Friday's with Frank: Q&A/AMA - Episode #42on the 29th of May, 2026!

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:27]Heat. Heat.

[00:00:54]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:26]Oh, that was close. Howdy, folks.

[00:01:29]Welcome. Hopefully my audio is okay because I hadn't gotten a chance to check Windows settings. Windows says it's fine. And this camera is wonky. Why is it wonky? Oh, that's why it's wonky.

[00:01:43]There we go. All right. Howdy, folks. It is Fridays with Frank and yes, I'm starting early. Uh yeah, the buffer free zone. So Tim just messaged me and he's only getting an upload speed of 3 megabits per second.

[00:02:06]You need at least five to six to stream reliably.

[00:02:12]So, yeah, little little bit of an issue, but Tim, uh we'll get it worked out, bro. I'm sure you're hopefully uh hopefully you're in here. Uh shout out if you are.

[00:02:25]Uh all right, there we go. Let me get this stuff all set. So, links. Here we go. Uh D per usual everything ham radio wilderness related is right there. And if you uh same problem as with Tim's live show this sentence said Frank also said seven days ago. So we have a gap of seven days between video and chat. Really shouldn't be that bad. Pepe chat, let me let me know how bad it is.

[00:03:10]So, for those that weren't here last night, stickers are in. Limited quantity for now, but stickers are in.

[00:03:30]Yeah. Hey, I I figured Tim, you know, you you you killed yours and Well, yeah.

[00:03:38]There we go.

[00:03:41]Yeah, Tim is definitely a trooper for what he did. Absolutely.

[00:03:46]And Tim, we'll get it worked out for you. Uh I I I think there's a slight five minute delay in chat for some reason. We'll we'll figure it out. We'll we'll troubleshoot later. But let's jump into the segments this week. By the way, there will be no drinking tonight.

[00:04:08]Zilch. I got that four-letter word after this. So, zilch to begin with.

[00:04:15]Hi, Graceful. Welcome. Well, Graceful, you you know where to find me most times, so yeah.

[00:04:27]No, there. Okay. So, it's in the house.

[00:04:30]Yes, it is not in the studio. However, it is not in the uh studio.

[00:04:38]Uh meal mule Tim, not not bubble.

[00:04:44]No, no wine. All right. Segments. Uh, come on.

[00:04:51]Railroad term of the day. And you guys are going to love this one. Let me speed things up here a little bit. Manifest train versus unit train. Now, just be aware this is less than this is more how it used to be, not how it really is today.

[00:05:16]Uh to so manifest train versus unit train. A unit train carries one commodity from one origin to one destination. Think your coal trains, your container trains, your uh frozen good trains, that sort of stuff. Uh grain trains, ethanol, rock trains. Most or 90% of all the cars are carrying the same exact thing. A manifest train is more like your UPS or FedEx uh package delivery service. It carries many different types of cars for many different customers all mixed together in one train. And sorting yards change where those cars, you know, say a train goes from Roseville to uh Nebraska. We'll we'll just or no, we'll go Yeah. Okay. We'll go Omaha.

[00:06:15]Roseville to Omaha. Well, from Omaha, those cars then get resorted into new different trains that can go to different other locations. Some might go to go backwards and go to Portland. Some might go out to the east coast. Some might go down south. It all depends. So, you might see box cars, tank cars, covered hoppers, gondas, flat cars, all in the same train. These days with precision scheduled railroading or PSR, you will see uh container train uh yeah intermodel trains mixed in with the manifests at you know uh coal trains mixed in with them. It it's all gotten mixed up now.

[00:07:00]Unit trains are generally simpler uh to build and operate. Manifest trains are more flexible because they serve many customers at once.

[00:07:13]Uh the the I I I had to put this one in here because it's I guess it makes sense to some. May maybe it will make sense.

[00:07:25]Hopefully it does. If a unit train is a charter bus, a manifest train is a city bus making a lot of stops. Does that make sense to y'all? I hope it does.

[00:07:38]That's your railroad term of the day.

[00:07:41]And I will respond to comments once I'm done with the segments here. So, just keep talking. I'll get to them. I see them rolling over here on the right side. EOD was the last one to make a comment. Now, Graceful is. Uh, so I'm pretty current there.

[00:07:58]Railroad myth of the week. Railroads prefer to leave locomotives idling.

[00:08:06]This week, this myth is really interesting because a lot of people think that they railroads leave locomotives running because they don't care about fuel. That is actually one of the largest operating expenses the railroad has is fuel. Modern locomotives often have systems that automatically manage engine operation.

[00:08:33]You know that fancy computer we talked about? Yeah.

[00:08:36]Uh depending upon conditions. In some situations, locomotives may need to remain running for operational or mechanical reasons like keeping the air brakes charged or you know especially in extreme temperatures, extreme hot, extreme cold, keeping those air brakes charged are is very important. Shutting down and restarting large diesel electric locomotives isn't always as simple as turning the car off and on.

[00:09:06]You know, it's not you turn a key and it's on. You know, you you flip a switch, you push a button, you go, you know, to a door on the engine compartment and you have to know which one it is. You open the door, you flip another switch, you press and hold a button for literally a minute and then you turn another knob and you wait for the engine to crank over. And that's the 30,000 ft view of how to do it, you know. So, it's really not as simple as uh turning your car off and on.

[00:09:38]Railroads spend a lot of time and money trying to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption. So, keeping the trains moving is an important key point there.

[00:09:50]Uh, you know, nobody's looking at the fuel bills at the railroad going, "Oh, yeah, let's burn more of it. Not a problem."

[00:09:59]No, they're they're trying to pinch every penny they can to keep especially these days the stockholders happy.

[00:10:06]Forget everybody else. They they want the stockholders happy. So there's your railroad myth of the day.

[00:10:18]All right. Now, why was your train delayed?

[00:10:23]Oh jeez. I Y'all are funny. I'm I'm I'm just I'm just going to say that y'all are funny. Uh air brake problems.

[00:10:33]Speaking of keeping the engines running, one common reason trains get delayed is air bra issues, and it's up to the conductor to fix them. Uh freight trains Well, okay, it's I I noted that freight trains use compressed air, but all trains use compressed air. That I that was a typo on my part to operate their braking systems. Since that airline runs the entire length of the train, sometimes leaks or other problems can occur or somebody with malicious intent uh separates air hoses. It happens when something isn't working correctly. Crews may have to stop and inspect the train before continuing. That's where I get all my steps in cuz you got to it's especially especially at night, but anytime you got to walk one side of the train and then walk back up the other side to inspect both sides. It it it gets Yeah. Uh or if you have another train coming in uh alongside you or the opposite way, they can do a visual inspection on that side and save you a trip. Either way, you're walking the length of the train twice.

[00:11:51]Uh safety systems are designed so problems get attention immediately, even if it causes a delay. From the outside, it may look like the train's randomly stopped. In reality, there may be a break issue somewhere hundreds or even thousands of feet away from the locomotive, considering trains these days average between 10 to 15,000 ft.

[00:12:13]Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The longer the train, the more equipment there is that has to work correctly.

[00:12:24]Let's see.

[00:12:29]Oh. Oh, boy. Okay. Uh, Pepe says, "The problem is that if you're still using diesel motors and locomotives, Switzerland is completely electrified.

[00:12:39]Germany already for 80%."

[00:12:43]Yeah, Pepe, I would love for us to be electrified. Uh, but the US, you know, we we we had been the leader in rail transportation and then we sort of fell apart and we're not going to catch up.

[00:12:59]I'm sorry. Yeah, that's just a fact of life. All right, your railroad safety minute.

[00:13:10]And this is an important one. Climbing on railroad equipment. Quick safety reminder, of course. Never climb on railroad cars or locomotives. Even equipment that appears parked can move without warning. Sort of like inspect a train any direction any time on uh multiple tracks. Cars can roll. Slack can move unexpectedly. And crews may not know someone is on or around the equipment. Railroad cars also have pinch points, trip hazards, and fall hazards.

[00:13:44]They're everywhere. Uh a prime example of this is recently.

[00:13:50]Hey Patrick, thanks for stopping by.

[00:13:53]Let's see. Looks like you're on uh Facebook maybe. Yeah. Thanks for stopping by.

[00:14:00]Uh climbing on railroad equipment. The most recent thing, and it's a big one right now, is as Union Pacific's 4014, the Big Boy, makes its way across the country. I don't know if they're going to do it now, but there are special guests that were allowed to come in the cab and ride from town A to town B along the route. Well, recently within the last 48 hours here, uh, someone while climbing up into the cab with, you know, permission and everything was safely done, they still lost their footing or something and fell backwards.

[00:14:42]Thankfully, they did not hit their head on the rail head next to them, but they are they have a uh there's a spine problem going on now, and I think they're going to be wheelchair bound the rest of their life, unfortunately, from my understanding of things. So, you know, fall hazards are everywhere. What looks like, and this this is the key point I want everyone to take away here, and this is why I do things the way I do things. What looks like a cool photo opportunity can became a lifechanging accident in seconds. If it's a railroad equipment and you're not authorized to be on it, stay off of it.

[00:15:25]The safest photo is one where everybody goes home afterwards. And that's your safety minute of the day. Nice, nice, simple, and easy, right? All right. So, got all that done. Now I Now I catch up on chat and I have a lot of checking. A lot of checking. Yeah, a lot of catching up to do. Uh, railroad guys are hot. Um, I don't know. I don't know. Graceful. I uh, Railroad Guys hot. Depends. Hey, roaming base. Good to see you.

[00:15:59]Graceful wants a ride. Well, Graceful, there's Amtrak. Go take Amtrak. That's unfortunately about the best you're going to get for a ride.

[00:16:08]Uh, yeah, Brian. So, Tim had some internet issues, so I he ended his live stream and I started early. Let's see here. Mitch wants his sticker. I do. I owe you a sticker, Mitch. I don't remember, but you know, Graceful wants the first sticker. So, I I I don't know which way to go there. Let's see. Our Brian says, "Psr is great until all the delays roll through for everything."

[00:16:32]Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Absolutely.

