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Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
Speaker 1: Jerry over there. So it's stuff you should know. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. This is Chuck in Oregon. Oh, well, seventy three,
Speaker 1: Chuck seventy three. I don't know what that means. It's
Speaker 1: probably your age if you're a hand radio operator. Seventy
Speaker 1: three is a term that means my compliments to you.
Speaker 1: M guards. Yeah, it is ham code. Well I wasn't joking.
Speaker 1: By the way. We're talking about ham radio, sometimes called
Speaker 1: um amateur radio, sometimes called shortwave radio, although it's not
Speaker 1: always short wave radio right like technically on the on
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic radio spectrum. Yeah, but um, I was I
Speaker 1: did make a joke about seventy three, but that is
Speaker 1: actually in some countries the average age is eighty and older.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? Which countries I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know about the US UM. The most recent stats
Speaker 1: I found, though, they're about eight hundred thousand HAM radio
Speaker 1: operators in the US of A. Is that right about? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Not bad. No, that's more than I saw. I saw.
Speaker 1: I think six seventy two was the number I saw,
Speaker 1: and then double that in Japan. Yeah, they're into it.
Speaker 1: Had no idea. UM in the millions, two to three
Speaker 1: million around the world, and in the United States. As
Speaker 1: of this month, there are more than seven hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand amateur radio station licenses, with California having the most. Well,
Speaker 1: California is big into ham radio. Everybody knows that, and
Speaker 1: I feel like it's obvious. But this is mostly men,
Speaker 1: about a fift rate of women or females, young ladies,
Speaker 1: whatever their ham radio enthusiasts. It just seems sort of
Speaker 1: like a it seems like a guy thing, not just
Speaker 1: a guy thing, but a ned Flanders guy thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't want to knock them because it's a neat thing.
Speaker 1: It is a neat thing. I was sitting there, I
Speaker 1: was I was researching this a little more and more.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, there is one corner of the
Speaker 1: world where you can go to escape like humanity as
Speaker 1: it stands, like on the internet totally, and it's it's
Speaker 1: that's that's an oversimplification. Like with Ham radio, they are
Speaker 1: very much known, very well known for being very polite,
Speaker 1: very professional, very um you know, uh eagle scoutish. I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: They're rules and you have to get a license, right exactly,
Speaker 1: And because you do have to hold a license to
Speaker 1: operate a Ham radio. Um, they do think that that's
Speaker 1: kind of where this tradition of professionalism came out of
Speaker 1: a lot of jerks. At the very least, it does.
Speaker 1: There are jerks on on Ham radio, some really bad jerks,
Speaker 1: but they're they're very much the exception to the rule,
Speaker 1: whereas like on an internet chat room, the polite people
Speaker 1: are the exception of the rule. In Ham radio world,
Speaker 1: it's just the opposite. So it's very refreshing that there's this,
Speaker 1: you know out there, there's a place that's still like
Speaker 1: kept polite and nice and like, hey, how are you?
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see how are you? Oh you're
Speaker 1: in Korea. Huh it's pretty far away. Yeah, didn't. Is
Speaker 1: having a conversation like that just for it's just to
Speaker 1: do it. That's basically the point of Ham radio or
Speaker 1: one of them. There's a purity to it that really
Speaker 1: spoke to me there. Yeah, the same here. Um. I
Speaker 1: watched the little Vimeo documentary called Ham Radio Ancestors of
Speaker 1: the Internet. Yeah, great, little it's true. But and this
Speaker 1: got across to me. Ham radio, the the ethos or
Speaker 1: the persona of Ham Radio. There's a segment where they're
Speaker 1: talking about how one of the big foundations of ham
Speaker 1: radio is public service in times of I didn't either,
Speaker 1: but in times of like natural disaster where radio where
Speaker 1: other communications are knocked out, shortwave radios draw very little
Speaker 1: power so you can run them off battery, um, and
Speaker 1: they they can communicate outside of the disaster zone when
Speaker 1: cell phones and the Internet is gone, and they do
Speaker 1: do that. They do. It's like part it's one of
Speaker 1: the pillars of Ham Radio. Well, during this segment, the
Speaker 1: um director of the Vimeo documentary, he was playing the
Speaker 1: battle hymn of the Republic nice, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is ham radio. I love it. Uh, they are
Speaker 1: called hams, so when we say that, we're not being derogatory,
Speaker 1: although some call them radio amateurs is one word. Oh
Speaker 1: really well, the word ham um comes from back in
Speaker 1: the day when there were ships and coastal stations and
Speaker 1: government stations and amateur operators increasingly all over the world
Speaker 1: vying for the same signals. Um. Sometimes these amateur radio
Speaker 1: operators would have powerful signals and they could jam um
Speaker 1: like government operations, and so they in a derogatory pejorative way,
Speaker 1: would call them hams, and that name stuck, although the
Speaker 1: meaning of it, the being pejorative, has fallen away, and
Speaker 1: they embrace it now like queer. Sure, it's the same thing,
Speaker 1: same principle. It was meant to be a put down,
Speaker 1: and that they adopted it with a sense of pride,
Speaker 1: and it's like we're gonna take this from you, right,
Speaker 1: like take the power from you. Yeah, it's a great
Speaker 1: way to handle things. I think, you know, I saw
Speaker 1: another origin story. Yeah, yeah, and I think with the
Speaker 1: one you're talking about. When they said that they were hams,
Speaker 1: they were saying they were ham fisted, like they didn't
Speaker 1: have the delicacy needed to UM to tune into a
Speaker 1: frequency correctly or no, they're very delicate hands. Actually it's
Speaker 1: part of the requirement by the FCC. UM I saw.
