Everyday Ham Podcast: Amateur Radio Conversations
Welcome to the Everyday Ham Podcast, where three friends dive into the world of amateur (ham) radio with a casual, lighthearted twist. (Visit www.everydayham.com)
From discussing what we're working on, current events, and lessons learned to sharing our gripes and off-topic banter, we bring a mix of fun, relatable conversations and radio expertise.
Whether you’re a seasoned operator or new to the hobby, join us for engaging chats that celebrate the quirks, challenges, and joys of being on the air.
Everyday Ham Podcast: Amateur Radio Conversations
FTX1 Reality Check: Our Honest Review + SteppIR Exit
The long-awaited Yaesu FTX1 Optima has finally arrived in ham shacks across America, but does it live up to the hype? We've spent days testing Yaesu's latest flagship and share our unfiltered experiences that left us reaching for our trusty FT-891s instead. From PTT issues that drop mid-transmission to strange menu bugs and disappointing receiver performance compared to the FT-710 and FT-DX10, we dive deep into what went wrong and whether firmware updates can save this premium-priced radio.
In a surprising market development, we explore the news that SteppIR has announced their exit from the amateur radio consumer market by August 2025. Their CEO cites an aging ham population moving to stealth antennas as HOAs restrict traditional towers. Is this the beginning of a larger trend in ham radio manufacturing following MFJ's recent exit, or simply market evolution as the hobby changes?
Summer is here, and that means Field Day is just around the corner! Whether you're a newly licensed ham nervous about your first HF contact or an experienced operator looking to test emergency preparedness, we share why Field Day (June 28-29) offers something for everyone. From operating tips to overcoming microphone fright, discover why this annual event remains amateur radio's most beloved gathering.
The amateur radio landscape continues to shift, with new technologies promising innovation while established companies retreat from changing markets. Through it all, what matters most is finding the gear and activities that spark joy in your radio journey. What's working for you this summer?
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The Everyday Ham Podcast is hosted by James Mills (K8JKU), Jim Davis (N8JRD), and Rory Locke (W8KNX) – three friends who dive into the world of amateur radio with a casual, lighthearted twist.
Follow us at: Website: https://www.everydayham.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayhampodcast/
All right, everyone, welcome to today's episode of Everyday Ham, episode six. It is finally summer in Michigan, so it's probably hot where we're sitting here, especially Rory, because he had to close all his windows for this fine, crisp audio that you're seeing here. Before we begin, just a quick reminder you can find our website at everydayhamcom, our Instagram is everydayhampodcast and our YouTube channel if you're interested in watching the podcast versus listening, as well as checking out some of our special mic check episodes, is at everydayham. With that, I am James K-A-J-K-U, joined here by Jim N-8-J-R-D, as well as Rory W-8-K-N-X. So how are you guys doing today?
Speaker 3:Good evening. I also want to mention did you mention the Discord? Did we mention the Discord? We have a growing community on Discord.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:A lot of folks coming up there. We're having a couple good discussions. It's a slow start but it's a good time and we want to make sure we shout out our local friend, shane KFABWN, who's come on board as the pod mod mod I think is what I called his, his role on the thing, because I'm a dork. That way, I think it was good to have shane come on and he's been good at helping foster some of the communication and and conversation yes and speaking of discord, real quick shout out to jason kf8 ehx, who passed as general recently.
Speaker 1:He's been active on the discord congratulations, jason yep, and with that rory, what has been going on in your ham radio life this last couple days?
Speaker 3:well, today was well. Well, let's rewind to uh dayton. We were all at dayton hamvention and we were, and I it was. I was noticing something weird with the all-star connection back to the home repeater that we were no longer hearing folks from home.
Speaker 3:We were hearing people on the node, but we were not hearing anyone actually on the repeater. But lo and behold, we found out that we lost the internet connection at the repeater. And our repeater is in a municipal water tower in our city and the only way to get the internet there is using a cellular connection. So we had to figure that out. So we have a small team of folks that comprise of the technical committee in our club and led by our chief engineer, steve Nader, who is a extremely young, 81-year-old fellow who's smarter than anyone you'll ever meet.
Speaker 3:We look to have him, hopefully, on here as a guest at some point. We might have mentioned him before. He literally has electronic components that are still floating around in space from his time working for various vendors as far back as the 60s. So it's very cool stories there, but anyway. So we had to make the time to get over to the repeater. Jim met Steve and I over there this morning and we took the time to figure out what was going on, and it basically turned out that the antenna Okay, so you have to picture a water tower. It's pretty much a Faraday cage inside the water tower.
Speaker 2:All metal.
Speaker 3:All metal Signals don't come and go from there too well. So the cellular connection, which is our only option to get Internet data in and out of the water tower, the cellular connection. We were relying on an abandoned antenna that was on the top of the tower to help bring that signal in. Basically, what we figure happened and did a series of testing, is that that antenna failed. Either the feed line failed or the antenna failed or a mouse chewed through something somewhere. It's hard to say what could have happened, but there was no longer any usable transmitting or receiving on that particular antenna. So we were able to set up the wireless modem to have an antenna that worked well enough and as far as I know, as of now we're still connected to Allstar on the N8SL repeater. So that was our big thing. We were able to also plan some future stuff we're thinking about with the club and the repeater site. That's that. It's all been club stuff, no personal radio stuff for me.
Speaker 1:Always a good time when you get the brain trust out there to fix the repeater at the water tower. Since I don't have a 2-meter or 70-centimeter antenna up yet which is a future mic check episode coming up I depend on that node and the Sherry and the All-Star. So thank you from my side so I can continue to monitor the repeater.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have surprisingly good coverage with the repeater as far as that is concerned, but there are still pockets and club members that do drive quite a distance and like to have the access to be able to listen. Yep, james included. But you know we have other folks that are right on the cusp. Steve is one of them on the technical committee that spends a lot of his time listening on the All-Star Note. Steve also helps build the Kits for Hams, kits that do a lot of the All-Star. You may have seen those if you've ever been to the kitsforhamscom, so definitely check those out.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, the repeater has good coverage, but the All-Star Note just gives you that extra way to have folks that are remote listen in to participate. And Rory, do you want to mention our call in this Sunday afternoon?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just thinking about that. So we had our weekly net this past Sunday and our friend Jerry GNG was on an Alaskan cruise and he was ready to go. He was able to get on Allstar using the. I believe he uses the repeater phone app, which I use as well, to access Allstar directly from my phone. I found that to be pretty much the most reliable. It does both Allstar and Echolink in one app, so it's kind of convenient. I think it is a pay app, but I do recommend it. Anyway, he used that to call into the net this past Sunday. So it was cool to hear of one of our local hams out in Alaska taking a minute to check into a net. I'm sure his wife was thrilled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's exactly the same way that we connected to it down at Dayton right. We took the Starlink down. We had that set up and that's actually where we first discovered that we were discontented because we were making calls back into the South Lyon area and talking hamvention stuff with folks while we were down in the campground. So it was just really neat. James, what about you? What's new going on in your direction?
Speaker 1:So I've been pretty busy with the we mentioned it last episode but the Michigan POTA meetup which we have coming up here this Saturday at Fort Custer State Park. So if you're going to be in the Michigan area and you're near Battle Creek, swing by from 11 to 3 at Fort.
Speaker 1:Custer it's going to be a good time. I think the turnout is going to be good, which is going to be excellent for anyone interested in learning about POTA or an active POTA participant, so there should be a lot of people out there. We also have two POTA tumblers if that's something that gets you excited, that we're going to give away as a raffle Some giveaways yes. Donated from the vendor that supports poda and their merchandise. Actually so nice. Never turn down some freebies it's gonna be a good time, can I?