[00:16:37]Well, Tim, these are the these are the first batch of stickers I've ever gotten, so we'll we'll see what happens.

[00:16:44]The these seem nice. They look nice, etc. Yeah.

[00:16:50]R R M O TWW the new meme.

[00:16:54]Railroad maintenance.

[00:16:58]Uh, Hollywood, you're going to have to expand on that one.

[00:17:03]Uh, no, Graceful. You cannot uh ride my train unfortunately.

[00:17:10]Let's see here. Okay, so Jody's going to ask me anything. Do locomotives exclusively run on diesel only or can some run on jet A or kerosene?

[00:17:22]All the diesel locomotives I work with are diesel only. They don't have jet A or kerosene. About the closest to kerosene you'll get might be a steam locomotive these days.

[00:17:36]Let's see here.

[00:17:41]Oh, Graceful, as I said, you you know where I hang out.

[00:17:47]I'm not going to highlight that next one, though. Graceful. Um Yeah. Okay. Uh let's see here.

[00:17:57]What? What? What? What?

[00:18:00]Graceful. Huh? What? I I I I do not comprehend. I'm sorry.

[00:18:09]Uh, no, I have not. I did see the email you sent me though, Hollywood. Thank you for that.

[00:18:19]Oh, that's interesting.

[00:18:23]Apparently, let's see here. Does that show up as Yeah, that should Nicole says he he, but when I hover over it, it says hi high. That's uh that's interesting.

[00:18:36]Let's hear. United States is 238 times bigger than Switzerland, so it would just take a lot more to implement. Um no, Sean, actually it wouldn't. So Pepe Pepe dropped this fact on us uh last week week. No, had been the week before, I guess. Uh so Switzerland is as big as the state of California but has enough rail trackage to cross the US east to west.

[00:19:10]So you know for for them to have uh what what what did Pepe say?

[00:19:16]Something like let's see where is it? Uh Switzerland is completely electrified.

[00:19:23]That's Pepe, correct me, but that's somewhere around 3,000 miles of track if I remember right.

[00:19:32]So, yeah, let's see here. I think Frank is telling people to illegally program their brow fangs on railroad frequencies and let the conductor know about their trespassing activity. Safety first. No, I am not, Jody. You do that, you have bigger problems than the trespassing.

[00:19:52]Well, I mean, you get the you get the felony trespass and then you get the felony radio trespass. So, yeah, don't do that.

[00:20:06]What's there? Climbing on train wagons is a very short experience in Switzerland. The lightning will throw you back down. Yeah. Yeah. The electrical overhead will definitely upset you if you're not careful about it. Absolutely.

[00:20:24]Let's see. There are two Ethernet ports on the back of the Gen 3 router. Trying hardline. I h Okay.

[00:20:32]Can I do this? Hold, please.

[00:20:51]Okay, Tim. This is Let's see. Can I inch a little bit? Yeah. Okay. This is the best I can do. P uh out to the satellite, two Ethernet ports, and then power. I am into the port that is closest uh to the power port. If that helps you at all.

[00:21:23]I'm just going to gently put put that back there for now. All right.

[00:21:30]Yeah. And yeah, always hardline. Always always hardline. And you know, people go, "Oh, yeah, Wi-Fi will be fine."

[00:21:38]Blah, blah. No, no, no, no, no.

[00:21:40]Hardline. Absolutely.

[00:21:42]Uh, railroad myth of the week. Okay.

[00:21:45]Thank you, Hollywood.

[00:21:49]Switzerland is 10 times smaller than California, but still has 3,000 some odd miles of track. Did I Did I get that part right, Pepe?

[00:21:59]Good day, Colin. Welcome.

[00:22:03]Let's see. Hold on. What did Mitch needs to wait for his stickers?

[00:22:10]Sure. Right.

[00:22:15]Oh, here. Frank, hold please. Hold please. Big Clive. One moment, please.

[00:22:20]Same but different. Absolutely. Okay.

[00:22:22]3200 miles railroad. So, so I was close.

[00:22:25]Absolutely.

[00:22:30]No. Hollywood. So, I'm lagging on Discord. Sure. I'm I I have Discord open, but yeah. Okay. So, let's see here.

[00:22:40]Yes, I am, Brian. I I am. All right. So, I'm basically caught up. error. No Wi-Fi is never enough and also less likely to be hacked if hardline if you are paranoid like I am. Nicole, that's not paranoia. That's just being smart.

[00:22:54]That's just being smart about it.

[00:22:58]That router is huge compared with the mini router you get with the V4 standard kit now. Yeah. So that's the standard kit, Colin. And uh Yeah. And so, uh, Tim, not only, so I have the vertical monitor over here that I've shown sort of in chat before, you know, that holds chat, but I also have the iMac computer open in the YouTube studio where I see live chat right there. So, you just said something and it just popped up here.

[00:23:33]There's a V4 now. Yeah. Yeah, there's a V4 now.

[00:23:40]Let's see. And Jody with the OneHham Radio Wilderness gifted membership which went to Cyber Jason. Thank you, Jody.

[00:23:49]Much appreciated.

[00:23:51]I'm I'm sure Jason when he sees it. Oh, there's Jason. So, he's in chat already.

[00:23:59]Wow. I I'm even faster than my Streamlabs bot.

[00:24:05]So, so Frank B Frankbot is faster than Streamlabs bot there. Uh, Tim, there you go.

[00:24:15]Oh, yeah. No, Nicole, I I'll have to find it and I'll send you a photo of the studio setup for the uh radio side.

[00:24:23]Absolutely.

[00:24:25]Yeah. I Okay, so Colin, the tiny router.

[00:24:31]Hold hold on. This one I'm actually going to put you guys into uh BRB mode.

[00:24:53]All right.

[00:25:10]Let's see here.

[00:25:14]Okay. Okay. Before before I show this uh who's Nicole and Graceful goes Nicole H.

[00:25:24]So guys I I want you to meet the Kenista Peaches. She is a ham radio operator on the island of Guam. And I met her through Tim ED Kaboom. So from Rockets and Radios. So uh yeah that's Nicole.

[00:25:42]When when I say Nicole that's Nicole.

[00:25:45]All right. So, Colin is I'll leave the base stand on it. Is this Is this the uh version 4 you're talking about?

[00:25:58]Is is this what that is?

[00:26:02]It literally Let's see. It is 5 and 1/2 in long by 5 and 1/2 in tall.

[00:26:20]Okay. So, Tim Tim, remember we were talking about stuff and what came with my kit and everything. So now we know this is the version 4 router.

[00:26:37]So that's why so they sent me the big old one and they Okay. So Tim, we we got our answer solved there.

[00:26:50]That and that got solved. All right.

[00:26:55]Uh yeah, that's what we get now. Okay.

[00:26:58]So, uh Colin, this came in when my kit when my kids got sent in. So, yeah.

[00:27:04]Okay.

[00:27:07]Brian has it right too. Nicole paranoid are the ones that will s survive the apocalypse. Absolutely. Now, yeah. Well, yeah, Nicole, you know, ham radio will do that. GMRS radio will do that, too. Any form of radio will do that. So, absolutely.

[00:27:33]Okay, let let's see here.

[00:27:36]What's in your Starlink?

[00:27:38]Yeah. Okay, there we go. Yeah. So, okay. So, that solves a lot of So, I could probably hook this up because the plug-in brick that comes with it is output 9 volts at 1.6 amps.

[00:28:07]Yeah. So, I' I I'd have to get a uh Yeah, that that would be interesting to hook up. Don't want to hook it up directly to a 12volt power supply. I'd need a stepper of some sort.

[00:28:26]Let's see. Guam is second island chain has and has Anderson on it. The apocalypse will be unavoid unavoidable sadly. Sorry, Tim. Okay.

[00:28:40]I must have the old version. New one doesn't have power plugged into it as it has PoE.

[00:28:47]Yeah. So, this has power dish Ethernet. So, I maybe this is a version three.

[00:29:03]Colin knows this stuff better. way better than I do. This is the model number uniform tango romeo-251.

[00:29:13]So UTR251 colon if that helps you at all.

[00:29:20]So now that we've done all that and it's basically actual showtime, we've already gone through the railroad segments. What questions do you guys have that ham, photography, railroad, you name it, you got a question, ask me. We're going to be here a lot longer than normal because I started a half hour early, so we have plenty of time. Uh, I will say this though, next week, and Tim, this is also a heads up for you. Uh, next week I am going to start, we're going to try this. I am going to go live at 0 UTC for 1 hour bumping up against Rob instead of the usual hour 45 that I do.

[00:30:16]Let's see here. The new one still has the ability to have power pack, but doesn't come with one. And both ports are fine for PoE. Okay. Yeah, cuz this this one I I don't know if you can see the uh hieroglyphs there too. Well, there we go. This definitely says dish and network and then of course power.

[00:30:42]So, this might be a newer one, but maybe not the newest of the new. It's still answer. Colin, you still answered a lot of good questions there without even knowing it.

[00:30:56]Uh, all right. Well, Jody starts off with the photography. So, let me let me bring up uh the countdown clock here and then I'm also going to do just so I have it on both the countdown clock there just in case we need it. All right, 25 minutes on the clock. Have I lined up any shoots for the summer?

[00:31:21]Unfortunately, no. I haven't had the time off from work in order to do the more fun job, if you will. Jody, so no, I I haven't been able to line up any shoots for the summer yet.

[00:31:38]Uh, when funding is almost not an issue, where would you locate your QTH and what would you have for antenna setups?

[00:31:47]I would go to the high desert of either No, I want to get out of California. So, the high desert of Arizona or Nevada, which is basically anything, and this is this pretty wide here, anything west of the uh state line. uh basically 90% of Nevada and like everything in the northwest corner of Arizona, the high desert area where it's dry, you know, but it doesn't get too hot, but it could snow a little teeny bit.