Speaker 1: Another origin story was that um in three Harvard men
Speaker 1: founded a radio club and they called it the Base
Speaker 1: on their last names the Hymen Almy Murray Radio Station
Speaker 1: or HAM for short. It's also a law firm, probably
Speaker 1: it is. Now Oh interesting? Is that? How verified is that?
Speaker 1: Or is that just something we're gonna throw out and
Speaker 1: say that could be interesting? This this one comes from
Speaker 1: r F Cafe, which is a legit site. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like yours more, Well, it's not mine. Oh you
Speaker 1: didn't just make it out now, So I found this
Speaker 1: great little piece that kind of helped explain to me
Speaker 1: a little bit about how radio works and how amateur
Speaker 1: radio works. So if I may, can we played Battle
Speaker 1: Him of the Republic? We totally should? Is it writes free?
Speaker 1: Oh it's gotta be sure. Um all right, So if
Speaker 1: you look at an AM radio dial, well you'll have
Speaker 1: to find an AM radio dial, right, go go find
Speaker 1: your dad's old malibub. Yeah, actually you don't have you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to look at the physical dial. If
Speaker 1: you have a radio in your car, this digital you
Speaker 1: can just go to the bottom of it. It's about
Speaker 1: five thirty five. All the way to the top, it's
Speaker 1: about six five. Let's killer hurts? Is it killer hurts
Speaker 1: and Mega hurts killer hurts? Is it really for a
Speaker 1: M for AM radio? Um? And that is one band?
Speaker 1: When you hear about a radio band, that entire spectrum
Speaker 1: is one band. Yeah, and the band is just an
Speaker 1: arbitrary trunk, right, Yeah, it's a it's a group of
Speaker 1: frequencies right from one to the other, right, and the
Speaker 1: distance between those two from what you say for a
Speaker 1: M radio five five to six five, So that would
Speaker 1: be the band width between those two, correct, So you've
Speaker 1: got that as a band. The FCC dolls out on
Speaker 1: the spectrum available bands for the government, for the military,
Speaker 1: for all these different people to use as their own,
Speaker 1: and they have allocated twenty six bands for amateurs. That's
Speaker 1: from one point eight mega hurts in this case, which
Speaker 1: is just above that radio broadcasts frequencies to two seventy
Speaker 1: five giga hurts. That's a pretty significant swath of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: it is, and and so much so that you're using
Speaker 1: essentially different types of technology to transmit or receive on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well this is gonna be a good one. I was
Speaker 1: kinda worried. Oh man, don't worry. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: heating up. This is us. So the way this person
Speaker 1: put it is, if you think of the radio spectrum
Speaker 1: like a measuring tape um. Between a half an inch
Speaker 1: and about one point seven inches, is that a M
Speaker 1: radio band. If you go all the way up to
Speaker 1: like inches to eight inches, that's the FM radio band.
Speaker 1: And between a half inch and thirty inches is this
Speaker 1: very special place where the ionosphere It reflects off the
Speaker 1: ionosphere depending on what type of day, uh, and what
Speaker 1: time of day it is, right, And I can step
Speaker 1: in and explain that if you're online. So, the ionosphere
Speaker 1: is one part of the Earth's atmosphere. It's towards the
Speaker 1: top right, and cosmic rays and solar rays and all
Speaker 1: sorts of rays are constantly smacking into the ionosphere and
Speaker 1: they're knocking electrons off the atoms up there, ionizing them.
Speaker 1: These electrons don't just float away into our space, actually
Speaker 1: form this kind of blanket layer and it's a really
Speaker 1: great medium. This this blanket layer of electrons in the
Speaker 1: ionosphere UM for bouncing radio signals of a specific type
Speaker 1: of frequency back to Earth. Right. So, one of the
Speaker 1: benefits of a short wave radio is that you're using
Speaker 1: radio waves in a frequency that they bounce off the
Speaker 1: ionosphere really well, and so you can shoot it up
Speaker 1: into the ionosphere and reflect it back down. And because
Speaker 1: of this angle, you can you can transmit this radio
Speaker 1: over really long distances, hundreds of miles, thousands of miles,
Speaker 1: because you're bouncing it off of the ionosphere. During the day,
Speaker 1: the sun solar rays add this extra kind of dense
Speaker 1: layer on the bottom of the ionosphere, so they tend
Speaker 1: to get absorbed more than at night when the sun's
Speaker 1: raised aren't hitting that part of the ionosphere, so they
Speaker 1: bounce better, which is why you get better reception, or
Speaker 1: your signals travel longer at night than during the day.
Speaker 1: UM for shortwave radio, which really plays into hams right
Speaker 1: does the idea of these always have is two o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning exactly, a dude in his attic talking
Speaker 1: to someone in Taiwan. Yeah, you know, which is great.
Speaker 1: We're talking to pinhead in Burma right before he opens
Speaker 1: that box and becomes Pinhead and hell Raiser or talking
Speaker 1: to Ronnie millsap. That's where this guy got me because
Speaker 1: he's a celebrity hymn. Celebrity hymn. Unfortunately he waited until
Speaker 1: like the last sentence of the entire article, but he
Speaker 1: finally got me. Then, well we'll we'll get to that later.
Speaker 1: There are other celebrity hams out there that'll be there.