Speaker 2:comment yeah of course I have to knock on wood as well.
Speaker 2:The weather looks like it's gonna be toasty. Oh, you did it. I did it all. Right, I'm knocking on my desk. The weather does look like it's going to be very warm for for poda meetup this weekend. So if you do add up, make sure you bring your sunscreen and do be ready for a warm day of poda-ing. But one of the things we are hoping for is a little bit of improvement from our friend the sun as far as the propagation is concerned, because the last couple of days have been pretty brutal on the HF bands. Has anyone been out doing a little poda?
Speaker 1:I tried and I got out. There couldn't hear a thing. So I fiddled with my FTX One a little bit just to try to get comfortable with the settings. I was like maybe today's not the day and I went home.
Speaker 3:Rory, how did you do this past weekend? We went out. Did we just meet one day, or did we end up out there two days? I don't even remember.
Speaker 2:I was out there two days. Two days, I don't even remember. I was out there two days. You and I met on the second day.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, well, no, because you were out there, I swung through and then we went out there after Saturday morning breakfast too. So there was a lot of OTA. There was a lot of crossing paths this weekend, yeah, but you were out there trying to figure out life with the FTX-1, which I know we're going to talk about here shortly, oh gosh, with the FTX one, which I know we're going to talk about here shortly. But uh, yeah, we pretty much struggled to to do the activation. I mean, conditions were well, I think what? What works out so well on the weekends is enough People are doing POTA, enough People are looking for POTA stations. You're probably going to get your 10, your 10 contacts without any problem.
Speaker 3:But if you're out there on a weekday and some of the people who activate a lot on the weekday I've noticed on some of the Facebook groups they've been struggling. It's hard to get the time when you don't have a ton of people to look for. And if you're limited to one band if, for whatever reason, maybe you're just running a single hamstick, that's the only band you can use you're struggling. You need to be able to move across the bands right now with the conditions the way they are. So it's been rough. I know it'll get better, but it's not impossible. I guess that's one of the things I always think about. I see these people post oh I struggled to get 10. Oh, did you try and I hate to say it that way, but it's to get 10, you can spin the dial and pretty much find someone to talk to that's eligible to put in your log to get 10 contacts.
Speaker 1:If you have the time and the will, you'll get your 10. That's the two important factors there.
Speaker 3:I'll give you that. If you're limited on time, that can be a concern, and I've had some activations that have been difficult because of time limitations. But if you've got an hour to spend, I feel like you can still get 10, even with the conditions being marginal.
Speaker 1:Or learn digital modes.
Speaker 2:Those are a big one.
Speaker 1:FT8, FT4.
Speaker 2:I have leaned on FT8 the last couple of days more than I have in months. I fired it up in February. We talked about that on a previous podcast, but I've leaned on FT8 here in the shack a couple evenings just to keep my radio moving right, keep it active, keep it listening. And I've had some decent DX and I've actually started collecting all of the US states as part of my other activity on digital mode, just trying to get FT8 collection. You know, just challenge yourself to do something different. If the thing that you wanted to do is becoming difficult with the bad conditions, right, go find something else to do. And James always says it right Hobby within a hobby. Many ways to activate, many ways to run your radio.
Speaker 1:So no wrong way to do it.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Whatever brings you joy.
Speaker 2:Yep, I always appreciate that kind of aspect of it is when these bands are tough. There are other ways to do it and we are blessed with a number of really very effective modes, even in these rougher conditions. But I think it's time to talk.
Speaker 1:Are we ready to do it? Ftx1 feedback here we go.
Speaker 3:We have to talk. It's time.
Speaker 1:It's time to talk it out.
Speaker 2:The elephant is in the room and I'll tell you what. Let's start with just a brief one here. We've been excited about this thing for probably two months, I think, and we've spent quite a bit of time on this podcast and also making content regarding FTX One Optima.
Speaker 1:Some may have said we were part of the Yezu fan club for our promotion of the radio.
Speaker 3:Right, absolutely, and I was excited. I talked about all the ways I was considering using it and I could still be considering it. We'll see what happens, but you're talking about two months. Think about everyone who sent their deposits into the various vendors and got on the list more than a year ago. So it's not short-term hype, it's a long, long hype working up to this moment.
Speaker 2:I wanted to acknowledge, before we go into this because this is going to be a little more critical conversation on the FTX1 than I've had in past that we are, and we remain excited by the idea of the Optima and the FTX1. But I do think that we ran into some things that didn't necessarily excite us as much as we were hoping. With that being said, I think that I'll give you the summary first, which is to say that the Optima did get delivered about a week and a half ago and if you checked out our unboxing on the Optima, it's on here on the YouTube channel. So if you're listening to us on YouTube, you'll probably find our FTX One Optima unboxing Tried to go through everything that was in the box.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about my first impressions, and I was really hyped to get that thing. I got it delivered on essentially what I believe was one of the first days that consumers that were not major ham tubers were able to get their hands on it. I know that Ham Radio Crash Course got his the day before Hamvention started. Jason Ham Radio 2 got his, but we were not in that group, so we got ours under the normal circumstances that an early purchaser would have gotten it and I pulled mine out of the box, had a lot of hype around it. That's right. Mine's right behind me too. Here we go. It's all turned on waiting.
Speaker 2:But you can only test so much when you're in the shack. So the first night was really a lot of spin, the dial experience, the menus. Compare it to what I knew, which was the FT-DX10, the FT-SEN and then the FT-DX101MP that I have on my desk right now as my maiden shack radio, and a lot of things felt just right. It feels good, it feels very well constructed, it is a stout unit. I said these things all on the unboxing, so go check that out if you're interested. But what we found was there were small software bugs that we could start to feel in the interface, and the interface is heavily menu-driven. We've mentioned this before. Go ahead, james.
Speaker 1:Pretty quickly you could start to feel there were some bugs in the software.
Speaker 2:That's right. Navigation bugs that allowed for you to be dropped into the wrong menu when you were clicking on a button. That didn't mean that All what we believed were very software software approachable fixes kind of in our initial impression, as on delivery night and James and I got ours on the same night, but I know James was busy that night so I think I was the first one in there- poking the buttons.
Speaker 2:But suffice it to say I got pretty excited about it. A day lapsed and I was planning on getting it out on the Friday of the end of the week to go do my first poda activation with it. And that's where I think that it started to become more evident that FTX1 maybe was a little bit early to our consumer hands from Yaesu, and that was where a number of interesting bugs popped up for us that really affected our ability to use it in an effective way in the field. And I will tell you if you're asking well, jim, how did you use it? Did you take the field head out? Did you have Optima attached? I had Optima attached. That was always my intention in buying it was I was going to go POTA with all 100 watts attached to my battery right. So what we found right out of the gate was connected up to the BuddyPole dipole, which is a pretty stalwart antenna as far as POTA is concerned. Many BuddyPole users out there I know Rory runs his, I bought a new one at the Dayton Hamvention and there are many others that are doing de-expeditions on BuddyPole stuff. So good antenna, good feed cable.
Speaker 2:We found that there was some very strange behavior from the FTX1 Optima right out of the gate and the major issue that I saw that I'll mention right out of the gate was the PTT would unkey as I started to talk or call POTA, right. So I would say CQPOTA, cqpota, cqpota, this is N8JRD from park number. And before I got done with those few words it had dropped my voice as if I had let go of the PTT button. Even though I am a big, I grasp the PTT button pretty hard. I probably gonna break a mic at some point. So I knew there was something weird. But I possible antenna configuration, we'll check everything again.