[00:32:34]uh you know just so that I don't have those 100 plus days but I don't have super freezing temperatures as far as an antenna setup I would get you know a 50 or 100 foot well I already have a 50ft tower but I would get a 100 foot tower and set up a couple Yaggies on those uh both rotatable and both fold over towers. I'm not about to climb a tower and I'm not about to have someone go up a tower. So, there'll be fold over towers so that I can maintenance them as needed. And then I would have a 160 sky loop up as well because I could use uh two military mast poles strapped securely to the sides of the house and then tower and tower and there's your sky loop on 160.

[00:33:37]So, that is what I would have for a location and antenna setups. Oh, look.

[00:33:43]It's Frank live. Yeah, Hank. I' I've been live for a half hour now almost.

[00:33:48]Let's see here. 34 minutes, actually.

[00:33:52]Let's see here. The main international airport in the middle. No safe place.

[00:33:56]Oh, you guys are talking about Guam.

[00:33:58]Okay. Um, yeah, new one just has numbers one and two above the ports. Okay, cool.

[00:34:05]Hey, [ __ ] Welcome.

[00:34:10]Yeah, maybe not Vegas, Bob. I Vegas is nice and everything, don't get me wrong, but I've had some non-gambling bad experiences in Vegas. I'll visit, sure, not going to live there. That uh here, let me do it this way. Let me bring up Google Maps and I will take a I will zoom out just far enough.

[00:34:42]Let's see.

[00:34:47]There we go.

[00:34:53]If it were to be my ideal thing, Bob I would Oh, wonder my my headphones were doing something. I would want to live basically somewhere west of if you drew a line from the Idaho Nevada border straight down. I would want to live west of the Perump Carlin area of Nevada. I know permanent California but uh yeah but uh if you were to draw uh north south line Carlin Eureka and Perump would be that line and then nothing west of the California Nevada state border if if I had to out here in the high Mojave Desert if if if I had to uh you know and then I Vegas is nice to visit but that whole area just for forget it. No, the closest I might come is Jean.

[00:36:08]That that that Yeah. So that that's where I would wind up if it were up to me. I hope that helps.

[00:36:18]No, I did not say Gu. Well, I didn't say Guam. John, by the way, John, welcome.

[00:36:24]Since since you're in here, I don't know if you saw these last night or earlier in the show so far, but stickers literally in hand.

[00:36:40]So, you you you can't say I don't have stickers anymore because they are literally in my hand. And I don't know why that timer reset, but okay.

[00:36:52]Um, why did that timer reset? Cuz I do have it on this screen. Yeah, I do.

[00:36:58]Okay. And then if I go back to Maine.

[00:37:03]Yeah. Okay. That's weird.

[00:37:07]Yeah, Bob. Exactly. Lots of places to hide outside the Vegas Valley.

[00:37:12]Absolutely. I I've always loved the Mojave high desert for multiple reasons and I fell even more in love with the Nevada high desert even more so. So, let's hear Jody hasn't been back to Vegas since Fry Electronic shut down. It was the only shred of decency in that town. Well, yeah, depends upon who you ask, Jody.

[00:37:43]depends upon who you ask.

[00:37:47]So Tim, I I I know you want me more west. I I I know you want me in Guam.

[00:37:56]That is Unless Guam becomes an island maybe five miles off the shore of California, that ain't happening anytime soon, unfortunately.

[00:38:11]You know, you know, Mitch, you're you're a mod.

[00:38:19]You're you're you're a good friend and an Elmer in most cases, but what is it with you and Graceful tonight doing this? What what what what what is what is with this? I I'm completely lost.

[00:38:37]Right. Right. Sean, I thought you would.

[00:38:39]And Sean, I even took if you didn't see it.

[00:38:45]Oh, heck. Let's I'd do it this way so you guys don't get all the nitty-gritty information. John, I even took your advice down there below the tower.

[00:39:06]Yeah, I I even took your advice for that.

[00:39:12]Absolutely.

[00:39:14]I need to post a sticker to VK. May maybe Colin may maybe, you know, I might just uh send send you and uh Hayden and uh Rolley one.

[00:39:28]Hey, Ed, welcome. Good to see you in here.

[00:39:32]Manito and Colorado Springs. Well, yeah.

[00:39:36]Let's see here. Uh oh. Yeah, that that. So, Jody, that's why you haven't been back to Vegas. If you know, you know. If you catch the reference.

[00:39:54]Oh, Jody. I thought that was just from the puck. The P U C. I I thought that that was just from the puck.

[00:40:02]All right. Who Who else got who else got some questions? I want to try and keep it photography related since I started the timer for that. But you know, anything and anything and everything.

[00:40:13]And I like like my Frank something else on Thursdays.

[00:40:19]Oh, right. I forgot we we're doing the food thing now. It's a biscuit. My bad.

[00:40:24]My bad, Jody. Yeah, biscuit.

[00:40:27]Yeah, that I the only biscuit I want to take to the face is one I can eat. Jody.

[00:40:34]Anyway, if you have a question that now, mind you, you got to be careful because I have the right of refusal to answer the question if it's too for, you know, either me personally or for, you know, if it's railroad related, you know, the railroad, you know, if I could get in trouble, I'm not going to answer it type thing. But if you drop a super chat with a question every that jumps the line. I can be in the middle answering someone else's question and that jumps the line. But let's see uh what photography questions.

[00:41:15]Let's see here. Bob loves his Canon 90D.

[00:41:17]Can't afford the lens. Might sell for radio gear. You know, Bob, that is always a problem. And uh Jody can somewhat relate there, I'm sure. Uh, and so can Jason, smart Jason, you know, is is is it uh but you know, the tradeoff is nice. Is it more c more camera gear or more radio gear?

[00:41:43]Have I stayed purebred with my lenses or strayed with some Tamron or Sigma? I have tried third party because that's what they are. We We both know that, Jody. I I have tried making a mess of the studio today.

[00:42:06]Been doing some filming and stuff and it's just editing and just a absolute mess. But in in in in my everyday bag, my everyday carry, you know, my EDC Can Oh, Canon 70 to 200 Canon 50 mm.

[00:42:43]This is where I get third party uh ProMaster and Tamarind 2X teleconverters.

[00:42:53]But I have uh ProMaster extenders. So at least I stay with ProMaster there.

[00:43:06]Canon 40 mm.

[00:43:11]Making that stack very pecarious.

[00:43:16]And then from my old old school days, a 12 to 24 by Tokina and then 10 mil fisheye from Sigma.

[00:43:44]Oh, and then uh Canon 24 to 105.

[00:43:49]So that's what that's what's in the everyday carry. I do have uh Canon 300 and 400 L primes, but I don't ever I don't EDC those because, you know, th this here alone, this this bag alone as it is with all the accessories I have to carry and everything, I'm topping out at 20 lb with this bag and well, you know, 20 lb with this bag, 20 lb with my overnight bag for work stuff. Uh 20 lb. Uh no, 5 lb with the book bag. And you know, I'm I'm lugging around nearly 50 lbs at any given time.

[00:44:41]So, yes, I I have uh I have a mix, but 99% time I use the Canon stuff.

[00:44:55]Oh, yeah. I I still have my Nifty50.

[00:44:58]Yeah, that was one of the lenses there.

[00:45:00]And uh I I still use it. Uh oh, and then I let my bestie borrow my 100 mm macro Canon lens because they have a Canon as well, but they had never messed with macro.

[00:45:18]So, Hey Jason, I am using the Canon 5D Mark III. It It's bit of an older body, but it does the trick.

[00:45:31]And let's see here. What was uh the Holy Trinity will be no more. Yeah, I I've heard rumors of the demise of things, Jody, if I if I'm thinking about what you're talking about. But we'll see what we'll see what happens.

[00:45:54]And then of course the Sony ZV E10 uh with a 16 to 50 uh Sony 16 to 50. What is that? A See, the problem is there's a light. Let's see here. It's a 3.5 there. There's a light right on top of the camera for the face. You know, I have my fill lights, but then I have straight on. So, to read the camera lens, I got to block out the light. It's a uh E3 E3.5 to 5.6 uh 16 to 50 OSS.

[00:46:37]So, there you go.

[00:46:41]I hear the R six is good. I I I hear the R six, the Mark II is good. I haven't gotten to play with it. Uh, you know, I have the 5D Mark III and I took it down finally cuz I wasn't using it as often as I wanted to, but I do have a Canon 60D that I was using as the overhead camera for projects. I just not using it the way I was. So, and it wasn't wanting to stay in the position I wanted it to.

[00:47:15]So, I have to figure that one out. So, yeah, mostly Canon here.

[00:47:24]So, Hollywood only uses resonant lenses.

[00:47:33]We call those prime lenses or prime glass like the 40 mil or the 50 mil.

[00:47:41]Yeah, let's see. Heard the R six Mark II still overheats on extended 4K video.

[00:47:47]Not sure if there's a fan kit for it yet or not. I had I had heard that too, Jody. But uh you know, if you're going to film 4K video, you better be ready to pay the price for the 4K video. I'm just saying.

[00:48:04]Hey, Chris, welcome.

[00:48:08]So, yeah, there there you have it. Let's see here. I was going to say the same thing about prime lenses. Yeah. Yeah, those are definitely uh prime equals resonance. Absolutely.

[00:48:28]But but here's one for you, Hollywood.

[00:48:33]I I'll I'll pull this back out because you you'll you'll I think you'll get a chuckle out of this one, Hollywood.

[00:48:43]So, I have these 2x teleconverters, right?

[00:48:47]If I put one 2x on the 15 mil, it becomes 100 mil. Am I still prime or because I doubled it, am I no longer prime?

[00:48:59]That that that's that I have found is a well Jody may maybe maybe you have a hot take on that one but I have found that photographer go oh yeah no that's not a prime anymore because you doubled it bro it's still a single fixed point lens it's not a variable hey Jason welcome let's See, there we go. Clicked the right one. Finally. I know wedding shooters to dabble in video and are thinking about going to the R six Mark II if it can handle the heat. See, I I don't do weddings for a multitude of reasons. And uh having having to do all of that just no, not for me.

[00:49:53]No hot take. A prime in front of a televerter might be an Optimus Prime.

[00:49:57]Okay, fair enough.

[00:49:59]Yeah, that that that's I I'll take that, Jody. Absolutely.