Speaker 1: Our last sense to uh So, like we said earlier,
Speaker 1: between if you're thinking of it as a measuring tape,
Speaker 1: between a half inches and thirty inches is where you
Speaker 1: get this great reflection off the ionosphere, which you described
Speaker 1: so well. Um, I like your measuring tape, well it's
Speaker 1: not mine. Above that thirty inches, they stop bouncing and
Speaker 1: it becomes what we call line of sight. So that's
Speaker 1: like FM and TV and stuff. Yeah, Like you know,
Speaker 1: when you drive out of town, you lose your reception
Speaker 1: because you have gone out of the line of sight
Speaker 1: over from that broadcast antenna, and there's trees and buildings
Speaker 1: and mountains in your way, all sorts of junk. But
Speaker 1: if you're shooting stuff off the ionosphere, nothing sea in heck, mountains.
Speaker 1: Uh So, between three inches and thirty inches that's called
Speaker 1: the high frequency spectrum, and then from thirty inches to
Speaker 1: about three inches and again these aren't inches measuring tape analogy. Uh.
Speaker 1: That is called the VHF spectrum, and we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into that later. But the VHS spectrum is really neat.
Speaker 1: You can operate hand radio via that and use things
Speaker 1: uh called repeaters where you basically share part of a
Speaker 1: broadcast tower in a city. And you say, well, if
Speaker 1: I can get my signal to you, you can repeat
Speaker 1: it back out further because you have way more wattage
Speaker 1: than I do. And I was looking to see, like
Speaker 1: what the um tip for tat equation is with wattage
Speaker 1: for distance, Not that I could find, no, but the
Speaker 1: rule of thumb is that the more watts you have,
Speaker 1: the more power you have, the further you can send
Speaker 1: your signal. But yeah, I mean, like, if you're buying
Speaker 1: a transceiver, which we'll get into later, it might have
Speaker 1: anywhere between five watts and like a hundred watts, maybe
Speaker 1: a little more if you're um, if you're running like
Speaker 1: a radio station like Georgia State here has very famously
Speaker 1: as a hundred thousand watt transmitter, So you want to
Speaker 1: shoot your signal to them and then they change the
Speaker 1: frequency a little bit and shoot it out on a
Speaker 1: slightly different frequency greatly um empowered. Yeah, you're like piggybacking
Speaker 1: off these antenna's basically like like Michelle Obama is talking
Speaker 1: to you directly, kind of empowered, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's just for the repeater UM that is not
Speaker 1: that's if you're going to VHS VHS the VHF route,
Speaker 1: UM you don't have like they're all kinds of different
Speaker 1: frequencies below that that. In fact, I think probably, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say that because I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was going to say that people mostly don't use the
Speaker 1: repeater method with VHF, but that I don't know the stats.
Speaker 1: I think it's specifically FM that they use the repeater
Speaker 1: for VHF FM. I think that's what you use the
Speaker 1: repeater for. No, it is, but I'm saying that as
Speaker 1: far as HAM radio operators, I get the feeling that
Speaker 1: the majority of people don't use that method. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I might be wrong. No, I think you're right,
Speaker 1: you think, yeah, I don't. I don't know if you can,
Speaker 1: because everything I saw was anytime they were talking about repeater.
Speaker 1: They called it FM VHF. Yeah, but you can still
Speaker 1: operate ham radio that way, right, yeah, but in that
Speaker 1: specific band, right, correct. I guess yeah, I actually, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're a handful of hands out there that
Speaker 1: listen to the show that are groaning in pain right now.
Speaker 1: I know. I do want to apologize, because anytime we
Speaker 1: do a show where there are rabid enthusiasts, we're bound
Speaker 1: to get some stuff not quite right. But hopefully there
Speaker 1: are some of the nice enthusiasts that we've had over
Speaker 1: the years, These guys, yeah, that say like, thanks for
Speaker 1: helping to spread the word. You got this and this wrong,
Speaker 1: Not like those chess players. Man, man, they were they
Speaker 1: were so mean. I think it's interesting what kinds of
Speaker 1: people are attracted to different. Of course, it's made up
Speaker 1: of the spectrum of people, but they seem to be
Speaker 1: grouped a lot of times, at least from the feedback
Speaker 1: that we get birds of a feather flock together. I
Speaker 1: guess that's the same, isn't it. Should we take a break, yes,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll come back and we'll talk about just
Speaker 1: what in the heck piece hands are doing? All right?
Speaker 1: What are these hams doing one thing you can do
Speaker 1: if you have just a receiver or radio scanner, and
Speaker 1: or even if you have a transceiver where you can
Speaker 1: actually broadcast out. A lot of times are just listening.
Speaker 1: They're just going up and down the frequencies seeing if
Speaker 1: they can hear any interesting conversation. They're going down the
Speaker 1: frequency like boring, you sound ugly, Uh, I don't like
Speaker 1: your voice. Something comic book guy right from the Simpsons.
Speaker 1: And then finally they're like South Korea. I've been looking
Speaker 1: for someone to talk to you from there. And actually
Speaker 1: there's a thing called the QSL cards where you get
Speaker 1: in touch with somebody and um, from what I can gather,
Speaker 1: they mail you a postcard saying this person got in
Speaker 1: touch with me, and you collect these postcards QUSL cards, UM,
Speaker 1: just to be like, look, I've spoken to people in
Speaker 1: a hundred different countries. I'm remember of the Century Club.