Speaker 2:Got out of the truck, rechecked everything. Everything is very much in line SWRs that are very, very good, 1.2, 1.3 SWRs. It got back in the trucks, tried to go ahead and activate again. Same behavior, right. And so I knew there was something going on with the radio that was not behaving the way that my other Yaesu SDR style radios had operated. Right, I had never had trouble calling POTA from an SDR radio on sideband at 100 watts, ever, no matter where I was, with 50 foot of cable connected, I never had problems. So that was really a bummer and I kind of got down about that.
Speaker 2:But then other things started to kind of crop up and one of those things was I'd get feedback into my headphones same headphones again that I had been using with my other two Yaesu SDR radios. The monitor function seemed to be bugged. We had strange scroll wheel behavior where it almost had a linear ramp. It would go from zero to 100 miles an hour when you were trying to select something On and on. Just little things that kept cropping up and we thought you know, something doesn't seem quite right about this. So I gave up for the night.
Speaker 2:I got my 10 contacts very, very difficult. I got my 10 contacts Very, very difficult, got my 10 contacts and I left the park because I refused to leave without a failed activation, and I think we all talked about that. That's the spirit no-transcript that we saw. So I thought no problem, at the end of the weekend it was the holiday weekend, by the way I'll call up Yesu and I will report what I found and see what their thoughts are. And at this time I was not necessarily thinking that I was ready to send it back yet, but I was definitely frustrated with my first experience. So, all this being said, ftx Optima didn't blow me away out of the gate and James, tell me a little bit about your first impressions before I go much further.
Speaker 1:Well, no, and I think that's the most important thing. So you said you went to Facebook to correspond with your thoughts and feelings and what you were sensing with the radio thoughts and feelings and what you were sensing with the radio. But I had a lot of the same similar issues. Now I didn't have the ptt dropping. That issue I did not have when I was out there activating with it, uh, when I did do a poda, but I did have happening on on jim's peaks, when that was something that seemed to happen, when, when he peaked out, do talk loud, yes and then it also on my peaks.
Speaker 3:It was able to be duplicated. I I don't drive the mic quite as hard as Jim, but that's what usually makes that happen.
Speaker 1:No, but the general feel, the tuning was definitely an issue. It was doing the linear tuning for me as well. I did, after you mentioned the dial wheels the dial, the dial wheel, yep, and then I was getting the clicking in the headphones as well. So we were corresponding about having the same issues. Our device we also learned was what 12 serial numbers off the manufacturing line from each other.
Speaker 1:James's came off 12 before mine, so we were right on the same day, probably so to be clear, we weren't just depending on social media to basically say we have problems and they need to be fixed.
Speaker 3:No, and on top of that I got out there with Jim with my trusty 891, and we worked side by side with that. To compare, I was very strong. I was basically telling Jim to calm down at first. I'm like it can't be that bad. It wouldn't be that bad, let me get out there with some equipment. I'll meet up and see. And I took my 891 out there. We set up side by side, did some similar testing. We were able to rule out because, to be fair, this was your first time out with the buddy pole dipole configuration as well.
Speaker 3:So I was very adamant that you rule that out and we did the 891 we took out there. That worked as I'm accustomed to, and you kept on with your testing that worked, as I'm accustomed to, and you kept on with your testing.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, and I think that that is another thing that I appreciate. Rory, you brought a little bit of levity to the situation, a little bit of chill, because it is a big purchase for me. I did move a couple of radios to get this radio, to bring it to you guys that listen, because I was really interested in the radio but also wanted to talk about it on the podcast. So I was like I got to get it and so I made some, made some decisions to move radios around to get this and I was a little bit, I think, emotionally invested in it to an extent, and that did frustrate me that first night. So it was nice to have Rory come out and kind of get a second opinion on his and I kind of just handed it to him and I said you tell me what you think, I'm going to stand back and let you operate it for a little bit. And we started to kind of see that it wasn't just me that was seeing some of this behavior and the things that we were reading on Facebook, corroborated with our thing. So suffice this all to say. I sent Yesu, I spoke to a gentleman at Yesu.
Speaker 2:His name is Roger Kern. He was a really nice gentleman. He took my phone call first thing on Tuesday morning after Memorial Day weekend and he's, I believe, the engineering support gentleman there that works out in California and he said dang, it sounds like you are having trouble. I'm paraphrasing here. Roger is a very nice gentleman and he took the time to sit with me for 30 minutes and we talked through each of the issues.
Speaker 2:I said I have eight things documented here. I have one major one that I'd like to bring up, but I have some other ones if you're interested in hearing them. He said absolutely, this is a brand new radio. I don't yet have a production unit in my hands, which we thought was interesting as well. It's kind of troubling actually. That's right.
Speaker 2:Roger was waiting for his production unit, I guess, to be available and so he wanted to hear what we had heard, what we had seen, what we had experienced, and he took notes and he was really attentive, I think, to the concerns that we had and I appreciated that. And Roger did follow up, post our call with, I think, close to four or five emails afterwards. One of the major issues that we hadn't mentioned yet is that the Bluetooth unit on the early on the non-firmware patched ones and we're going to talk about firmware in just a second here. On the delivered unit both James and my FTX1, when the Bluetooth unit, the BU6, was installed, would lock up to the point where you could not access any of the deep menus in the radio, and that was very strange behavior and I'll tell you why this is a frustrating situation and that is because to install the Bluetooth unit you need to use VHB tape, double-sided sticky tape.
Speaker 3:I hate it. I hated that right away.
Speaker 2:And James is showing it to you on the screen if you're watching on YouTube. But essentially there's a little door that covers the side of the ftx one head, and in there there's a little pcb board with the bluetooth module and and to attach it there's a small piece of double-sided tape that's clearanced perfectly to allow it to sit on what is basically a ziff kind of header right, it's like a low insertion for that first force header and that's what holds it in. So when I installed it I had no idea that it would cause any sort of unusual radio behavior. So uninstalling it was a rather delicate procedure because I couldn't use the radio while it was installed, at least initially, and so I had to undouble-sided sticky tape it from there without damaging a couple of ground planes and other little copper connections that are very delicate on the side of the head. So it was a little bit troubling, but again I was very happy to chalk this up to perhaps some software things that could be resolved. Roger did get back with me. He suggested a hard reset of the radio. Unfortunately I wasn't able to access the menu to reset it. He did finally get back with me and send me some hard buttons that I could hold to do that firmware reset or, I'm sorry, microprocessor reset, but ultimately by the time we had gotten to that point, 528 had rolled around. So the 28th of last month we got our first update for FTX and that did end up resolving the Bluetooth unit issue.
Speaker 2:So that is kind of the saga, right, and if you're listening you're probably thinking boy, there's a lot of things going on there with FTX One. Would you recommend buying it today? And I want to give you the kind of lowdown here because we don't want to spend too much more time on FTX One. I think that the summary of this for me guys is Optima just wasn't ready for primetime when they launched it after Dayton, and I think that I'm going to die on this hill here. The and I think that I'm going to die in this hill here the units that James and I got.
Speaker 2:If anybody else had gotten those units that was a less technical person, I think they would have been extremely frustrated with those and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those went back to a ham radio outlet or whomever they shipped them to right. The unit introduces a ton of novel ideas and Yesu has tried some new things here. But the performance that we're seeing out of the radio, at least in its initial release, and even with the subsequent release of firmware, it certainly is having me question its higher price tag when we compare it to some of the stalwart units that Yaesu has out there right now, which are the DX10, absolutely amazing receiver, excellent sounding transceiver. The 710, a super portable unit that could be taken out into the field and still performs just as well almost as the DX10. Many other options out there. So it was frustrating for us to run into that kind of early behavior. That just didn't feel quite ready for primetime.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, Jamie. I found right away that I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, I was going to say just to kind of second what Jim was saying. I knew there was a problem when I had this bad boy with the Optima sitting on the seat next to me in my car. I swung in for a quick poda and I had my backpack in the back with the 891 and all my poda gear and this little pretty sitting right next to me.