[00:50:05]But yeah, for for some reason for for some when you put that televerter on, it becomes a non-prime. I'm like, what? How?

[00:50:21]Like, I'm sorry, but that that it's still a prime lens. It doesn't suddenly go from, you know, I I can't I can't twist the focal point from 24 to 105 like I can on my 24 105. It's static.

[00:50:37]But yeah, change the f-stop a little bit. What on this on this or on uh something else?

[00:50:51]Maybe it comes prime evil. Mate, may be Hollywood.

[00:50:58]Adding any televerter costs you too many f-stops of light, so less of a prime than the standard Canon L F1.2 primes.

[00:51:06]Fair enough, Brian. But I'm not using, you know, the 50 mil that I have gets down to like 1.8. I think I'm not lifting the bag up a third time.

[00:51:24]It's just going to stay on the floor.

[00:51:34]Let's see. Where are we?

[00:51:37]Oh, no. 1.4. Still, you know, that that's not too bad. So, if I were to Not the Sony battery. Canon battery. No, that's the other Sony battery.

[00:51:56]There we go.

[00:52:00]So, I'll do this live because that's what this live stream's all about, doing it live.

[00:52:09]And I'm literally you're going to see me do everything live.

[00:52:24]I'm very careful about my lenses because I don't want any dust or dirt getting in. So, there we go. All right.

[00:52:43]I can now. So I go from 1.4 to a 2.8 with the 2x on here. That's still not bad all things considered with a teleconverter.

[00:52:56]Even though I don't think Oh, I do.

[00:52:59]Let's see here.

[00:53:01]Where where's where's chat? Hey, no, not that. Thank you.

[00:53:10]Let's see.

[00:53:12]There we go. Hey chat, smile.

[00:53:17]There we go.

[00:53:19]I had to.

[00:53:22]Yes. If you know, you know. Nicole.

[00:53:24]Absolutely.

[00:53:27]Oh, okay. When I use a teleconverter.

[00:53:30]Yeah. Change the f-stop. Absolutely. In that case, yeah, absolutely.

[00:53:36]That's the only time you Jody uses one is to boost his 70 to 200 in well-lit arena stadium settings, hockey games, figure skating, football games. Cheaper than buying 400 mm zooms, and I'm a big boy. Yeah, exactly, Jody. Exactly. So, I mean, yeah, granted I have a 400 mil lens, but I have stacked and I'll have to once I get this all disassembled here.

[00:54:10]You You love the camera ASMR.

[00:54:17]There you go. Camera A. Oh, I just realized I didn't even need to put pull a second battery out because there was already a battery in the camera.

[00:54:27]Oh, geez. I'm doing great. So, Jody, one thing you'll love and I I'm going to have to actually No, wait. Do I have it on Do I have it on the external drive?

[00:54:39]And I don't have to go to the website.

[00:54:45]Tell me I have it on this drive. Well, there's one that's clo Ah, yes I do.

[00:54:54]So, this photo, Jody, that I'm about to pull up here, this is from when I had three teleconverters, three of them at 2x each.

[00:55:15]That is shot at uh SFO back when uh British Air had their 740. Oh, there goes the microphone. Prank gentle.

[00:55:31]My microphone just went whoop. Anyway, yeah, that's uh so that's,200 mm that you just saw there. And to give you guys an idea, and that was back before they changed how they were doing things at the airport.

[00:56:09]That was shot at a distance of 4,616 ft or 1.4 kilometers away.

[00:56:22]That that's that's how in indepth in detail.

[00:56:29]Okay. Where where where did I just There it is. That's how indepth inde 2x's on a 400 mil were able to get.

[00:56:44]You know, you you can quite easily I mean, yeah, it gets a little fuzzy as you zoom in, but you can quite easily make out the crew and even some of the passengers.

[00:56:59]And that's what I love about super telephoto stuff. Super telephoto. Super telephoto. Fragileist.

[00:57:10]Yeah. Super califragilistic. That's allocious.

[00:57:18]How many tries to get it?

[00:57:22]Once, twice. I mean I mean Chody I had so this is where I shot from. This is where where everybody shoots from actually is Bayfront Park and the uh Bay Trail area. I had from all the way back here at 1.69 kilometers to the closest I think is about the 1.4.

[00:57:52]4 uh kilometer.

[00:57:55]Yeah. Let's see. 1 point 1 1.38 is about the closest it got. 1.38 km. So I I had, you know, from all the way back here to all the way back there to Well, that's not quite how I wanted to do it. All All within this triangle basically to shoot it.

[00:58:29]So, I I had plenty of chances, but it only took me a couple couple chance couple shots to get it. But I'm one of those, Jody. I I'm I'm one of those photographers that all my cameras, the Sony, the Canon, it doesn't matter. It's set for the high-speed quick shutter. So when I push that, you know, when I hit that PTT button, all it does is Now granted, this one's a little slower at seven frames a second compared to the Sony that does like 20 frames a second or better. Uh, but I don't have a long lens for this. I just have the 16 to 50 because it's primarily the streaming camera.

[00:59:21]So yeah, I you know I I I just I literally sit there and I just go boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom as it goes across the runway.

[00:59:35]Now granted the ISO was like 6,000 something, you know, it was well above the 3200 6,000 8,000 something like that. But you know technology girls on film Duran Duran Hollywood that's the after show that that that is the uh that's the after show Hollywood absolutely uh let's see oh we have four minutes left still amazing so this one was just the 300 mil standard Let's uh pull that out. This was just shot with the 300 mil standard Canon lens.

[01:00:24]Not not the L. Nothing fancy. No L lens there. Just the standard 300. All right. So, we'll we'll call it uh three minutes because I know there's a little bit of a delay. 3 minutes left to get any photography questions in you want to ask me before we uh switch switch subjects.

[01:00:50]You know the uh Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Switch seats. Yeah.

[01:00:59]Let's see here. Speed Bird. No, Silverbird. Chasing Silverbird.

[01:01:03]Absolutely.

[01:01:06]Oh boy. Okay. Let's see here. I can close that folder out for now.

[01:01:12]Uh, let's see.

[01:01:20]Responding to a Discord message.

[01:01:29]All right, there we go. No, no, no one.

[01:01:33]No, no one with a photography question.

[01:01:35]I mean, Jody, Bob, Brian, Chris, Chris, uh, Hollywood, Nicole, Tim, Jason.

[01:01:56]Oh, I see. I I I didn't know that, Jason. See, I trains, sure, no problem.

[01:02:02]I I got you covered, bro. Airplanes. I just enjoy them as a fancy passing. You know, I I rarely listen to air traffic and if I do, it's because something's going on. Otherwise, I I don't listen to air traffic.

[01:02:25]Have I ever been a cameo in one of my photos? So, have I ever been in one of Yes and no.

[01:02:34]Oh jeez. Hold on. Let me let me see if I can find this.

[01:02:40]So, there was someone I was teaching uh years ago. Hold on. Let me There we go. Now, now I can uh look this up hopefully.

[01:02:58]Okay, I'm going have to do this manually. Thank you.

[01:03:02]Uh there there's I have been caught in my let's see here this was 11 years ago. Let me open image in new tab because I don't want to give too much away here.

[01:03:25]But I hopefully Mitch and Graceful are still in chat because if they are and they're still feeling the way they're feeling, this is this one's going to be interesting.

[01:03:43]So, me taking the photo of the model and the photographer and learning taking a photo of me and then No, I want to zoom out.

[01:03:56]Jeez, that's huge. Earlier in the day, I was literally looking up at a war bird.

[01:04:03]Funny you should say that. I was literally looking up at a warboard. We were out war bird. We were out at uh the Marin Headlands.

[01:04:13]Uh if you couldn't tell from this maybe.

[01:04:16]Uh and I was watching it go by.

[01:04:21]So yeah. No. And then this photo, let me hold on. You guys don't get to see the behind the scenes stuff there.

[01:04:32]Uh, that photo, I don't know if that one made the final, but similar to it did. And I can show that. I just have to get to the right point in time here in my list of things.

[01:04:56]This This will probably Yeah, because the timer's run out. This is No, not that album. I was close, but not that album. Here we go. This album. Let's see.

[01:05:08]Yeah. Okay.

[01:05:14]So, this is Let's We'll stay with the zoomed out version for a second.

[01:05:20]This is literally the photo I was taking right here.

[01:05:35]So, the other photographer was back here somewhere at the time.

[01:05:44]I Siren was a cool model to work with. I I miss working with her. But yeah, that photo was that right there.

[01:05:59]Yeah. See, Jody, I I don't get to uh I mean, I I see it when it happens. Uh but generally speaking, I'll go, "Hey, let's lose the glasses for a second." or you know if that's not possible you know that that spot removal tool is very very very helpful and you'd never know the difference never know you you could zoom in you know 13,000% and you'd never know.

[01:06:29]Huh. Okay, Tim, that's interesting.

[01:06:34]All right, Jody, you cool if I share that?

[01:06:48]Well, I I'll share that, Jody. Not a problem. I unlike others, I do like to ask first and then we'll move on to Let's move on to photography. No jeez, photography. move on to uh radio after this.

[01:07:05]Hey Andy, welcome.

[01:07:08]So Jody said this was shot with his Nikon Z8 with a 10 to one zoom of all things. Color bumped, of course.

[01:07:29]Colin, I I'm I'm I'm sure. I'm sure. And in those photos, there was no reflection, so don't worry about it. You didn't miss much.

[01:07:41]Uh yeah. All right. Let's uh let me reset the counter.

[01:07:50]The countdown.

[01:07:52]Uh we're going to set a little longer this time. Yeah. Third 30 minutes and let's talk ham radio.

[01:08:02]So, okay. So, Jody just answered it.

[01:08:06]Yeah, the the Vancouver actually.

[01:08:10]But, you know, it it it happens. cities get confused.

[01:08:15]You know, there there are times where I go, "Oh, that looks like Oh, no. That's not that." Absolutely.

[01:08:22]All right. Uh, radio questions. Who's Who's got them? Who's got them? Who Who's got those dying questions to uh Oh, boy.

[01:08:37]Ah. Okay.

