here and I'm gonna Since I'm the host
of the show I get to pick So my favorite one
so far is from our friend Jim K5 ND Who says
the awards needed adult supervision? Glad that
never happened I think there should be a war
too. It's sort of like, uh, you know, dialing
after 2 AM. I think half the awards I put in
there was somewhere between 3 and 4 AM one night.
There probably needs to be a rule on what time
of night you can add awards. Now, Ruth came for
LAO says she's working on modern physics while
listening to the show. And she also, let's find
it, says the MacGyver was the greatest award
that weekend hands down. She's still amazed how
he made an antenna that worked for multiple QSOs
and well done. So that's from Ruth. I have to
say hi to Ruth. Ruth and I have a fun relationship
on the satellites because She's kind of known
as the unicorn. She's that rare young female
who operates satellites. So she's the unicorn.
And a lot of people know me as sort of the night
owl, because I work so many late night passes.
So there's actually sort of an unspoken award.
If you can work a pass and get the unicorn and
the night owl in the same pass, it's a good night
for you. So hi, Ruth. There we go. Yeah. Jim,
I like you so much. If I have ND. Hi, Jim. And
let's see, we've got more here. Oh, and Ruth
says, I think we need a traveling alien seeker
award wearing a tin foil hat while making QSOS
from a shopping cart being pushed by an assistant.
Done. Now there's a specific one. Okay, here's
Jeff. Jeff chimed in. We said we were going to
have to get him on here. Jeff WE4B says, will
a cupcake with a candle work? as a birthday cake.
Will that count? My birthday is July 4th. No,
Walmart's birthday. My birthday is July 4th and
we've got a tradition of a moon pie with a candle.
I'm willing to recognize the Walmart birthday
with a moon pie or cupcake and a candle. Any
baked confection. We'll call it here on air.
Done. All right. And Patrick WD9EWK says he's
listening and enjoying that, and agrees on the
MacGyver Award. Shout out to Patrick. Patrick
is the top scorer and the most intense rover.
Josh had mentioned hitting eight or nine stores.
Patrick did eight stores in one day on the event,
and that boosted his score a crazy amount. So
yeah, Patrick did awesome on the event. And Jeff
says, Moonpies rock. So we got this. Sean Kutsko,
KX9X. I knew he'd chime in sooner or later here.
He says, when PLOTA was the embodiment of True
Ham spirit, the satellite community came together
and made a great event succeed. The MacGyver
Award, Roving, and Ham's new to satellites participate.
Can't ask for more. Bravo to you two. Fantastic.
Thanks, Sean. And let's see here, what else do
we have? I know we had more. Oh, Dr. Scott Wright,
KZeroMD, wants to know if we're offering a bonus
for eating cheesecake on a stick. Now that was
probably directed at me because for Hamvention,
I always had this thing that we had to bring
back. cheesecake on a stick. It was missing,
but it was back this year. In fact, two different
places had it, so that was probably directed
my way. I realize it's pretty customary to suck
up to the host, but Neil, by the way, thank you.
Thank you for actually doing this. This was a
blast. We're not done yet, but this was a blast.
I'm glad to get to participate, so thanks for
mentioning this and bringing this back to the
world. Oh, we had to. It was just, it was just
too much fun and it grew and grew and grew. And
then then I'm doing Newsline and I'm trying,
I interviewed Adam for Newsline and was trying
to get that going. And, and it was the worst
thing ever because I had like four and a half
minutes worth and my editor, Karen Katie to GT
says, you have to stay under two minutes. And
I'm just like, no, I can't do it. And so every
time that I talk about, um, Karen having to cut
down what I say I always bring up when ploda
because it was I couldn't cram it into two minutes,
but We were we were working on that and then
the very next week They do over in the UK. They
do the the pubs on the air. Oh Man So it's like
oh no, and then and then last weekend I was out
in the mobile and and and Julie needed to go
to Kroger. So I'm like, okay, I'll drop you off
in Kroger and then I'm gonna go down to the other
end of the parking lot and I'm gonna get this
satellite pass. So we had Kaplota and then somebody
on Twitter said, no, wait a minute. Shouldn't
it be Kaplota? Get the Klingon in there. So we're
just getting really, really new. All kinds of
silliness. Oh, Sean has a question. Sean KX9X
says, did you ever hear from the Walmart PR team?
Well, yeah, that that sort of implies that we're
working sort of sanctioned at some point in time
Probably need to check in with the mothership
and let them know that this is happening Yeah,
we made we made an effort to fly under the radar
and just yeah I mean they like Josh mentioned
before there were some bonuses that you know,
put the cards back You know, you know you pick
up litter in the parking lot. So try and you
know be Be friendly with the store that is implicitly
hosting it with their parking lot. So no, we
did not Okay. Well, I think i'm through most
of these and i'm looking at the clock And so
yeah, we're probably going to go a few minutes
over tonight, but Adam What have we left out?
What do we need to get in here? Oh, man, I think
we hit most I mean The big ones, yeah, I wanted
to call out and just reiterate it. The whole
idea from my perspective and why I really fueled
it was just pointing out the fun in amateur radio
and trying to make it fun and make people try
new things like building their own antenna, getting
their kids involved, teaching them that ham radio
is fun and you can learn a lot. So yeah, we hit
on the awards, like people are mentioning, the
MacGyver was just the best, because trying to
build an antenna out of just random stuff and
actually make it work, that actually takes a
lot of understanding and skill to pull that off.