Speaker 2:Brand new.
Speaker 1:And I did not want to use it. Yep, and it's great when it works, but I couldn't trust it. I didn't want to fiddle with it. I was frustrated with it. I didn't want to fiddle with it, I was frustrated with it. It didn't bring me joy and to me that is so disappointing. And I got out my 891, and I had a great time.
Speaker 3:I could tune up my ATOS.
Speaker 1:I could get everything done.
Speaker 3:That was essentially going to be my comment, what you just said. When we had the 891 and the FTX one side by side, my comment was that I don't get any more joy using the FTX one than I do my 891, the, the receive, this receive quality on the 891 was just fine, just a similar fine. I was getting out, fine, I didn't. I don't get shut down when I, when I peak with my, with my audio, with the 891. You know that my experience, um, my experience, having them side by side, I was still perfectly content with my 891.
Speaker 1:So 100, I get where you're, where you're at there h9 891 891 is still my recommended buy if I was gonna go buy I love my 891, so this isn't a crap on yezu moment here I love my 891. It's my go-to podo radio for pretty much everything. Again, I own two 891s and I'm proud to say that because I have one in my mobile and I have one in my podo bag and I love that radio. It's my go-to buy. I was hoping this would replace one of those. Not even close.
Speaker 3:Not yet, not even close. Seriously, I'm not even sure I'm going to give it the time. Yeah, seriously not a crap on Yezu thing. I guess we do want to make that clear.
Speaker 1:No, not at all no.
Speaker 3:On was it Saturday, jim? We were out there with Chris KTHCAT. He was doing his first pod activation and he had his very nice 710 out there Brand new.
Speaker 2:He just got it at Dayton 2. His brand new 710.
Speaker 3:And I think that was another moment. Jim, you kind of had a realization with the 710 next to the FTX1 what you were dealing with yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's two more things I'm going to say, but Rory just led into one that was very interesting for me. So the waterfall, which is much hyped on all of these SDR radios right, we get a big color screen and so we want to see on the band scope what is going on around us, right, and what I've generally learned 891. Doesn't get this.
Speaker 3:I I have no use for a waterfall, but I'm I'm a different type of person. Sorry, go ahead I got it.
Speaker 2:But those folks that do appreciate the big color screen, the waterfall, right, when we, when we get used to how that works and write the mp, the dx10, the 710 I've got three radios, I've used them all a lot and I have a very fine understanding of how you can tune up the waterfall. You can adjust the waterfall levels or the band scope levels so that you can start to see just a little bit of signal grass on the bottom of the display and that's when you start to pick out those other important signals like POTA call outs or CQs or SSTV, anything that's across the band. Right, that's how we pull those out. And what we noticed was even on the 710, sitting right next to it in the same park on a comparable buddy pole antenna right, we were jacking the FTX1's level gain up on the receiver, well over 20 plus, when we only needed plus four, plus five on the 710. So it was really really interesting for me to see them sitting next to one another and see that the band scope was not showing me the same kind of information and that I felt like I was missing information on the brand new FTX, one that cost double the money as the 710, right, that for me was a damning moment. That for me, that does not make me feel very strongly about the receive capability of the FTX1.
Speaker 2:Now we have to put a little perspective on this right. When we talk about receive capability and we're talking about seeing things on the band scope, that does not necessarily translate into your experience talking sideband, working FT8 or sending CW, right, there's a good chance that those minute differences in the way that the data gets displayed are not going to affect your ability to run the radio when I actually am calling out and listening with my ear. But if I want to see and take advantage of the tools that are being given to me on an SDR, including the band scope, it does need to work and it does need to be sensitive. And so I do wonder if we're going to see some additional tuning that happens around that band scope, if it is a bug issue or if there's something else going on. But it lands me on a very interesting point, which is today, late in the afternoon, sherwing released their first score for the FTX-1 Optima.
Speaker 2:They have the serial number posted and the rank was 34 on the list. If you're familiar with the DX10, it is ranked number two. If you're familiar with the FT710, it is ranked number three, and when we were hearing about FTX1 for the first time Optima we were being told that this was the same receiver or the same design as the DX10 and that we should expect comparable receive results. Just think that whatever compromises needed to be made to allow for VHF and UHF in this combined radio situation, it has affected it in a way that is sort of disappointing to see. Now I don't think that we need to hinge on Sherwing as the one and only, but it is an interesting data point that supports again something that I saw in the park, with two radios sitting next to one another. So a lot of interesting stuff that we've learned and we wanted to take some time tonight to basically say we know we hyped this thing up, we were excited about it.
Speaker 3:We were fanboys, we both put our money where our mouths were right.
Speaker 2:I got 2000 bucks into this. Put our money where our mouths were right. I got $2,000 into this, james got $2,000 into his. I bought all the accessories to go on top of it because I wanted to get the full experience. And the answer is at the end of the day, optima didn't deliver what we were expecting at this price point.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you both a question Do you feel it is salvageable Meaning? Are we talking about problems that can be solved through software updates and firmware in the future, or are we talking about catastrophic hardware issues that make this a do not buy ever?
Speaker 3:I would guess that there's. I would guess there's going to be a hardware improvement and probably a second. How do they do it? Add a D at the end of it A Gen 2.
Speaker 1:A Gen 2 of some, sorry, you know, add a letter.
Speaker 3:Add a. They do it. Add a D at the end of it A Gen 2?.
Speaker 3:A Gen 2 of some sort, you know add a letter to it, make something, something you know. And I was ready. You guys know I didn't buy it because you know it is a significant purchase. I don't quite have a need for it right now, but it was going to be the purchase.
Speaker 3:I was happy about the size, I was happy about the flexibility, I was happy about all the things that it offered. I was happy that it was supposed to be in the class of the DX10. So, you know, I did start filling an envelope of a little bit of savings to start preparing to buy that probably, you know, maybe within a couple months, but you know that I don't believe will be the answer. So we'll see what they do. I mean, they did the first firmware release, did put a Band-Aid on a lot of things, made it more functional, and I think they have so much development time and hours in it that I'm sure that they're looking to make it be what they were hoping it was going to be, because to have a huge flop with that much development well, I shouldn't even say that because I don't want to declare it a huge flop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a flop yet.
Speaker 3:That's probably not wise To have such a struggle. Be on the struggle bus, okay. I don't know what to call it. I'm not coming up with it.
Speaker 2:It felt like a beta product, that's right, they put out a product that's beta that was not ready for production.
Speaker 1:We are beta testers for this product, and I'm not also making fun of Shagoo or Yegoo or however you pronounce the manufacturer's name. Sorry for mispronouncing it.
Speaker 1:But they put out You're talking about like the X6100 or the G90 or they're kind of known to put out products that are maybe immature into the market and then they refine it over time. That tends to be one of their strategies Felt like that strategy when I got this in my hands and I started to work on it. And the fact that they also released this is pure speculation. The fact that they're able to release firmware updates that quickly. Either they have engineers working overtime to resolve a lot of these issues and they have units that they're testing and they're doing revisions and all those things that have to happen, or they maybe knew some of these issues were there and that they were working on them to get a release out there and get them fixed, because some of these issues I find it hard to believe that they didn't find it in quality testing, to be dead honest.