[01:08:42]Oh, I see an HFNET notification.

[01:08:48]7230 give or take 20 kilhertz for the HRCC HFNET. They're going to start in about 40 minutes here. Just an FYI.

[01:09:06]Yeah, Frank. Of all sirens pics I could have shown. So Jody, you know this as well as I do. I So I'm going live to one, two, three, four, five platforms now. And I'm pretty sure all five of them would have me removed before I could get the photo on the screen or those photos on the screen.

[01:09:41]Tim, that shouldn't matter.

[01:09:45]Let's see here. Segue topic. Do people know that the coating on the lens is there to reduce photon SWR?

[01:09:54]You know, that sounds like a legitimate thing, Hollywood. I haven't ever heard it uh said that way, but that makes sense.

[01:10:08]You know, you you you're always you're always trying to reduce things going on with the lenses.

[01:10:21]Absolutely. And you know there there's no better way than to uh reduce things than lower your SWR. Absolutely.

[01:10:32]So Bob did just program a Balfang UV5R mini while watching. Fantastic. Thank good job Bob. Those things are stupid easy to program especially by hand. I love it.

[01:10:48]Let's see here. It is indeed legit.

[01:10:50]Watch the AT&T video on standing waves.

[01:10:53]I will have to find that and watch it at some point. Absolutely. You know, all you know, stupid photography brain here goes, "Well, okay." No. Smart radio brain goes, "Yeah, that makes sense."

[01:11:08]Stupid photography brain goes, "But it just reduces the light coming into the camera. How does it affect that?" But it but it makes sense. So, ham ham radio or just radio in general? What what questions? Uh, what questions do you got? Hey, Troy, used to go to air shows and take pictures of the old war birds and black and white. Look cool. I got several pics of Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, A10 demo team, stealth bomber, SR71. That That's uh that's interesting. Still can't add an actual message to the Mile. Okay. Uh, Colin, we're we're we're gonna do this live here. I'm And yeah, I I looked at all that and everything seemed okay, but we're we're we're going to look at this live.

[01:11:58]Just may maybe I missed something.

[01:12:02]Uh, let's see. Where's that in commu?

[01:12:05]No, that's not in community. It's in Where is that? Where was that customization?

[01:12:16]Then again, I also don't want you guys seeing too much of I mean, I'm fine with show was it under earn? What's there?

[01:12:23]Supers and gifts. No, memberships.

[01:12:26]Here we go. Memberships, badges, and emojis. I've Yeah, I I've gotten up to five years up. Let's see here. Emojis. You have first. Yeah.

[01:12:41]Okay.

[01:12:44]Let's see here. Special features.

[01:12:47]Give members special chats. Let me Here, let me plus this up.

[01:12:56]Give members special chats. Let members send a highlighted message during a live chat each month. That is off. That is on.

[01:13:09]Colin, I'm gonna have to reach out to uh the YouTube creator program and ask them what gives.

[01:13:20]And what I'm going to do, I'm going to take a screenshot of this and send it to myself.

[01:13:36]And thank you for doing that, Colin.

[01:13:38]that helps. I will take a screenshot of chat and send it to myself and let me just clear that out for a second. And just so that you can see, I've sent a screenshot and I've sent a screenshot.

[01:14:02]So, I will reach out to YouTube, whoever, and see what they have to say about that.

[01:14:17]Yeah, Colin, did you did you try writing it backwards?

[01:14:23]Oh, boy. But Colin, thank you for being a uh trail head op for three months now.

[01:14:28]Amazing. It's been three months already.

[01:14:31]That that is that is amazing. Absolutely.

[01:14:36]And oh it didn't so it didn't show it in chat but uh Jason Cyber Jason thanks for uh joining zero. So today at some point thanks for that as well. I I obviously that did I miss that? Did Oh yeah it's cuz Jody gave you the gifted membership.

[01:14:58]Yeah. Okay. There we go. All right.

[01:15:04]Is that Motorola, Ohio or Moto Ohio?

[01:15:09]Welcome. And what HF band do you prefer?

[01:15:12]And how often do I actually get on the air from home? I cannot get on the air.

[01:15:18]I have horrible RFI.

[01:15:21]Uh, if I were to come over here to this screen, no, not that one, this one.

[01:15:32]And I put myself on 20 m.

[01:15:40]And I will plus up the FT710 here.

[01:15:50]So, this is There we go. Noise floor on 20 m. Not too bad, right? Yeah.

[01:15:59]Let's unlock.

[01:16:06]Oh, I'm hearing some CW and I see and hear FTA.

[01:16:15]But with that being said, I don't get on very often because work keeps me busy.

[01:16:24]Uh I prefer 12 and 17 m. I like having uh the work bands because you can literally work the work bands and you never know what you're going to find on those bands because of their unique characteristics in propagation.

[01:16:54]Everybody, everybody, and I mean everybody, especially POT Hunters, go to 20 meters by default.

[01:17:02]They they literally just if if they don't, it's 15. They they go to 15 or 20.

[01:17:09]And I I go to Warband. So, if I I I pulled up Let's see. Here we go. I pulled up POTA right now. This is right now. And I'm actually going to pause the data refresh.

[01:17:24]20 m has 33 people on it. 17 has five.

[01:17:31]15 has three. 12 has two. I'm not even going to bother looking at what the uh propagation reports say because the as I've discussed in previous episodes and in other areas, those can be up to 3 hours delayed. So that, you know, it's 5:47 local time for me. Those reports were taken at 2:00 probably. So they're out of date as far as I'm concerned.

[01:18:05]They're not current.

[01:18:08]Uh, you know, and of course 40 has 39 because half the country's in in or close to dark mode at this point. So, and the these these are not showing the operators that have gone QRT. And this is just on phone. If I were to go to CW, there's 18 operators there. It doesn't change this cuz that shows everything.

[01:18:32]There's there's 33 spots on 20. 17 has five. One of them is Japan. Uh 12. What What does 12 have?

[01:18:45]12 has nothing. So, they must have moved or they're not a phone. Let's Let's look at Okay, so they're FT8 and CW. So, they're not even trying SSB. They're they're using the digital modes.

[01:19:02]So, let let's look at 17 based on this.

[01:19:06]Uh FT8, CW and Juan phone last heard 21 minutes ago uh ago in Japan. Japan.

[01:19:16]Japan and Louisiana, Texas somewhere around there. Let's see. They're on a trail which traverses multiple states and there are five land out of Texas.

[01:19:27]So, you know, um work work the work bands.

[01:19:34]That that's where I like to hang out if anything. If if if I if I absolutely positively need those contacts before the end of the UTC day, yeah, I'll go to 20 and I'll I'll just, you know, if I need the five contacts, I'll bang out five contacts. If I need one contact, I'll Yeah, I'll go to 20 for it. I'll be honest. But I like to spend time on the work bands.

[01:20:01]So I hope that helps answer your question there.

[01:20:06]Mark, welcome. Yeah, Ziggy refuses to work 20. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, it's not that I refuse to work it. I just rather have fun on the other bands while we can because we are on the down side of the solar cycle now. we are going to lose the 10 12 and a little bit of fif you know 10 12 and 15 basically so we'll have 17 20 30 40 60 and 80 you know still a lot of bandwidth to cover all things considered but we lose those higher bands and you know that that's going to be for five and a half six years you know something like that I mean before we know it we'll be at the solar high again. But until that point, Yeah. So there, there you go.

[01:21:05]Echo and the Bunnyman is here. Yeah.

[01:21:08]Yeah. Bunny or funny? Cuz he could be both. Hollywood. He he he he could be both.

[01:21:19]Hey, Mark. How you doing? All right. So, where Mark, you missed the photography section, you missed the railroad segments of the day, and actually thinking about it, did I do railroad segments two weeks in a row? We are now on to ham radio segments. So, or ham radio stuff questions. So, any any questions you got ham radio related? Yeah. No, last week was ham segments. Okay. I can't even remember last week. Probably a good thing.

[01:21:52]Let's hear it. The higher bands are going to the Crowbar Hotel like Uncle Rob for 5 years. Yeah, exactly, Jody.

[01:22:00]Exactly.

[01:22:04]Oh, Mark, as long as you showed up, that that that's the important part.

[01:22:09]Yeah. I I So, I didn't say boondock. I didn't say boondock echo. No, I didn't.

[01:22:15]Did Did someone say boondock echo? Did I hear an echo in here?

[01:22:21]I'm a fan of infed halfwaves. What What What do you got, Mark?

[01:22:28]What What What do you got for uh a question about them?

[01:22:34]Yeah. Now, now we got chat saying boondock echo. Hopefully you have, Tim.

[01:22:40]Hopefully you have.

[01:22:46]you have an idea to remotely tune them.

[01:22:49]Well, talk about it. Let it if it if it's too much to type into chat, uh, you know, there's Discord and just like tomorrow night, you know, just hit that drop drop in there where you see my name and just hit your magic PTT button, you know, just like you do on Saturdays.

[01:23:11]It it will give you practice for tomorrow night if we have an after chat tomorrow night.

[01:23:19]Oh, you need to show pictures, but you're outside it. Okay. Well, when you get a chance, you know, we we we can always jump back into a subject if it's needed. Absolutely.

[01:23:31]Tim, I'll be at work. So, you you have fun with that. I'll I'll have to you'll have to tell me how it goes.

[01:23:39]Time to get a six meter radio. Yeah, that that is true. A lot of people don't do six meters and they really should. I mean, most HF radios have six built in one way or another, you know. I I Let's see here. Uh screen >> Frank, can you hear me?

[01:23:58]>> Oh, hi Mark.

[01:24:01]Let me >> Frank, how you doing?

[01:24:03]>> Let me switch back over to this screen here. How you doing, Mark?

[01:24:08]>> Pretty good. How are you?

[01:24:09]>> I'm doing fantastic.

[01:24:13]Okay. So, here's the problem with infed halfwaves. Yes.

[01:24:16]>> Unless you've got a fancy um you know what do you guys use? The nanovnas. Um unless you've got a fancy one with Bluetooth, you've you're at one end of the radio and the end that you need to tune is at the other side.