Speaker 1: It's like a little merit badge. I think pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So you can listen in UM. The difference between let's
Speaker 1: say radio DJ who just talks at the world or
Speaker 1: you know, or talks to their city is you're are
Speaker 1: generally having a two way conversation with someone or a
Speaker 1: little round table or a little network where people meet
Speaker 1: at a certain frequency at a certain time of the
Speaker 1: week to uh talk shop, I guess, or wrap or
Speaker 1: talk about whatever you want. Basically like hanging out in
Speaker 1: a general store, but on the airwaves, locker room talk, right,
Speaker 1: because all guys do that, so um, they can use
Speaker 1: all kinds of frequencies. Um. Like we said, they're above
Speaker 1: the A and broadcast band. Uh and apparently a good
Speaker 1: a good band. A good frequency range is from about
Speaker 1: one point six mega hurts to about twenty seven mega hurts.
Speaker 1: That's during the day. Fifteen seven is good for these
Speaker 1: long distance communic ase. So if you're trying to reach
Speaker 1: your friend in Taiwan, maybe log on. We'll not long on.
Speaker 1: So weird to try and use the internet terminology because
Speaker 1: these guys are the ancestor of the internet. Boy, what
Speaker 1: if you need a license to get on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't be great? Oh yeah, you had to pass it,
Speaker 1: like a decency test or something. It would be I
Speaker 1: mean it definitely do away with that whole net neutrality thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, a decency test or maybe just to be
Speaker 1: I don't know, on social media or something. Yeah, Facebook
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, that'd be great, let's limit our users. No. No,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, well, who decides
Speaker 1: what's decent and who creates that test and who administers it?
Speaker 1: And do you do it at the of a barrel
Speaker 1: of an M one or something? No? I do it
Speaker 1: no guns involved. But I mean I think of the questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty even handed. Give me a good give me
Speaker 1: a good decency question on your test. Um if uh,
Speaker 1: just just be nice and don't be a question be
Speaker 1: hilarious if every single one of the questions start out
Speaker 1: with let's see, uh, just just be nice. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: be a jerk, don't bait people. Yeah, well, let's just
Speaker 1: good rules to follow. Just be nice, just be nice,
Speaker 1: don't be a jerk. Right, Yes, it's true. And again,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for generally a place where most people
Speaker 1: are nice and nut jerks, you would be happy to
Speaker 1: get into ham Radio. If you're not already right, Another
Speaker 1: thing you might be doing is you might be if
Speaker 1: you are really into it and your old school, you
Speaker 1: might be chatting in morse code. Yeah, and they used
Speaker 1: to to to become a licensed operator. Um, you have
Speaker 1: to you have to take a test, and there used
Speaker 1: to be a Morse code test, and apparently that sort
Speaker 1: of people out pretty quick. I would spectacularly fail a
Speaker 1: Morse code tests, not if you studied, even if I studied,
Speaker 1: you do fine dots and dashes. My brain doesn't think
Speaker 1: like that. They're thinking like, um, like, yeah exactly, Although
Speaker 1: a pizza does look like a lot like a dot,
Speaker 1: and if you stretch a big mac out it could
Speaker 1: be a desk. Maybe I could take on this Morse code.
Speaker 1: I think you could. Well, it doesn't matter anyway now
Speaker 1: because they did away with that segment because they're like,
Speaker 1: Morse code is stupid and we all have voices, so
Speaker 1: we're just gonna go with voice instead. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: know if exactly that's how they put it, but that
Speaker 1: was pretty much the thinging behind it. But I also
Speaker 1: get the impression that the purists still dabble in morse code.
Speaker 1: They also write in perfect cursive. I can't do that
Speaker 1: anymore at all, hard Like I could never do a
Speaker 1: cue a capital queue. Couldn't do it. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a week to remember. Yeah, it's one of these
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's kind of sad to me to
Speaker 1: be losing some of these things. Other people say it's
Speaker 1: roll with the changes, like you can't fight progress. But
Speaker 1: is it progress when you lose something? I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was an albatross. I guess it's progress, But
Speaker 1: I don't know if cursive writing is exactly holding us
Speaker 1: back as as a culture. I print weirdly now because
Speaker 1: I write so seldom to my handwriting is sometimes I
Speaker 1: can't even like read what I wrote. I can never
Speaker 1: read what You're right. It's terrible. Not even a doctor anymore.
Speaker 1: That's why we just type to one another or tattoo
Speaker 1: one another with what we want to say. Or so
Speaker 1: they've gotten rid of morse code purists are still into it. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess we should talk a little bit about Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one cool thing you can do is
Speaker 1: talk to people in outer space. Yeah, this article dated
Speaker 1: itself by talking in the present tense about space shuttle missions.
Speaker 1: No more space shuttle missions. But astronauts are generally ham
Speaker 1: licensed ye, not ham fested. No, no, no. You gotta
Speaker 1: have tiny, delicate hands to be an astronaut. For sure,
Speaker 1: you just made lobster hands. But astronauts are generally ham
Speaker 1: radio people, and they will I think one of the
Speaker 1: little neat things they'll do is get up there and
Speaker 1: talk to people on Earth. Yeah, and you can talk
Speaker 1: to them because I think they're using a VHF FM
Speaker 1: handheld radio typically, although we may be dating ourselves too
Speaker 1: because from what this this article made mention of using
Speaker 1: um uh packets, which is an Internet term, which makes
Speaker 1: me think that this this um technology has advanced by
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds as far as like using satellites and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 1: the case anymore, but ten years ago, when you were
Speaker 1: communicating with an astronaut, they had to be directly overhead,
Speaker 1: but you could talk to him over Ham radio, which
Speaker 1: is pretty awesome. Yeah, And a lot of times when
Speaker 1: the when the astronauts having a conversation, they're talking from
Speaker 1: like one school to the next as they pass over,
Speaker 1: like elementary schools, and yeah, yeah, because I mean, everybody
Speaker 1: likes talking to an astronaut, but elementary school could really
Speaker 1: love that kind of stuff totally, at least they did
Speaker 1: back in our day. Surely they still do, right, I hope.