Speaker 3:Like the Bluetooth module. That was a big conversation we had with a lot of our friends is where was the true QA? You know, we happened to have a it was good weather on the Saturday of release, I think and a few of us went and grabbed a beer in town here and kind of told stories and shared our experiences.
Speaker 1:Again share the experiences, as hams do.
Speaker 3:That was the big question. Where was the quality assurance with this? And it feels like it wasn't there, which that to me from Yezu was a bummer. For sure that totally not normally yezu no, no, because I mean looking here. I have just in my line of sight. I have six yezu products and I'm very happy with them. You know, it's, it's not I love you not not hating on yezu. I'm just just surprised with with some of the outcomes of this one I.
Speaker 2:I will say out loud here's a little plug If you haven't found a local club, go do it right now. What Rory said was actually really important. So, coming off of our testing, what we did is we took our feedback back, met with some of our club members One of the gentlemen is an RF engineer, one that worked in the RF space for a long time, in fact close to retiring at this point, I believe yeah, if not already and we kind of gave him some details and he said boy, I do think that it sounds like it was rushed Right and that there are issues that may be hardware related, that need smoothing with software, but may long-term need hardware resolutions. And that for me is a scary comment to hear. When we have a radio that we know can be hardware or software updated right, firmware can do a lot to make this radio a better radio. But if there are intrinsic design problems with some of the things that we've found and we're simply smoothing them by changing the way the software behaves, that for me is a bit more worrisome. And let's not fearmonger here, but to simply say that some of the feedback we gave had that sort of reply, that that was worrisome for me and I will tell you out of the gate.
Speaker 2:Like I said, there is a new firmware out. James and I both have flashed it. There are folks that have received this that are still running on the original firmware. We absolutely encourage you to put the 52825 firmware on your FTX1 Optima. If you have it in your hands, it is a better firmware. There are better behaviors around many of the things that we've talked about tonight and you are holding your Optima back if you don't run that firmware. So definitely encourage you to do that.
Speaker 2:I've already heard a couple of folks that have bought them that have said I'm not comfortable doing firmware updates myself. I would like somebody to help me through it, and that worries me too. Right, you've got brand new units out in the field running the beta firmware essentially, and those folks may not feel comfortable with the extended firmware update process. And this one was a little more involved because you did need to update the bootloader before you updated the main and the disk firmware. So very, very tumultuous first two weeks with my FTX Optima.
Speaker 2:It right now for me is a wait and see. So if you have been listening and you were waiting for us to say, go out and get it. It's a wait and see for us guys. I think that I'm stuck with mine for the time being. There is a future where perhaps I go back to a DX10 because I just find that radio to be a super excellent radio, even in the field, if it's a little heavier. But we are going to continue to research and feel out what it does, what those firmwares do. We'll bring that information to you. But we had to take some time to follow up on FTX One and it is a wait and see, I think from all three of us here on the Everyday Ham podcast.
Speaker 1:I would say that's pretty agreed from my side, Yep absolutely, jim.
Speaker 3:before we move on any glaring positives, what were some surprises I know we had when we were playing with it on Saturday. Your battery consumption was a definite plus. It was very low 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:She sips power, I could tell you that. So, especially listening, you're getting maybe three quarters of an amp listening with the big color display on and running. If I compare that to my DX10, for example, that we have to keep in the back of our head. Right, it does not tune ATOS 120 through the Optima yet. There has been acknowledgement via Yaesu that that was not intended, at least initially, but they do plan on adding it in the future. And the interesting part about that again is Optima can be tuned manually with the buttons through the Optima, but you can't find the right SWR automatically yet through Optima, which is very strange.
Speaker 3:Same with the APRS. That one made no sense to me.
Speaker 2:Same with APRS, right, I'm a big APRS nut, you guys know it. I bought the FGPS5 simply to play with APRS and we heard initially that there was no way to send messages back. Right, and somebody I believe it was K4MAC that gentleman did a video on it and got a reply from the VP of Yaesu saying that they should have acknowledged that APRS was not fully developed in the initial release. And that kind of answer from Yaesu at a high level is exactly what we're saying. Right, If we're going to put it in the marketing material and we're going to sell you guys a very expensive product, we need to be clear on what's coming, what's partially done and what is going to be done in the future, like WiresX, right?
Speaker 1:Just be transparent. That's really all we ask. It's understand that maybe you're going to put out a product that has some features coming in the future. Qmx was maybe one where they were talking about. Maybe you'll have SSB in the future.
Speaker 2:That's right. Do talking about maybe I'll have SSB in the future and do some voice operation.
Speaker 1:People loved it, though they were still buying it. At least there was the hope of the future that you're being honest. I'm still going to buy it for its core function. This is maybe a nice to have in the future, just be honest. But I will say maybe before we transition here as well. Yezu, if for some reason you are listening to this podcast, we'd love to have you on the podcast to talk more about it and maybe what your development plans are for the FTX.
Speaker 1:One Absolutely or a phone call, an email Again, Roger was, was it? Roger was the name of the tech.
Speaker 2:Roger, fantastic gentleman. Yeah, he was very responsive. I was reading the email train.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very nice guy, but let us know we're more than welcome to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2:I think that, yeah, there's always an opportunity to hear directly from Yesu what is going on here, what their thoughts are and whether or not some of the things that we saw are in the process of being resolved. But FTX One guys, appreciate you all following us on this sort of journey with FTX One. If you have had an experience with one that was delivered early, put it down in the comments or let us know at our Everyday Ham podcast email if you're listening on one of the podcasts. We would love to hear what your experiences are good or bad because we would like to take some of that information and continue to compile a list of those experiences and things that corroborate our own experiences so that we can understand this radio much better than we do right now.
Speaker 2:But with that being said, James, I think you have one more.
Speaker 1:I have maybe sad news. I think you have one more. I have maybe sad news. This is a company I only recently learned how to pronounce the name of, but Stepper is announcing that they are going to be leaving the amateur radio consumer market. And I think, rory, I learned from you. I always, I'll fully admit I called it StepIR.
Speaker 3:I also did so does everybody else Yep.
Speaker 1:This is why you need a Rory in your lives.
Speaker 3:I don't know that anyone really needs that, but it comes with a lot of cost. It's just one of those things that caught my attention some years ago that I hear people calling it by two different pronunciations, and I don't like things like that, so I like to get to the bottom of it. You simply you pick up the phone and you call the company and you find out what they're called. Are you calling them now? Yeah, but I'm not good at things, so we have to do it again. So I'm calling them now. Let's see what this is. Thank you for calling stepper communication system.
Speaker 1:So imagine you're standing at a uh, a ham fest next to rory talking about step ir and what are they?
Speaker 3:because I I personally have never used a step ir and rory goes just call the hotline you'll learn how to pronounce it properly.
Speaker 2:And talking about StepIR, and what are they? Because I personally have never used a.
Speaker 1:StepIR, I've never used one. And Rory goes, just call the hotline, you'll learn how to pronounce it properly. And there he goes, just dialing it up.
Speaker 3:They do have a couple videos up on their website with a very nice representative and he refers to it as Stepper. So you know what Do what you want. It's called Stepper, All right.
Speaker 1:What, what you want, it's called Stepper. All right, what's the news about Stepper? They will be leaving the amateur radio consumer market effective August 31st 2025. So they are leaving the market pretty quickly Now they are, and I didn't know this as well. They do have a enterprise side of their business. They actually develop radio and equipment that assists. One of their main products that look like was the day trading, the radio frequency day trading that we also saw some of the focus recently on that related to the band plans and maybe taking some spectrum. But they are a company that produces radio equipment for that. That's one of their main drivers, let's say, of their profits. But for those that don't know StepIR and again I don't own a StepIR I have to look it up up. I know they're known for their stepper motors, which is one part.