[01:24:29]>> Okay. Hold on.

[01:24:30]>> Hold on one second. Jody h Jody has to bug her off. Totally a coincidence when Mark shows up. 73 Jod.

[01:24:40]>> You're welcome everyone.

[01:24:43]Okay. So, you got to tune the endfed.

[01:24:45]Yes.

[01:24:47]>> All right. So, I 3D printed something and I need to put a motor in it next.

[01:24:52]But what it does is it keeps the antenna under tension while it winds the end.

[01:24:58]>> Okay.

[01:24:59]>> So, you've got a string going one direction. It's wound around uh cylinder one way. You've got the antenna going the other direction. It's wound around the other. So, when you take up one, you're letting out the other. Does that make sense >> to a degree? Yes. You said you had photos, but you're outside, right?

[01:25:17]>> Yeah. I just have audio. So then the next thing is, well, how are you going to how are you going to move it? Well, that's the next part of this brilliant plan. An unnecessary plan. We hook up a little motor on a remote control and a little battery that can just shift back and forth. You only have to go a meter or two at the most. Right, Hollywood?

[01:25:37]>> I I I would hope so. And it will take about 10 seconds for Hollywood to respond. But while we're waiting for that, uh, have you ever seen both of them at the same time asking for a friend? And then Cyber Jason said, "Jod's here. No, Mark. Mark's here. No Jod." Uh, Hollywood says, "Correct."

[01:25:57]So, the way that I figured out to do it, like you I' and I do. I have a 3D printed cylinder with sidewalls on it.

[01:26:04]So the the rope on the antenna can't slip off, but you have the antenna in the dead center. If you just had one rope, there would be torque and it would twist it and it would be dead. So what do you do? You use two ropes, one on either side of the antenna again. So as the antenna takes it up, the rope lets it out. Or as the rope takes it up, the antenna lets it out. And you're just creating a a cylinder, you know, a little spool of wire at the end. That sounds logical.

[01:26:36]>> Sounds easy.

[01:26:37]>> I'm excited about it, Frank.

[01:26:38]>> It's It's pretty easy to do. So, I'm going to have to test it next, but I've got the 3D print parts done. I need to test it to make sure that I have enough uh ballast in this little motor thing to actually move it.

[01:26:50]>> Okay.

[01:26:50]>> Otherwise, I'll, you know, the tension's a little tricky, but >> it seems to work. I'm excited.

[01:26:54]>> Awesome. Well, when you get back inside in the live dash chat, just drop some photos. I I I made it easy for people. I literally set the live chat stuff up the same way Josh has it in HRCC. So, if you're used to HRCC, you're good in my Discord, too.

[01:27:14]>> Cool. I'll take a look for those, Frank.

[01:27:16]All right. So, if anybody's excited about Infinent Half Waves, and I can't see comments right now, get excited about this project with me. It's going to be fun. You can 3D print your own.

[01:27:25]>> So, if I remember this, this is Kansas Jeff, I think. Ham radio KS. He says you could almost make a dipole do that as well. Uh, Moto Ohio says, "So, it's a step IR kind of deal."

[01:27:40]Okay.

[01:27:42]>> I'm not familiar. What does step What does step do that's similar to this?

[01:27:47]>> Uh, for a couple of bands, I think it's 40 specifically. Josh would be the one to ask for the step IR cuz he has one.

[01:27:55]It pulls uh the 40 m part in or out based on where he needs to be on the band.

[01:28:06]>> Nice. But isn't the step IR a linear actuator? I don't know. I don't have one. I've never seen one.

[01:28:11]>> It's a Yaggyish type antenna.

[01:28:15]>> Okay. So maybe it's like the step IR. I don't know. Maybe it is. But either way, once it's done and working, I'll put the files out into the world and maybe you can make one too, Frank.

[01:28:26]>> So, >> I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[01:28:28]>> You you you're not in chat, but are you still watching the stream?

[01:28:33]>> No, on the phone. I just have Discord up.

[01:28:36]>> Okay. Cuz I was going to bring up an image of step, but uh that's fine. Uh Hollywood said, "An infer critical to length. It's like trying to balance a pencil on your finger." very unstable. A quarter wave is the opposite. That's like holding the pencil from the top. Very stable.

[01:28:56]>> Yeah, totally agree. But how cool would it be if you can tune it remotely?

[01:29:01]>> That would be cool. Absolutely. And hey, >> I've got Hollywood on team I've got Hollywood on team infed halfwave. Who else wants to join?

[01:29:10]>> Right.

[01:29:12]Uh Dadupa says like a tape measure.

[01:29:17]>> No.

[01:29:21]No, no, no. So, um, well, it is coiled, but what we're doing is we're coiling the far end.

[01:29:26]>> Okay.

[01:29:27]>> Or it doesn't matter. So, we're not coiling, we're not coiling the feed point. We're coiling the free end that's floating out in space somewhere.

[01:29:38]>> That makes sense. Okay. Uh, no soldering involved, we hope. Probably because of me. No, there's no soldering involved.

[01:29:48]All of this would be um very simple JST connections and figuring out the right amount of of weight to put up there that doesn't cause it to sag too much, but still gives the motor enough torque that it can wrap in and wrap out. This is like a a windless, I suppose. Okay, so Jo Jody somehow popped back in real quick. I don't know how the Jodie Mark universe is going to work with that one.

[01:30:11]He says, "Okay, briefly back then I'm leaving again, but I overheard the last bit. Mark, have you seen the tunatenna.com?"

[01:30:19]And I will drop Well, if you want, you can go look at that later, but I will send that to you as well cuz Jody put it in chat.

[01:30:32]Let's see. There's my mark conversation.

[01:30:35]There we go.

[01:30:36]>> Okay, I'll take a look.

[01:30:39]that that almost looks and sounds like just on the basic diagram they have.

[01:30:46]Yeah, may maybe Jody, but Jod's gone again. So, uh Troy says, "Push me, pull me infed."

[01:30:55]Hollywood thinks it's a brilliant idea.

[01:30:57]So, if it has Hollywood stamp of approval, there there you go.

[01:31:08]So, so Ham Radio KS, am I right? You're you're Jeff. You're you're part of the Kansas uh I know you're part of the Kansas City Mafia that Jim always talks about, but you're Jeff, right? I I know there's like two Jeffs and a John or something like that. Or two Jeffs and a Jason. You are Jeff. Okay, >> I'm going to hop out of voice, but yes, if Hollywood says it's good, it's good.

[01:31:33]>> All right, awesome. Well, thanks for dropping by, Mark.

[01:31:36]>> All right, buddy. Take care. Bye. Bye.

[01:31:39]All right. Yeah. So, they both won't comment at the same time. They have They have, but you know, I I can sit here.

[01:31:48]So, you know, I'm doing the streaming and I could type in the chat. Let's see here. I could type in the chat, hello world. And then if I wanted to, I could go over to the iMac, which is literally Can Can I Can I Can I do this without re Yeah, maybe I can literally Yeah, I'm not going to be able to do that. I have an iMac right here and I could log in as my photography videography account and say hello world as well. two different people.

[01:32:28]Okay, Hollywood, in all seriousness, no.

[01:32:32]Jody and Mark are two very separate people. Mark lives here in California.

[01:32:38]Jod lives in Kuckistan.

[01:32:40]Uh I think uh in in Regina. Yes, it does rhyme. Uh, and yeah. So, no, they're not the same person, but the the joke is you never It's like Batman and Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent and Superman. You never see them in the same room at the same time type of thing.

[01:33:01]Jason, tonight I think we experienced a very brief Mark Jody paradox. Yeah, maybe they both live in CA.

[01:33:12]Jason, I live in CA then. What? What does that say about me?

[01:33:18]All right, 4 minutes on the timer for ham radio. Uh, who's who who's got questions? Once that four minutes is up, I have Okay, where where's it beeping from?

[01:33:29]There it is. Okay, and that timer. I I have a timer I have to uh take care of once this timer is up.

[01:33:40]Timers. timers of timers of timers for Frank. If if Frank doesn't have timers, Frank loses track of time.

[01:33:48]That That's how it works.

[01:33:52]So, that was that was a fun one, Mark.

[01:33:55]Thank you for that. Hopefully, you're back on the YouTube side now and you hear that. If not, you'll hear it in Team Replay, assuming you do Team Replay.

[01:34:08]All right.

[01:34:10]Let's hit that button.

[01:34:14]Yeah.

[01:34:16]Wow. No, no, no. Uh, no other questions.

[01:34:21]Okay. So, I wanted to address this.

[01:34:23]Nicole, yes, Mark is addictive with that when it comes to tinkering. him. Uh, you know, Mark has that very special type of energy that you'll want to tinker with a whole bunch of new toys and a week later you're sitting there going, "Dang it, Mark. I wasn't expecting to do this much in this little time."

[01:34:52]>> Yeah, he he he's one of those.

[01:34:56]So, yeah.

[01:34:59]Tinker me silly. Yeah, exactly.

[01:35:01]Hollywood. He has fun with it.

[01:35:07]You should hear him on Saturday nights during Okay, hold on. Let me do the time. This time of day for you, but in 24 hours from now. So, whatever that is for you, Nicole. Uh, 24 hours from now.

[01:35:21]The ham radio crash course after chat.

[01:35:25]Mark always has some sort of fun idea that he likes to put out there usually before the after chat really gets going because Josh will Josh will go from the time I usually do till nowish with his main live stream and then start the after chat. But between the time he ends the first and starts the after chat, a whole bunch of us are already in the Discord server on voice chatting with each other. And that's when Mark comes up with some of the most fun ideas. So, it's not always out on the live stream, but yeah, absolutely. I I think you would like Mark.

[01:36:11]All right, minute and a half left. Cuz I know that says minute 40 right now, but I know there's about a 10second delay at most. So that's why I'm saying a minute and a half 10 seconds early.

[01:36:25]Uh yeah.

[01:36:28]And then Rob Digital Rancher should be going live tonight. I know he was uh going to tend to the goats.

[01:36:46]But he has not posted he has not posted the live stream yet.