Speaker 1: So I would like to think space will always and
Speaker 1: throw all the young I hope. Do you get a
Speaker 1: little older and you're like, what's out there? I like
Speaker 1: it still I do too. I'm kidding, what's out there?
Speaker 1: That's a good question, Chuck. All right, so I guess
Speaker 1: we should talk a little bit more about licensing. Um.
Speaker 1: First of all, I don't understand this whole license thing, Like,
Speaker 1: can you be a rogue ham? Yes, there was a
Speaker 1: guy who was sued by the government for fine, so
Speaker 1: you can do it and set yourself up and they
Speaker 1: you're just not doing it legally. Yeah. So do you
Speaker 1: remember the person who rode in with their pirate radio station.
Speaker 1: They were basically, from what I gathered, they were operating
Speaker 1: a shortwave transceiver, but they were like talking and broadcasting. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of problems with that. Obviously, they didn't
Speaker 1: have a license, which makes it a pirate radio station.
Speaker 1: But number two, one of the hallmarks of shortwave communications
Speaker 1: is a two way conversation. You're not supposed to broadcast.
Speaker 1: So there's this dude who was transmitting on UM one
Speaker 1: of fourteen point to seven five mega hurts frequency and
Speaker 1: I think it was a Michigan or something, and he
Speaker 1: basically was running like a RANTI radio station, and UM,
Speaker 1: anytime somebody was like, hey, get off the get off
Speaker 1: the line, leave this open for somebody else. He would
Speaker 1: go berserk and he yes, man, everyone hated this guy,
Speaker 1: like curse people out and stuff. And then he did
Speaker 1: not fit in the community. He didn't, but he was like,
Speaker 1: I belong here just as much as you do. I'm
Speaker 1: licensed and I can be here too. So he countersued
Speaker 1: the government for like fifty million dollars and it got
Speaker 1: thrown out or whatever. I'm not sure it became of him.
Speaker 1: The last article I saw was from like two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten. But um, he's a good example of you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's places where you know, you you would not
Speaker 1: want your kids to sit around listening to what they're
Speaker 1: talking about on the ham spectrum. He's a hamtroll. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a hamtroll for sure, And there are plenty
Speaker 1: of others out there. But for the most part, again
Speaker 1: it's mostly the opposite of that. Apparently, CB is known
Speaker 1: to be the opposite where like anything goes, they use
Speaker 1: like crude and vulgar language, and um, so everybody's like,
Speaker 1: that's CB, hams different. But these guys were CBS from
Speaker 1: what I can gather. All right, well, let's take a
Speaker 1: little break and we'll talk a little bit more about him.
Speaker 1: I'm hungry for ham. I know delicious hamlet talk of
Speaker 1: ham like I wish I had ham fist like a
Speaker 1: honey spiral ham. I've never been in the into the
Speaker 1: sweet ones. I like smoked. I like smoked ham too,
Speaker 1: but like a honey baked ham. You don't discriminate. Man.
Speaker 1: Have you had honey baked turkey? That's pretty good too.
Speaker 1: I think it's better than their ham. Oh yeah, Oh
Speaker 1: you mean from the actual honey baked ham corporation? But yeah,
Speaker 1: I like a good smoked ham. No, sweetness doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be sweet. It stands on its own. The problem
Speaker 1: is most hams are really really processed, like just by definition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you, it's tough to find ham that's not super processed.
Speaker 1: And you know me, I'm trying to eat better, so
Speaker 1: I want healthy ham. I don't want to give up ham.
Speaker 1: I don't blame me, man, I love him. We said
Speaker 1: ham a lot so far. All right, So if you
Speaker 1: want to get licensed, um, which you should, well you
Speaker 1: have to. Well that's what I'm saying. I liked not
Speaker 1: run afoul of the law. Um. There is no aid restriction. UM,
Speaker 1: even though the average age in some countries is eighty.
Speaker 1: I also get the feeling that there are plenty of
Speaker 1: twelve year olds out there that have kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, you get a chemistry set. You read an
Speaker 1: article or hear this podcast, and you say, I think
Speaker 1: I might like to try my hand at Ham. Maybe
Speaker 1: there was a g whiz in there, Golly, g whiz, mom, Dad,
Speaker 1: Can I have a Ham radio? Well, if you're if
Speaker 1: you're thinking that right now, there's actually something called Kids Day.
Speaker 1: It's like an International Ham Radio Day to like kind
Speaker 1: of get kids who might be interested in Ham radio
Speaker 1: into it. Basically, dying lower, the lower the barriers to entry.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's dying. Man. Those numbers that you
Speaker 1: gave are significantly higher than the ones I saw. Are
Speaker 1: the ones that are in this article. Seems like it
Speaker 1: is growing well, and maybe there will be some sort
Speaker 1: of a luddite backlash. I think that's part of it.