Speaker 3:When, what are you doing? This is my step motor. Yeah, but you just lapsed into saying step ir oh my god, did you accidentally?
Speaker 1:there you go, stepper. So the stepper motors which adjust inside a length of their antenna elements, so they have a copper beryllium tape inside and the stepper motor will basically just create increments until you get your fine tune and that's what they do. So a lot of people I've heard love stepper. There I go. I had to focus when I was going to say it there. But yeah, they are leaving the amateur radio world. But I think the one most important piece I thought about before maybe I get your opinion on stepper and where you see the market going I did find in April 1st 2024, a Groupsio post from their CEO, john Myrtle, and I think the most interesting part was in there.
Speaker 1:He had a quote that said In a shrinking ham radio antenna market where hams are getting older and leaving their towers and yagis and opting instead for stealthtenas that they can sneak by, hoa committees Pre-owned Stepper Atenas are flooding the market as the result and we're reluctantly saying goodbye to some folks that we have known and appreciated for a very long time. So my thought on this is Stepper and the question to you is going to be do you see this as a larger trend? Potentially in the marketplace. They're going to go back and focus on their consumer. But I think they're seeing a couple of things.
Speaker 1:Hams are getting older, there's a flood of used equipment that is entering the marketplace and on top of that for the consumer market you are seeing more cost pressure related to manufacturing tariffs again not making political statements, but tariffs increased competition. We saw MFJ recently in the last couple of years, also announced that they're exiting the marketplace. So I just find it fascinating because Stepper was, for those that had it, a beloved brand. It was definitely a premium brand. Also, doing the research, I saw a few people point out that this was going to be their retirement gift to themselves. They were excited to maybe even go purchase a stepper antenna and put it up at their home and use that as their base station. So again, I'm curious what you guys are feeling about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the stepper product itself was actually an extremely novel concept, right, when we think about how they employed the copper tape as an adjustable length antenna in a sort of automated way, right it?
Speaker 2:was a different approach to essentially what we do with kind of like a screwdriver antenna. Right, you could make a much longer element and that allowed you to resonate more signal outward. So it seems like a really novel concept. But we can acknowledge again and we've said this before in our last get-together expensive product. Go and look at some of the higher-end stepper products and you're looking at $3,000 or in the neighborhood for an antenna.
Speaker 2:In some cases more properly specced right. So significant amount of money to spend on an antenna. And if we boil it down, it ends up being, in the case of some of those stealth antennas that they were talking about, their market on essentially a ground-mounted vertical right which doesn't offer some of the benefits of a higher-end multi-element beam with the Stepper technology in it, and I know that they offer those as well. So Stepper for me, a fascinating product. I love the idea of it. I'll be sad to see it go and the honest-to-goodness answer is, if I ever stumble across one for the right money, I could be tempted to stand one up in the backyard just out of sheer curiosity, because I do live in a place where I wouldn't get away with a tower. But I could certainly sneak a stepper in the backyard and I think that it has enough novelty that it would entertain me for at least a little while.
Speaker 3:But I know Rory has some additional thoughts on this I do and you know it was a product that I had my eyes on for a long time. People noticed they were not at Dayton this year and I remember I was walking through the buildings one day and I don't remember if I was with you guys or if I was walking around with someone else and I made the comment did anyone see Stepper? They're not here. So they were not at Dayton Hamvention this year and that was interesting. That caught my attention. But I always liked their so that was a good tell that something was coming. I always liked their product. Some of it seemed, you know from the concept, exceptionally interesting to me. I watched a number of videos on it, watched a number of people who were very pleased with it. The performance was there. Their Stepper Urban Beam product was something.
Speaker 3:A ham on the east side of Detroit here that I know he loves it, he had it. He moved from a large house, large property he had for years. He downsized into his retirement home and that's what he put up. Works great for him. But what I have read and there's a gentleman out east who does tower installations all over the country for ham radio operators. It's his business. He would not install one.
Speaker 3:He refused if someone ordered a supper because he at some point in his career was removing or having to go and try to do maintenance on them Troubleshoot and he was not interested in doing that. At that point he found that he gave the flat-out recommendation go buy yourself a regular old-fashioned beam and put it up on your tower.
Speaker 1:Where were they failing? Did he say what element would?
Speaker 2:tend to break.
Speaker 1:Be curious was the step motor, or was it?
Speaker 3:if he did, if he said I didn't read it, I can.
Speaker 1:I can try to source that and we can, just we can circle back at that I don't.
Speaker 3:I'd have to look at it again. It was a fairly lengthy post actually, so I wouldn't be surprised if he, if he went into detail. But uh, you know that's, that's an interesting take on it for sure. And and at that price point, if there were failures, and that that's not a good thing. So certainly a bummer because, like I said, it had hurt a lot of people. I'm sure not putting one up here at the condominium. But you know, if I end up on acreage and whatever it was on my list of things that would probably be on my property before I learned some of the troubles that some people had. We'll see. There's another different product out there, I suppose. Who knows, maybe someone will take it over for the ham community. You never know. Someone might have a new, bigger and better stepper-type antenna, you never know. So you had to think about how to say it there for a second.
Speaker 1:I was trying to make a joke, but I'm not that quick.
Speaker 1:Second, I was trying to make a joke, but I'm not that quick. So I'm also curious, though are we going to see this as a larger trend in the market? Again, we hams are an aging population by some regards, so I'm curious if there's going to be more companies that are traditionally also selling amateur radio products that say now the margins just aren't in it for us anymore. You know we're going to go back and focus on our enterprise business. Only A Chameleon might be another one, however. They do a lot of milling and other things for their antenna products, but I'm just curious what your thoughts on that are, especially with the used products flooding the market.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Jim just had a crash so he'll be back in in a second. He reports a windows problem, so he's turning things off screen of death. I think that happened, I don't know. Yes, okay, so this is my take on that. I think it's an evolution of everything. Amateur radio, what people are doing with amateur radio, continues to change what, the what, the younger, because we're not the young young guys anymore and we're younger in general.
Speaker 2:But we're not the young guys anymore.
Speaker 3:We're younger in general, but we're not the young guys anymore. What the younger folks are doing, I think, is going to evolve. I mean, you can look at the evolution that Parks on the Air has done to amateur radio. There's different needs, different wants. There's a lot of people who are, I think in general more people are living in urban or dense housing to where some of these things aren't an option for them. So I think it's more of an evolution or a change in the hobby in general, more than just a change in the products. I think it's the needs. The needs and the wants have changed in time.
Speaker 1:That's kind of my take on that I mean looking at the Reddit posts and of course you know all good facts come from Reddit, but looking at what comments people were making, there was a lot of well, you just can't beat a wire antenna. Looks like I'll just go put up my wire antenna and I'll be fine, and maybe that does speak a little bit to your saying about how people are in more urban environments and parks on the air and good, trusty NFED half-wave is just a good alternative and a changing trend.
Speaker 3:That's all right. The whole thing goes 100 watts and a wire, you can work the world. There is truth to that. Yeah, I will say. Going back to the stepper for a second, some of the videos where people took the time to compare the directionality, the gain, the receive quality, all the things, when they had the stepper pointed the right direction and tuned properly, it beat other antennas. So you get what you pay for, but you can work the. You can work the world on 100 watts and a wire.
Speaker 2:So I've still got my nfed strung up, even though I've got the dx commander standing right next to it yeah, so good luck, stepper.
Speaker 1:We barely knew, ye, at least myself and I just got your name correct and now you're. You're leaving me. Yeah, I was looking. I'll put put a link in the website if anyone's interested in looking at StepIR products and you may see StepIR.