[01:36:53]I'm I'm going to have to talk. Tim, is that a yep to him going live?

[01:36:59]Okay.

[01:37:01]Uh let me drop in over here.

[01:37:29]There we go.

[01:37:33]Really?

[01:37:36]Um Tim since since time's basically up on the ham radio thing this is I don't have an upcoming for Rob so if you wouldn't mind sending me the link so I can set up the redirect.

[01:38:11]That would be appreciated.

[01:38:14]Oh, it is old. Okay.

[01:38:17]I was going to say if you know something I don't.

[01:38:21]All right. And since the ham timer uh went to zero, let me take care of this other timer real quick. You guys get the BRB screen.

[01:39:44]All right. So, ignore the timer. It started prematurely there. At least it didn't stop prematurely.

[01:39:53]Uh, Hollywood got his intro to antennas from watching vibrating plates, a physic physics lecture that is commonly taught.

[01:40:01]It shows resonance propagation in a medium SWR and other effects for those interested after the show. Thank you.

[01:40:09]Thank Thank you, Hollywood.

[01:40:12]So there there you go.

[01:40:17]All right, the last topic I have on deck, per se, for these usual Friday live streams because we've done photography, we've done ham radio, and we're going to switch gears after all that. And I put the microphone back where it belongs because it doesn't belong up here. It belongs down here.

[01:40:43]Uh, the countdown is on and railroad.

[01:40:47]What I I know I cover it every other week with my railroad segments, but what do you guys have that you want to ask me about the railroad?

[01:41:01]And I will say this, I have noticed that both Graceful and Mitch have been missing from chat since the beginning of the stream.

[01:41:15]Let's see. Last time either of them were seen were when I was talking about Nicole at 4:55 my time.

[01:41:31]hour and 20 minutes ago almost.

[01:41:37]So, um yeah.

[01:41:41]All right. So, railroad stuff. What what what what questions do you guys got that what dying questions do you you you got to know the answer to that's uh railroad related?

[01:41:58]Hey, the damned. Welcome in. How you doing tonight?

[01:42:08]Hope hope you're doing well. Welcome in.

[01:42:11]Get that microphone just right there again.

[01:42:15]So, we we're we're talking uh we we've done some photography talk. We've done photography talk. We've done some ham radio talk. Now, we're doing some railroad talk. So, if you have any railroad questions, uh, feel free to ask away.

[01:42:37]Meanwhile, I have a text message I have to answer.

[01:42:44]There we go. I have answered the text message. So, they can no longer Come on.

[01:42:55]go back to that screen. Thank you. There we go. But did did everyone just disappear? I mean, I'm seeing people in chat, I hope, but there there's been a bit of a drop off here.

[01:43:09]What happened?

[01:43:12]Chat.

[01:43:15]Hello, chat.

[01:43:18]Chat, all aboard the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

[01:43:23]Yeah. No, maybe I mean I I I see chat here and this is the last message I've seen everywhere.

[01:43:35]Hollywood. I get I I guess I you know I would think it would go, you know, it it seems to go radio plus trains equals life for some, but I guess not.

[01:43:55]Hey, Dia. Welcome. Welcome in. Well, welcome back. Yeah, safety first.

[01:44:00]Absolutely.

[01:44:05]Oh boy howdy did he Jason. He even showed it on stream. So and yes hit hit the like button. It's free. Absolutely Tim. Absolutely. Okay. So if no one wants to talk railroad, let's talk ham or photography or you know if you have a question you want to ask just of Frank.

[01:44:26]You know what what what do you want to ask Frank?

[01:44:29]Let let's let's put it to that. What?

[01:44:32]What? What do you want to ask Frank?

[01:44:36]You remember growing up in Kingman wanting to be the guy who rode in the caboose? Conductor or breakmen? Yeah, that those were cushy jobs to a degree. They were tiresome and troublesome at times, but they were cushy. Now, now now both of those guys plus the firemen for steam engines uh is all wrapped up into one position conductor.

[01:45:06]What's my opinion on the northern extension of the smart train? Very localized there, Troy, but I'll take it.

[01:45:15]Uh it can't come soon enough. You know, uh, those of us north of Windsor have been waiting for quite a while, and I know Cloverdale is going to have to wait quite a while longer because Heelsburg isn't due until 28, I think it was. Yeah, sounds about right. Hey, Dave, welcome.

[01:45:39]So, yeah, Troy, absolutely. Uh, they need to be here already. They they needed to get it done, but I understand that it takes time, but it hasn't been as popular for whatever reason. By the way, if you guys don't know, for whatever reason, I have a railroad videography photography channel. I just dropped it in chat.

[01:46:16]Uh, and I do post videos. I mean, it's been a bit because of work and everything, but I uh filmed a testing phase, you know, all that. I have done some Let's Fly series stuff where we talk about various towns. I've done Heelsburg. I've done Williams, California, which is out in the Central Valley. I've done Cloverdale. I've uh done a let's fly series on just the skunk train alone in Fort Bragg. Uh done a handful for Cloverdale.

[01:46:53]Uh you know, I I I have a lot of fun stuff on here. And this this this is my old ch oldest channel. Ham Radio is the newer one, but this so this goes back to 7 years ago. And my first video has 8K views. So, if you aren't subscribed over here yet, you should be as well.

[01:47:15]Uh, this video here in the center in the top center. This is the opening.

[01:47:24]This is the groundbreaking ceremony that they held in Heelsburg. Now, you're like, Frank, there's drone video there.

[01:47:31]Yes, there's drone video.

[01:47:34]Let's get through my intro here. Where where is it? But there is uh groundbreaking ceremony stuff sprinkled in. I'm not going to tell you why there's drone video, but there's drone video to make it happen. Uh and then this Oh, it's scrolled. And then this is the current condition of Heelsburg.

[01:47:59]So, go check out that channel if you guys want. It's I don't post there often, but when I do, I think it's I think it's quality content, but that's just me, you know. I'm biased because it's my own channel.

[01:48:15]Uh, let's see here. I watched the train pass by hourly where I work and I only see 20 people on the train at any time.

[01:48:21]So, Troy, I haven't ridden it. I haven't had a chance to ride it recently, but 17 through 21 when it first, you know, those those first five years, four or five years there, I was even during the early uh pandemic times, I was still on it daily uh cuz I had some time off and so I would ride that just to keep what we call our railroad lakes. They're like sea legs, you know. You got to stay with the motion of the train going, you know, whatever. Um, there were 100 plus people midday and 300 plus during commute times.

[01:49:11]Uh, let's see. Do I have No, that's over here. But I can access it from here. I have a photo that I did recently that I will show you that uh I I I had some people complaining, oh, Smart Smart's dead. Smart's not, you know, blah blah blah, right? You know, there there's nobody writing Smart.

[01:49:43]Well, I happen to be at the Santa Rosa depot, so you know, close to the in the northern end of the route at this point.

[01:49:58]Yeah, here it is.

[01:50:01]But I I haven't posted this photo yet except for in uh on Next Door.

[01:50:09]So, I'll wait for this to uh run first, but once this photo loads, I'll bring it up. Uh there were at There we go. There it is.

[01:50:22]Nothing like stalling for time.

[01:50:27]If we were to count the There was nobody getting on at this point. So, these are all people getting off. I count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22. I count clearly 22 people. And there's obviously a lot more behind them that were coming off of this train.

[01:51:03]So I I would say, you know, it it might not be fully packed 247. Well, it doesn't run 24/7, but you get the idea, Troy. It still has a decent amount of people writing.

[01:51:19]Yeah, Dave, everyone hit that like button. And if you don't like what I do, hit the dislike button, too. It it it works. Uh why haven't we embraced trains as mass transit like Japan or other countries? So that's the funny thing and this is one of those what grinds my gears moments. We used to if you look at any not even metro area but metro area if you look at say San Francisco uh as a whole or LA as a whole or San Diego or Sacramento we had mass transit everywhere even into the boonies. I don't know if I can find the photo but I'll try here while I'm talking. We had mass transit everywhere.

[01:52:11]And it wasn't until uh automobiles and airlines and the interstate became popular that things really fell apart.

[01:52:26]One thing that fell apart, especially for the smaller thing, for the smaller lines, was World War II. We went, "Oh, we need the steel for the war effort more so than we need it for the rail line." So, hold on. I have to pull up this other group.

[01:52:52]Here we go. Um, this other group should have the photo I'm looking for. Here we go. So, we used to have Oh, I'm not even I'm not in the right thing. We used to have a great system. The damned nationwide. We used to have a great system. We no longer Oh, I can't even log in. Okay, never mind. Um, but it changed because of the war effort.

[01:53:20]Automobiles/instate and airplanes.

[01:53:25]that that's uh that that that's why it's we haven't embraced it because we went to the self-focused self self you know I want I want to do it myself thing with cars cars became a hit uh and that that that's why uh let's hear I think the term is pothole but why do they need to test under the tracks when the tracks have been there for 70 years Plus, I don't think anyone dug underneath it to run utility lines. Believe it or not, Troy, they have they they have dug utility lines as far back as the 80s uh when the NWP still ran the corridor uh to run utility lines, Comcast uh water water district sort of stuff. It's not just utility. it well utility in the sense of like Comcast, PG& etc. It's water and sewage, Comcast, AT&T, you know, cuz remember phone lines and rail lines usually ran side by side cuz the rail line went point to point to point, right? So, they got to make sure they know what's there.

[01:54:46]And they don't want to just rip up nine m because it's about 9 mile section they're updating. They don't want to just rip up a 9mm wide 30 foot long gap just to find what they can find just doing a potholeing.

[01:55:05]So, that that's why they're doing it. Am I part 107 rated? No. But I don't make any money off of it. So I am between that between that and I have the Mini3 and the Mini 4. Um they're the sub 250. I don't I don't have to worry about it once I start making money. That's where I have to get the part 107. At least that's how it was explained to me by a halfozen part 107 licensed pilot uh drone pilots.