Speaker 1: I think some people are saying, like, yes, I have
Speaker 1: to go work on the internet for work, but I
Speaker 1: I'm so tired of like jerks. I want to go
Speaker 1: somewhere where there's not jerks, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: feel like I'm giving something back to my community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when a natural disaster strikes, I want them to be
Speaker 1: able to turn to me so I can say, yes,
Speaker 1: this guy is dying at this address. Too bad you
Speaker 1: can't get through to get him out of there. We
Speaker 1: just thought you should know he's gonna die. I like
Speaker 1: the notion of the just the general public do good
Speaker 1: or like um my dad, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: we had a jeep and back I mean, jeeps are
Speaker 1: all over the place now for people that have never
Speaker 1: been like off of pavement. But back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: jeep if you saw a jeep on the road and
Speaker 1: not well know, you waved. They all waved at each other,
Speaker 1: but there was about a ninety five percent chance that
Speaker 1: that person was an off rotor as well. And about
Speaker 1: half of the jeep said those little winches on the
Speaker 1: front of him. And I remember it didn't snow that
Speaker 1: much in Georgia, but uh, every time it snowed, my
Speaker 1: dad would get on the horn with his jeep buddies
Speaker 1: and they would get out and pull people out of
Speaker 1: ditches and like tow cars, you know, onto the road
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, just for no other reason than
Speaker 1: to like, you know, it's probably fun for them to
Speaker 1: come in and save the day, you know, yeah, and
Speaker 1: to help to get that sense of satisfaction. Same. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a it's the same thing except a little
Speaker 1: less rugged. Yeah, they were. It was also the CB crowd,
Speaker 1: which kind of ties it all together. They're the they're
Speaker 1: the rough ones though that the jeep dudes all had
Speaker 1: to CBS and we talk to each other and right,
Speaker 1: all right, so there's no age restriction. Every country is
Speaker 1: going to have their own licensing deal, but here in
Speaker 1: the US you have to pass the test. Now. I
Speaker 1: think it's what multiple choice questions. I'm curious what they are.
Speaker 1: I I looked and I didn't really see any. Um,
Speaker 1: just be nice, just be nice. How much do you
Speaker 1: love America? A lot? Super a lot more than my
Speaker 1: head can take sometimes? And then Toby Keith levels right, Um,
Speaker 1: But there's three different types of licenses in there, graduated
Speaker 1: in difficulty the tests are, but each one gives you
Speaker 1: more access to more bands on the spectrum. I think
Speaker 1: the highest class is the extra class. And um, you
Speaker 1: don't need to know more for any of these now,
Speaker 1: but I'll bet, I'll bet if you're a level three
Speaker 1: HAM license holder, you probably no more code pretty well too.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's not across the board, but I'll bet
Speaker 1: it's pretty high percentage because I imagine you might have
Speaker 1: a little egg on your face if you're an extra
Speaker 1: class uh license holder and everybody's just speaking to one
Speaker 1: another making yeah, and you're like, could you say that
Speaker 1: please out loud? I feel a little left out, Like, no, son,
Speaker 1: didn't it beeps? Or is it clicks? Is it both? Okay? Both?
Speaker 1: I think it depends on the receiver. There is something
Speaker 1: called the American Radio Relay League the a r r L,
Speaker 1: and they've got a great website if you go UM.
Speaker 1: They're all manner of articles about your entree into Ham
Speaker 1: operating and UM statistics and tips and pointers. It's their
Speaker 1: their way into it UM. In Atlanta, we have a
Speaker 1: club I can't remember the name of it UM, but
Speaker 1: it was formed in nineteen eleven and apparently is the
Speaker 1: oldest continuously running club in Georgia. Wow, that actually predates
Speaker 1: Ham Radio according to this. Oh no, it predates the
Speaker 1: American Radio Relay League. Yeah, they were that's really impressive.
Speaker 1: It's pretty neat. Go Atlanta. I kind of want to
Speaker 1: go to a meeting now and just say hi, I'm chucking. No,
Speaker 1: I'll be like, uh, should we talk about the equipment
Speaker 1: a bit? I guess yeah. I was like, basically I
Speaker 1: had to do a crash course in radio theory. I
Speaker 1: didn't know a lot of this, you know, like I
Speaker 1: know the wavelength is the distance between two crests. I
Speaker 1: knew that frequency is how many waves pass like any
Speaker 1: given point in one second. Um, But I didn't understand
Speaker 1: how radio waves are like propagated, or how antennas receive them.
Speaker 1: And apparently you are running an electromagnetic field through your
Speaker 1: antenna and the end yeah, pretty much. And your antenna
Speaker 1: UM basically is to put it in a layman's terms,
Speaker 1: shooting out radio waves that are being created by an
Speaker 1: oscillator in your in your transceiver, your transmitter, or these
Speaker 1: radio waves which once you shoot it out, if you
Speaker 1: were in outer space shooting off a radio wave, and
Speaker 1: it was guaranteed to never run into a planet or
Speaker 1: a star or anything like that, it would just keep
Speaker 1: going forever. Right, That's what a radio wave wants to do.
Speaker 1: It just wants to keep going. It's not going to
Speaker 1: get messed up or diminished, degrade or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's when it runs into stuff that it starts to
Speaker 1: or when it when it's hit by m cosmic rays
Speaker 1: that it starts to diminish, degrade or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: So UM, the if it hits UH antenna and the
Speaker 1: antenna is cut to the right length, and the length
Speaker 1: that you're looking for is half the length half the
Speaker 1: sense of the wavelength. So if you have a very
Speaker 1: low frequency wave that's um, you know, a hundred feet
Speaker 1: between waves, you would want a fifty ft antenna to
Speaker 1: to pick it up UM ideally. And that's basically the
Speaker 1: rule of thumb, as you want half the distance of
Speaker 1: the wavelength you're receiving to UM pick up a wavelength
Speaker 1: or a radio wave UM most efficiently. UM. But anyway,
Speaker 1: when a radio wave encounters this electric field, this electromagnetic
Speaker 1: field that you have running up and down your antenna,
Speaker 1: it basically excites the electrons in a way that it
Speaker 1: shoots down into your receiver and magically is transformed into
Speaker 1: a voice. It's really, really really difficult to understand all this,
Speaker 1: Like people go and get like masters and PhDs in
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. It's really tough. Guys, give me
Speaker 1: a break. Wow, do you already since the higher. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even from amateurs, I think are probably like that was terrible.