Speaker 2:Did you do that on purpose?
Speaker 1:No, I wish I could say I did, but I did not.
Speaker 2:It is way too tempting as a ham to say those last two letters separately, the way they've got them capitalized.
Speaker 1:It is, it's like, ingrained in my soul at this point. If you do have a stepper product, they will continue to have support for warranty and technical inquiries, as well as spare parts while they last, oh gosh Okay. So August 31st is their last day of consumer sales. So if you're in the market or you just want to see what's going to happen on the used market for one, go get your stepper now.
Speaker 2:I guess it's your last chance.
Speaker 2:I want to ask one question and I apologize, I had a little technical hiccup here and you guys were talking reliability of stepper and in learning a bit more about them before we talked tonight, I was looking at their mechanisms, right, and it is a very novel mechanism, right. It's a spool with that wind of antenna tape on it. It's a stepper motor which we know it has a reproducible distance traveled when we pulse it a number of times. So, like, does anybody here know how we actually get feedback to the stepper control? Is there an SWR reading that gets fed back into that stepper control? Or is it simply like an old time preset radio where we say, at number of steps, extension of tape equals 33 feet and therefore resonant on? So do we know any more about that? I would just be curious.
Speaker 3:At risk of not knowing anything. I believe there's a whole computer-controlled module.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the unit is a fairly smart unit in both its probably driving.
Speaker 1:From again looking at the website. Yeah, okay, go ahead, roy no, go ahead I was gonna say, from looking at the website there is a two control units that they sell. Okay, that are swr and control head readers. So okay, it looks like the control head or the controller, is what's really doing the reading and then the adjustments to match.
Speaker 2:Okay, Like I said, right when we started talking about Stepper I said I thought it was a novel product and.
Speaker 2:I love Stepper. When we started talking about it I thought it was a novel product, so it just makes me more interested in it, and that'll be definitely one of those things that I think, because they've said it themselves these are going to continue to pop up, even on the used market, and if you look at some of the components inside the drive box there, they look very reproducible if you were a fairly handy person with a 3D printer. So I do wonder if it won't continue on in its own little format, by the way of the users right, folks that have them, that love them, and that kind of expand on the idea using their own product replacements.
Speaker 1:Now I will say this their optimizer 2.0 controller tagline is it's not a controller, it's an optimizer.
Speaker 3:Oh so there's your answer. Would it ever make sense to say, oh, I have an optimized IR. What is that? What is that? That doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 1:You have an optimizer.
Speaker 3:You have an optimizer. Just say it like it's the word. Maybe it was their branding that caused their demise. I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 1:The I-R is capitalized, sir, I'm doing exactly as it's telling me to do. It's true, it's true, see.
Speaker 3:So is everyone else, but it's not what it is. So here we are.
Speaker 1:So with that, we're going to have our last topic for the day. We've all mentioned before, we are members of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club here in beautiful South Lyon, michigan, and we have field day coming up and it's going to be a big event. So, jim, what's going on with Slark and our field day activities?
Speaker 2:This is a really interesting little tidbit here. So when we talked about Step IR and exiting the market because of the aging ham population, I feel like we're on a sort of opposite trajectory here. In South Lyon we have a ton of younger, newer hams joining our club and there's a certain level of vibrance that we've seen lately and we're in a lucky spot right now, I think, as individuals in this particular club that are experiencing a sort of like I said, burgeoning kind of refresh of interest in it in this particular metro area. So that's awesome, and what that means is Field Day is an opportunity for many of those folks who have just gotten their tech licenses to come out and run the HF Radio for the first time, and I'm speaking from experience. Last year about this time it was probably the first week of June was when I really started to look up ham radio for the first time. This is my first year back in. Literally it's like my birthday, because this first month was when I started talking to Rory on the repeater, getting to know all of the folks in the club and then making my first visit to one of our club meetings and going out to dinner with you guys and starting to really run into you, right? And so, yeah, field Day is that opportunity. The new hams can get out there and run.
Speaker 2:Field Day is also an informal contest. It's also a picnic. It's also a way to know if you're ready to operate your radio in an emergency situation. It is many things and it's not just one thing to any one person, right? So when we think about field day, think about what you're going out to get from field day, and there are going to be many activities that you can participate in.
Speaker 2:Some of them revolve around operating the radio, right, and being involved in the informal contest. Some of them might just be to go out and pick the brain of another ham radio tech that you are curious about, like how do they get into it. Or maybe you want to sit there and have a picnic lunch with everybody out there in the club and just get to know people before you dive headfirst into operating radio. So I encourage folks that are thinking about going out to field day. If you've never done it, go out and do it for your first time. Everybody at the field day, at your local field day, is likely going to be happy to see a new face. Oh yeah, and you'll probably be overwhelmed by the friendliness, with love and support I was going to say the friendliness and also the amount of information that those folks want to share.
Speaker 2:Right, all of our clubs, all of our clubs, no matter where you're at in the United States or otherwise right, are looking for fresh folks to come out and participate in these events. And I am the event chair for the South Lion Area Amateur Radio Club, so I can tell you a well-attended event. It warms my heart. Right, we want folks to show up to these things. There's a lot of planning that goes into them. There's a lot of equipment that gets moved to a place for a field day type operation. So go out and check them out, guys, and you don't have to spend overnight there. Go out for a couple of hours, take a look at the field day schedule. If there's no field day schedule posted, look around on the web and find an email and email somebody and ask them some questions. But I just want to encourage everybody to go check out Field Day.
Speaker 2:South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club is doing their Field Day this year. Again, same place as last year. We do it in the Brighton State Recreation Area, which is also a POTA park. So you get double credit you can get a POTA activation while you're doing your informal field day activations and we are going to be running four radios out there. We're going to be running a 4A site station out there at the McGizzy Cabin M-I-G-I-Z-I, and you can find more information if you're interested, and in the local area on our website S-L so you can go check that out. If you are interested, feel free to email either the podcast or email the club if you're nearby and come out and check out our field day, because it's going to be a blast.
Speaker 2:Guys. There will be many of us out there running radio. If it's as warm as last year, I encourage you to dress appropriately for it, but there will be an opportunity for a potluck. There might be some folks there that are happy to help you shepherd a new learning station so you can sit down and learn how to use the radio if you've never done it before as a tech, and we're running the club call. So you don't have to be a general operator. You don't need to be an extra class operator to get on all of the HF bands on field day. We're going to be running a club call to do that and many of these field day sites are doing the same thing. That means that somebody at the club is allowing you, on the behalf of the club, to use that club call to have extra privileges. Let me get those words out of my mouth on the radio, and that lets you run it like you were a full class operator of the ham radio. So really cool experience, james. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:No, I was just about to say that may have been the best description of field day I've ever heard, nice, and to say that may have been the best description of field day I've ever heard, nice and that is why you're the best event coordinator in the business.
Speaker 1:Well there we go blushing. You went through it, but no, field day is a great time. I I love field day and this may be a little bit I. I actually may leave our field day a little bit and drive around and check out a couple other field days as well, just to see how they do it. So, as jim said, there's no wrong way to field day. Come and get your taste, for whatever you'd like to do.
Speaker 3:So I don't remember the year, it was probably 04, 05, somewhere in that time frame. I did just that. I went and visited, I think, four or five field days on field day Saturday.