So that definitely was a highlight. And just
the portable operating, there was a lot of comments
I saw outside the satellite community that people
were applauding because it was encouraging people
to get out, operate portable, and just get out
of your comfort zone, get in new locations, and
just really encourage that, which I know a lot
of the other on -the -air events, I mean, that's
a big part of what they're trying to encourage.
So yeah, we hit on the things that stand out
in my head, and that's why I think it's a success.
Regardless of how many people did it, just the
fun and just the idea of you can have a fun amateur
radio event, it can be grassroots and just be
a little bit wacky, but it can have really good
benefits. Yeah, that's really what stands out
for me. Yeah, and I'm and I'm not so sure you
know it isn't an outreach because people are
gonna see you out in the Walmart parking lots
I Think it was at least one tweet. It was at
least one tweet I remember that somebody said
that they were out operating satellites and at
least one other ham walk up in the parking lot
like What are you doing? Are you working satellites
and then sat around for the rest of the past?
I mean, you know, they're definitely it raises
some eyebrows, but you know, yeah, you're kind
of an ambassador so It's good stuff. All right.
Well, we're going to have to, uh, to finish up.
We've got a couple of things I need to get in
here before, uh, we go. But one of them, Josh
is, is, you know, I'm, I'm reading all these
tweets here and there's all this Twitter activity
and you're not seeing a bit of it. Not a single
thing because Your Twitter account's all messed
up, and nobody wants to fix it. Yeah, yeah. About
a week ago, I was following about 300 people,
and I had about 360 followers. And all of a sudden,
my feed went dry. I wasn't hearing anything.
And somehow, for whatever reason, the database,
something got corrupted. And I apparently am
literally following No like null like I don't
like it's impossible for me to follow anyone
right now So I can tweet I can shout into the
the void and people can can hear what I'm tweeting
or see what I'm tweeting But yeah Twitter support
has been absolutely no help I've tried official
and unofficial channels. So if anybody's got
any contacts with Twitter Please help me get
that account back reinstated in a good standing
And and we've been doing some some tweeting on
your behalf as well. Well, thank you very much
If I have to if I have to start a new account
I will if I have to start from scratch I will
it'll be fine But I really you know, I like I
said about a year and a half Well, I guess it
was probably nine months ago. I felt like I kind
of found my tribe. I found K7TAB, AA5PK, Adam,
I found all these guys, and Ruth. It's been a
blast, and if you're not on Twitter, you don't
have to be, but I tell you, it's a lot of fun,
and it's a lot easier to find out, have some
context for who's gonna be on a satellite, who's
working rare grids, and there's been just a lot
of camaraderie. I mean, this whole thing started
because of those communications and because of
those relationships. So if you want to, to tweet,
uh, you know, Twitter support about W3 ARD stroke
five. Yeah. Needing some help, you know, you
might, you might want to do that. Okay. I can't
pass this one up. We're already over, but I can't
pass this one up. The tweet just came in from
KG five GJT. What me an instigator and stirring
the pot no way? Jeff we for me can vouch for
me on that one as well. Hope shows great still
at Walt Disney World Fantastic. Thanks Brian.
Thanks Brian So he's he's still out there and
he's been That's Brian with some words to Brian
Karcher with a K I would need to specify the
first time I sent him a QSL card. I left the
K off of his name So, he's got a Brian Archer
QSL card and a Brian Karcher QSL card. Oh, my.
Well, we had to get that in as that's going on.
And one other thing that I need to get in that
I promised I would get in, 100 watts of the wire
is having their tune up June 8th through the
10th. 0100 UTC on June 8th, Friday through 2359
on Sunday. And it's a chance for you to tune
up all your stuff for field day. If you can go
portable, go portable. So again, this is one
of those things where you can go. portable and
and get out there but this one's more concentrated
on HF trade call sign state if you got a 100
watts ID do that and a true signal report so
wow everybody's not five nine oh my and there's
some prizes and some stuff just for you know
turning in your log or something it's just random
drawings it's So anyway, a hundred watts to wire
.com. Check that out. And, and, you know, we
keep talking about the, uh, the website and everything
for Wimploda. We haven't even mentioned the addresses.
So if you want to find out more about Walmart
parking lots on the air, Adam, tell them how
you do that. Yep. The main website, W M P L O
T A .org. Okay. So go over there and you can
check out the Wiki. And there's also the, uh,
the WMPLOTA Twitter account, at WMPLOTA. Guys,
it's been a total blast, as I knew it would be,
and thank you so much for coming on. Thanks,
Neil. This has been great. Thanks, Neil. Thanks,
Adam. Had a fantastic evening. All right. Well,
that is a wrap for this week's edition of ham
talk live. Thanks to my guests Adam Whitney K
zero FF why Josh Ward w3ard and everyone out
there in Twitter land for chiming in And invite
you back next Thursday night at 9 p .m Eastern
time and to see who's on the show who's coming
up visit ham talk live comm just click on the
show schedule link. And if you like the show,
please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever
you listen. We'd like to build that up a little
bit and make it easier for people to find us.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG saying
seven three, seven five, and may the good DX
be yours. Thanks for watching!