Speaker 1: I can sense that was terrible. No, I think I
Speaker 1: feel confident in it. Uh. You probably have a transceiver. Um.
Speaker 1: Like I said, you could have just a receiver if
Speaker 1: you just want to listen, but you might want to
Speaker 1: talk to UH if you go to buy a new transceiver.
Speaker 1: I mean they run the gamut in price. Um. I
Speaker 1: saw like these fancy ones with all kinds of uh
Speaker 1: really gadgets and spon divots on it that was like
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars and up I saw a pretty good
Speaker 1: one for a thousand dollars too. But you don't have
Speaker 1: to go that route. UM, if you want to go
Speaker 1: a little more old school, was something that's a little
Speaker 1: easier to master, UM quicker, then you could get an
Speaker 1: old used one. Yeah. Analog ones are the ones with
Speaker 1: the tuners that you have to like physically, you know,
Speaker 1: adjust your dial, which they're not quite as precise as
Speaker 1: these digital ones, which um you know you can us
Speaker 1: the frequency uh to like a hundreds of a past
Speaker 1: the decimal. Yeah, they're really really precise, but there are
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated and they're more expensive. You don't
Speaker 1: need that to start for sure. Well, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the things they point out this article too, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you think about millions of people, um, and
Speaker 1: only a certain amount of bandwidth, apparently, I think that's
Speaker 1: where you can be on the same frequency and just
Speaker 1: dial it back by a couple of little points and
Speaker 1: create a new I don't know if that count as
Speaker 1: a new frequency or just part a subset of the
Speaker 1: same frequency. I don't know where that begins, where the
Speaker 1: cutoff is. Yeah, but that's to keep from overlapping and
Speaker 1: you know, jamming someone else's frequency, yeah, which can be
Speaker 1: a problem, especially if people in the same town are
Speaker 1: using the same frequency for a different conversation, which is
Speaker 1: why most of the time when you're in the same town,
Speaker 1: you probably know the other HAM operators. And so if
Speaker 1: you're having like a net network where you're like sitting
Speaker 1: around hanging out talking to other people in the same area, um,
Speaker 1: you were going to have a receiver receiving and transmitting
Speaker 1: frequency pair that everybody's using that you're you know, is
Speaker 1: different from something someone else in town or in that
Speaker 1: same area is going to be using as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And if you need to move it, you just text
Speaker 1: each other and say to just get on the internet,
Speaker 1: and then you go, oh, wait a minute, what are
Speaker 1: we doing? Uh? Antennas are obviously a big, big part
Speaker 1: of this. And I get the feeling that um Hams
Speaker 1: really enjoy um hacking objects as antenna's. Uh kind of
Speaker 1: like when you may even remember this, but when when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, did you have like antenna TVs
Speaker 1: when your kid? You remember that or was it always
Speaker 1: cable for you? Um? I never had an antenna, but
Speaker 1: like neighbors did. Yeah, I know, yeah, I remember when
Speaker 1: you when I was a kid, Like you know, you
Speaker 1: would put the tinfoil sometimes attached to the antenna. Oh real,
Speaker 1: like rabbit ears on a TV. Yeah, I thought you
Speaker 1: meant the ones on the roof. Oh well those two,
Speaker 1: I guess, but I mean rabbit ears. Sure. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had this so like if you're not getting the picture,
Speaker 1: you would you would put like foil aluminum foil at
Speaker 1: the end and it stuck to have to stand and
Speaker 1: be the one to stand there and hold it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you yourself could act as an antenna if
Speaker 1: you had metal in your hand or in your teeth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I get the feeling him enthusiasts really get into
Speaker 1: that because some of the different things that they will
Speaker 1: use uh include windows, screens on the floor of upper
Speaker 1: floor of a hotel, UH, an extension ladder, an aluminum ladder,
Speaker 1: rain gutters, and down spouts, slinkys. Slinky made sense to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's a heck of a antenna. Put a slinky
Speaker 1: on a pole. Basically anything that that's metal that you
Speaker 1: can get a current going through and transmit and receive on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're talking abou wires like you cast with a fishing
Speaker 1: pole between dormitories. This is old school stuff. It's very cool.
Speaker 1: Do you know what burglar tape is? No, I saw that.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of that. Apparently the Internet hasn't either,
Speaker 1: because I cannot find any other reference to burglar tape
Speaker 1: aside from this article. Yeah, I don't know everything the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's probably like burglars caught on tape or some burglar
Speaker 1: died after being taped to a tree when he was caught. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ham radio to me, that kind of falls in that
Speaker 1: bucket of things that I was talking about, like old
Speaker 1: I can't remember which podcast it was, but old technologies
Speaker 1: that you can still use, Like I think it's a
Speaker 1: cool skill to have. Like, if it all goes south
Speaker 1: and everything the internet crumbles and people turn on one
Speaker 1: another ham radio, the Hams are gonna be ahead of
Speaker 1: the game. You know, they're gonna be able to communicate
Speaker 1: with one another. Yeah, kind of a neat skill to have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll be like, yeah, the purge looks like it has
Speaker 1: come to pass. The city's on fire. You can go
Speaker 1: to a ham fest if you want to meet people,
Speaker 1: and you can buy cheap used equipment, sure, and get
Speaker 1: tips and tricks from the people you're buying from. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you if you're at all into this, find a
Speaker 1: ham fest. Oh yeah, and if it turns out to
Speaker 1: be the food, then enjoy that as well. Lucked out.