Speaker 3:And it was a nice way to do it. I did it so that my day ended and I ended up at South Lion up on the hill where we were doing it by the end of the day and I stayed there overnight. But I think I went to the Milford Amateur Radio Club was still there. I think the Oakland County Races group had one up in Pontiac, something out in Howell Anyway. So that was a good time to get around and see different setups, see the way different people do it. I think that's a good plan, james, if that's what you're looking to do. I had a couple other thoughts on field day. Certainly, if you show up on there and you have any sort of apprehension towards getting behind the mic, don't have someone. There'll be someone that'll sit right next to you, help you with the logging tell you what to say walk you right through it.
Speaker 3:If you've never been on the mic, or you've never been on HF for that matter, sit down next to someone who's playing. They're going to give you the mic eventually. It's just how it works. At field day, everyone is there to help everybody learn. And I will also mention if we have any disabled or homebound listeners who aren't able to get out and about, I don't know without looking, and that's because of bad planning. You'll have to look it up. You can play field day from home and you can run. I think it's a one echo or one golf or one. It's a one. There's run. I think it's a one echo or one golf or one, it's a one. There's a designator for a station running at home on commercial power. You can look that up. Arrlorg will give you the information. Jim's typing away. I can hear his keyboard. He's going to let us know what it is. But even if you can't get out to field day, you can play from home. Spin the dial, the bands will be packed.
Speaker 1:You will find people on top of people and all sorts of qsb and all sorts of stuff and and I was gonna say, I recognize mike as someone that had mike fright at one point as well. It is real and field day was one of the best, as everything rory just said is 100 true you sit next to someone. You eventually say you know what, I'm gonna try it. You close your eyes, you squeeze, you squeeze the hand mic, maybe not as hard as jim who is gonna break a mic one day, but we, we know they're durable and they can take it.
Speaker 1:And you just do it for a couple times and and it's a thrill, once you get once. You just do a couple cycles and you get a. You get a, you get hooked.
Speaker 3:So the best thing you can do is get out there and just give it a try good yeah, you'll be fine.
Speaker 2:Field Day. Did you find the exchange? I didn't. The rulebook is thick for ARL Field Day if you have never looked at it before, so I did not make it through far enough to get you the exact one. The home station rules. But you can run a home station. That is in the rules. It is allowed, and oftentimes when we're sitting out at Field Day loud, and oftentimes when we're sitting out at field day we're talking to those home stations, right, and those guys are having just as much fun calling back, and really field day doesn't work unless we're both on either ends of the radio, right? That's the whole part about field day. It's similar to POTA, but on a much larger scale. Every band is going to be packed, probably closer to 1 or 2K between our separation instead of 3K on sideband in many cases. Right, you're gonna be talking with sideband chaos, yeah but like james said don't worry, I messed up.
Speaker 2:The first couple calls. The person next to you is gonna say, hey, not that way, let's stop, let's think, let's go back and try it again.
Speaker 1:Not a big deal I still mess up, sometimes when I'm even doing poda exchanges, it's okay absolutely totally, yeah, it just just go out there and have fun and don't stress about it. And at the end of the day, it's later on in the evening when those folks on side band are tuckered out and they just want to run, save their voice for a little bit and run through the night.
Speaker 2:There was some really interesting DX late into the evening. Last year on field day I talked to Hawaii on six meter, which was insane, so that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:That's cool. Yeah, the bands can do. Our friend, jason Canforale, who was a guest on one of our previous episodes. He had his first I don't know if it was first overall experience with FT8, but at field day last year he sat into the wee hours of the morning hanging away at FT8 for what I think was his first time ever. But for the record okay, if you are running by yourself at home on commercial power, you are one delta. And if you're running at home on backup power, you are one echo.
Speaker 3:So, just so that we can clear the air on that.
Speaker 1:So if you're new to field day, you don't need to read the rule book. Someone will be there to help you out. If you're the ham nerd like we are, we just want to make sure it's correct.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And one more thing on the field day. There I liked what you guys said about exploring field days. If you're in an area that has more than one, this is a great way to go get your first experience with a club. And if you haven't picked one yet, field day is going to be a really nice place to see in a busy situation, like how are they planning their event? How are they welcoming new hams? Right, and you can bop around to a couple of these if you're in a local area like ours and you can find the one that fits your speed, your operating style and the people that you would like to hang out with. Right, some clubs are going to be different than others. Some clubs are more social, some clubs are more technical, some clubs kind of walk a sort of balance between those. So find a club that meets your requirements, and not every club. Like not everybody wants to join south lion area amateur radio club right, that's okay. There's an arrow club. Down the road, there's a lark club to the west of us.
Speaker 2:Right, there's all kinds of.
Speaker 3:There's a larp club east and west of us for that. That's right yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's go, go check out a couple of them, and I like that suggestion as as a final kind of thought on field day. But get out there and check field day out. It is the last weekend of june and it is going to be a fairly exciting little event. It starts on saturday the 28th at two and it runs to sunday at the same time and on the aro website there is a spot to find where clubs are hosting field day.
Speaker 1:So you can go out there and check out the map and find it and maybe you can meet your jim and rory as well, your, your fellow ham companions on this journey. Nice.
Speaker 2:They can even start a podcast. I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll love it. We'll love the competition there. So with that, though, we are at time. So any closing remarks, Jim and Rory, from your side before we go through our spiel.
Speaker 2:Always a pleasure talking with you guys. I'll be completely nerdy.
Speaker 3:Let me always a pleasure talking with you guys. Be completely nerdy, let me be completely nerdy for a second. It is summer, it is going to be warmer. You're going out for your pod activation. Make sure you have your water. Make sure you have everything you need to stay safe out in the sun. Sunburns bad, even if it's cloudy. I sound like I'm nagging, but you know that's life.
Speaker 1:Take water and tick repellent, tick repellent, as Ticks are bad.
Speaker 3:This year, especially in our neck of the woods. So I'll leave you with that.
Speaker 2:I want to call out just a couple of folks that we dealt with between the last conversation we had with you guys and now Sebastian, again at Ham2K. Sebastian, there we go, sebastian. We reached out to Sebastian, asked him to spiff up our polo usernames with the Everyday Ham podcast. So if you see us on the polo air, certainly say hello to us. We do have the Everyday Ham pig and Sebastian, we can give him some credit there. I am repping. Thank you, sebastian. Yeah, I'm repping Sebastian's Ham 2K polo sticker again.
Speaker 2:Still the top pick for us for Parks on the Air activating and general logging at this point. But for us for Parks on the Air activating and general logging at this point. But just an excellent thing, and I did want to say that out loud. And we have been invited to a guest podcast here next week. So we're not going to let too much on about that yet, but do keep your eyes out. I guess there was a podcast here to the east of us who liked what they had seen and we appreciated them reaching out and asking us if we'd like to have a little conversation. So we're making friends. There we go, look at us. So we're looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:We have gotten some other emails from folks interested in us talking about things on the podcast. If that's you, if you have a thing that you think would be interesting to share on the podcast, you would like us to consider that, feel free to send us an email. We are trying to be selective right now with the things that we do talk about so that it does engage you guys, the audience that are listening, but we believe that that will continue to expand. So we're keeping our eyes and our ears and our minds open on those propositions whenever they come in. So I just wanted to thank all the folks that had taken some time to listen through these podcasts and save my 73s. Guys, james, back to you for the yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you like talking about the FTX One, the stepper field day, please leave your comments either in the Send us an email. If you're listening in the audio version, give us a comment and feedback there. Definitely Like and subscribe, of course, the standard saying you can find us at everydayhamcom. All our links to everything are located there the audio version, the YouTube, the Discord, the Instagram.
Speaker 3:Join the Discord.
Speaker 1:Join the Discord. We are active and we are out there. So everydayhamcom Go out and find us. And thanks again everyone. It's always a pleasure being with you, absolutely so with that 73, guys have a good evening 73.