Speaker 1: It's called a happy accident. Uh. And then they say
Speaker 1: the best thing to do, like you said, is to
Speaker 1: talk to a HIM enthusiast. And apparently the teachers are
Speaker 1: called Elmer's and uh, I imagine they delight in teaching
Speaker 1: any young kid that comes their way about ham radio.
Speaker 1: I think there's very very few that are like, out
Speaker 1: of my face, kid, I don't want to pass on
Speaker 1: my knowledge. I bet they really enjoy that. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: there's there's genuinely zero of them who are like, forget you.
Speaker 1: I don't have time for this. I don't like talking
Speaker 1: all right, celebrity hams, are we there? Yeah? Number one
Speaker 1: Ronnie Mills out Apparently Joe Walsh of the Eagles and
Speaker 1: the James Gang is a Ham. Gary Shandling was I
Speaker 1: did not know pass And that's the neat thing you
Speaker 1: can talk with Joe Walsh maybe right, Like the community
Speaker 1: is they encouraged that he's not like I'm Joe Walsh.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm looking for Ronnie millsap only right, I just
Speaker 1: want privacy on my Ham radio. For Scilla Pressley what
Speaker 1: probably spreading a scientology via Ham right now? She was
Speaker 1: a scientologist, oh yeah, or a King Hussain of Jordan's.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of surprised to see a lot
Speaker 1: of dignitaries and like presidents and uh like leaders of
Speaker 1: the free world. It's crazy. I am enthusiasts. Barry Goldwater
Speaker 1: was chet Atkins, and Brando apparently was Oh man, could
Speaker 1: you imagine that conversation. You would be able to pick
Speaker 1: him out immediately, like I think that's Marlon Brando talking
Speaker 1: lies descending on my face. The darkness like, Uh, that's
Speaker 1: not Joe Walsh right. Uh, and apparently when you die
Speaker 1: it's very sad. It's called an s K, a silent key.
Speaker 1: And uh that means you're no longer operating, not in
Speaker 1: this realm, at least not using these antenna I like
Speaker 1: that thought. Nice a positive note. Uh, you got anything else?
Speaker 1: Nothing else? I'm gonna go out and get a Ham radio.
Speaker 1: I knew you've got. You bought a slinky, you got
Speaker 1: exploding head syndrome. Now you're gonna become a Ham operator.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Ham radio, you
Speaker 1: can start by typing those words into our search part.
Speaker 1: But again, just start asking around. Find somebody who is
Speaker 1: a hammer a radio operator. Yeah, find an Elmer and
Speaker 1: they will teach you everything you need to know. And
Speaker 1: since I said Olmer, it's time for listener mail. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: A huge fan of the show, Great entertainment, interesting stuff
Speaker 1: that as a normal lazy person I would never look
Speaker 1: up myself. I really wanted to thank you for keeping
Speaker 1: me company while training for my first ever marathon. I
Speaker 1: believe it's a New York marathon. Yes, training is brutal,
Speaker 1: long hours running alone with nothing to do, but obsess
Speaker 1: on how much it sucks and why on earth am
Speaker 1: I doing this? I don't even like to drive twenty
Speaker 1: six miles. I can't imagine running that. You know, a
Speaker 1: bit of background. I'm thirty nine years old, first time
Speaker 1: ever running a marathon. Uh, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: the New York City Marathon in early November. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a heck of a one to start on. Yeah, listen
Speaker 1: to your show makes me makes training so much better.
Speaker 1: I've tried everything from music, audiobooks, regular radio, other podcasts.
Speaker 1: Nothing keeps my mind distracted from the pain better than
Speaker 1: your show. Everything's disgusting. It makes me cute. I truly
Speaker 1: love it. I'm not sure if you guys have on it,
Speaker 1: but Babe, a marathon episode would be great. Why do
Speaker 1: we put ourselves through such hell? And the high that
Speaker 1: one gets from running and completing a race runners higher,
Speaker 1: that'd be interesting. I would do a marathon one. I
Speaker 1: would not not a marathon. I would do a marathon episode.
Speaker 1: It would be really short. We just do that to
Speaker 1: be funny, or we make it exactly twenty six minutes long. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Thanks again, guys, and congrats for an excellent show that
Speaker 1: is uh. Marco, Marco, good luck, Yeah, buddy, good luck
Speaker 1: In November. Um, this will be coming out sort of
Speaker 1: around that time. Yeah, so you can listen to it
Speaker 1: as you crossed the finish line. Yeah, that'd you go, Marco?
Speaker 1: Come on, man, you can do it. Hang on there,
Speaker 1: get up, Get up, Marco, come on. Oh you should
Speaker 1: probably seek medical attention for that. Just just stay there, man,
Speaker 1: stay down. I love it. Thanks Marco. Best of luck
Speaker 1: to you for reals though, UH and all of you
Speaker 1: who are running in the New York City Marathon or
Speaker 1: any marathon, or doing anything that you use us to
Speaker 1: motivate you with, you can do it. Just keep it up.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can hang out with me on Twitter at josh um
Speaker 1: Clark and uh s y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on
Speaker 1: Facebook and UH stuff you Should Know on Facebook. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff Podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com.