[01:55:45]So between that uh what is it UAV resources or UAV air or something like that the YouTube channel and a couple others that do official stuff. So, I I'm not part 107, and if I have to be, I'll go I'll I'll deal with it. But from what I understand, as long as it's not, you know, as long as it's for recreational use, I'm good. And this is all recreational use. I'm not doing anything professionally with it. So, let's see.

[01:56:22]Bob rode light rail train around Portland, Oregon all through the late 80s and early 90s. brother. Your brother is the maintenance supervisor for the trains. Oh, very cool. I I know uh couple people in Salem and we were just talking the other day about how uh Salem used to have a great system that connected in with Portland and it's been gone forever now. Hey Dave, welcome back or welcome in. Yeah, Tim, bring back the caboose. Absolutely.

[01:56:54]Uh let's see here. You had a trolley that ran by my behind your house as a kid. You can still hear the pattern of clickity clacks as it went down the track. Oh yeah, absolutely.

[01:57:04]If anybody can't hear that, then well, they haven't been around long enough.

[01:57:11]Uh Bob, they keep promising us a high-speed train from Vegas to LA. So Bob, that that that's the funny thing about it. It doesn't even go to proper LA. It stops in like Victorville or something. So you still got to drive I-15 over Kahhone, you know, to get into proper LA basin. So it, you know, Yeah, absolutely.

[01:57:37]Let's see here. You took Amtrak from Salt Lake to Seattle and it was awesome.

[01:57:40]I love the train sleeping cars and so nice. Yeah, Empire Builder is a So Empire Builder. Wait, from Salt Lake to Seattle?

[01:57:50]So is that the Zephyr and then the Coast Starlight? I don't think the builder does Salt Lake to Seattle because it goes up through the Dakotas from Chicago.

[01:58:03]But either way, yeah, absolutely.

[01:58:06]Air travel became more affordable. Sub suburbanization killed rail in most of the country. Yeah, it might have, Jason, but the the big blame is air air interstate air and interstate auto travel. That That's the uh big takeaway there.

[01:58:26]Still the same way. Still the same way.

[01:58:28]What? Jeff.

[01:58:32]All right. Have fun at Home Depot. Uh Tim, I I'm personally a low low guy except for when it comes to lumber. Then I'll go to Home Depot to pot. And yes, I know it's Home Depot, but everybody just funnily says Home Depot to pot. I mean, come on, guys.

[01:58:50]Interstates killed the railroad star.

[01:58:52]Absolutely. Hollywood.

[01:59:01]Absolutely.

[01:59:02]Uh 15 goes in the San Bernardino Valley, not LA. Well, I mean, it eventually gets to LA, but yeah, Dave, semantics here, you know, not not all of us. I mean, yes, I I work out of Barstow and I drop over Coahone and whatnot, but not all of us know everything that well, so I just generalize, you know. Oh, you went through Sacramento. So, it was uh California, Zephyr, and then Co Starlight up through uh from Sacramento up through Reading, uh Dunmere, Clamoth Falls, etc. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:59:43]Part 107 is still the same rules as you discussed. Okay. So may maybe we should talk about this off air then. But uh from my understanding part 107 you basically have to learn everything a pilot has to learn to begin with. And you only have to get it if you're commercializing your drone content. If it's recreational, you don't have to 107.

[02:00:14]That That's just That's just how I have been taught it. So, if if if that is off or whatever, message me on Discord, please. Yeah.

[02:00:25]Uh trust me, the people that live in San Bernardino Valley, don't claim LA. Yeah, I I I know there there's a big difference between LA and Inland Empire.

[02:00:36]Trust me, I I I tav I know that uh you know the LA people look down on both well not literally but figuratively look down on Inland Empire and High Desert, you know, Apple Valley, Victorville, etc. They they they they look down on all of that area, you know, they go, "Oh, we're we're better than that." You know, blah. I'm sorry.

[02:01:07]Oh, Rob's got his stream up now. Thank you. Uh, Jason, let me at Digital Rancher. Let me grab that link. Did he? Oh, he did message it to me. Okay, good. Running late. Will in five. And that was a little bit ago.

[02:01:28]Okay.

[02:01:31]Uh, let's see. Share. Copy link. Go into my studio that I already had partially open. Customize. Add redirect. Search videos from other channels. Paste link.

[02:01:48]Select and save.

[02:01:53]LA doesn't even claim LA. Depends upon what LA part you're from. I if you're go Dodgers and a few other parts of LA. Uh yeah, you you you're like you you guys just saw that, right? Yeah.

[02:02:14]If you're like go Dodgers and go a few other things, you're definitely Oh, heck yeah. LA is my town.

[02:02:26]Yeah, they're they're they're definitely like that.

[02:02:30]Oh, I I I know, Dave. We've talked about that. We we we've talked about that. But yeah, that for for again for the general audience that may not know. Absolutely.

[02:02:44]Oh, Joshua, I would love to go back to Bishop. I I cannot pull the photo up because I wouldn't have time to dig through the thousands of photos I've taken. But I have actually do I have it.

[02:03:00]Hold on. I might be able to do this. I have a half hour. I might be able to do this. Let Let me see if I can do this. I have a photo of me with and every everybody clutch your pearls. Now I have a photo of me with a working pay phone outside of Bishop, California.

[02:03:28]Yes, a working pay phone. Now granted, this was 2022 or 23, so it's been a few years, but yeah, a working pay phone.

[02:03:43]And and it was working cuz I tested it.

[02:03:46]I picked it up. I put in it was uh 50 cents still. So two two quarters. I I put in the two quarters and I dialed my phone number. Granted, I had no cell service. I dialed my phone number. It went through and I left myself a voicemail.

[02:04:04]I went hi something like, "Hi from the pay phone outside Bishop. Let me see if I can scroll far enough to find it cuz I have a buttload of photos."

[02:04:18]But yeah. Um, no, I I've I have not been to Benton, though. That that is on the uh to-do list. that that's part of the you're late to the chat, but that's part of the high desert area. Uh I think it was Bob asked, no, Bob or Brian, one of the two of them asked me uh earlier if I could have the if I could have my way with my QTH antenna setup, where would it be? And I you'll have to team replay to see where I showed, but uh yeah, that that's definitely part of that area. How far back am I? I'm not that far back. I I post too much. That Oh, yeah. I'm I'm not that far back at all. So, I'll I'll see if I can find it before the end of stream. If not, I'll send it to you, Joshua, uh on Discord.

[02:05:14]Uh I I'm pretty sure it's still standing day because uh one of my one of the van lifers I'm sort of I we've we've met in passing but I watch their channel a lot. Uh they have recently like in the last year here done a video at the ghost town in Bishop.

[02:05:45]So yeah. Okay. Let's see here. This was 22. I I recognize it because uh of photos taken.

[02:05:56]Let's see here. There was a working pay phone at the Shoreline bus station here up until about 2 years ago. People tore it off the wall like three times in a row, so they quit putting it back. Well, that sucks.

[02:06:10]I mean, you probably have cell service there, but that that sucks cuz what if you don't have cell service then? Uh yeah. Okay. So, it was it was even earlier than 22 then cuz I'm uh late about this time of year in 2022 worth of photos. So, I'm still I'm still scrolling.

[02:06:35]At WBZ, we used to call random payones and put them on the air for the Larry Lick show. That's hilarious, Hollywood.

[02:06:43]That That is absolutely positively hilarious. That But you would h wouldn't you have to know that it's a pay phone number, though? Or or was that one of those where you know if you dial 70792 3000 to 3099 you were guaranteed to get a pay phone. It was one of those where that the subsegments were uh of the phone number were automatically known as payoneses because if so okay that makes sense. But let's see here. A lot of pay phones have been removed here, but most rural towns have one and all calls are free. So, they really should change the name as they are not payoneses anymore. Free phones would be better, Colin. That that that is very or just phones. Just straight up phones.

[02:07:38]Let's see here. Yeah. Operating out. Oh, did did you do a quick team replay on that, Josh? Is that is that what that is? You're responding to that already?

[02:07:48]That that's that be hilarious if you did you you scrub back real quick and then came forward. Jeez. Okay, so I am into 20 September of 2020 and I haven't found the photo yet.

[02:08:05]So must have been prior to 20. Maybe it was 19. I thought it was later than 20, but might be uh because I I I you know I We all know payones. If if you didn't know what a pay phone was, you know, certain generations don't know, but to find a pay phone and out in the wild like that, I Okay, granted it was like a half mile from the Calrans yard there. So, you know, it wasn't like it was a huge issue. That's it. No, that's not it. I thought I was close.

[02:08:43]You had a type list of hundreds of pay phone numbers across the country. Wow.

[02:08:48]To have a list like that, that is amazing.

[02:08:53]Some of the phones have free Wi-Fi available at them as well. Wait, in in in the middle of nowhere basically calling that that is wild. I'm still looking for this pay phone photo. I I just may have to uh if I don't find it right now uh in the next like two scrolls here, which will be about a half minute, I will go look for it later because I know which Dropbox folder it's in. Uh and I will post it to my Discord.

[02:09:27]I'll post it in the general part of my Discord for everyone to look at.

[02:09:34]Let's see.

[02:09:36]You have a collect call from Ma. I'm ready to be picked up from the skating rink. Yeah, absolutely. Tim, I've only ever operated from my apartment with almost no receive. I have to use an SDR most of the time to complete CUSOS. I would love to go somewhere where I could just use the radio for the whole thing.

[02:09:53]Yeah, fair enough, Joshua. Fair enough.

[02:09:55]I I absolutely agree with that. You know, considering the problems I have I have had over the last year and a half here at the QTH. I absolutely positively agree with that. I I would love to do the same and that's why I would uh go elsewhere for my po, you know, for my operating. I go down to local park if I have the time. I'll go over the hill to the site, etc. Oh, by the way, even though Jod's no longer here, at least I don't. Maybe he's lurking.

[02:10:31]So, going back to the photography thing of have I ever been caught in a photo before, this is another photo that's still published. Uh, well, they're all published for the most part, but this is a behindthescenes photo. Come on, switch over to the switch over to the other. No, I don't.

[02:10:53]Oh, I hit the wrong button.

[02:10:57]This is another photo from that other photo shoot.

[02:11:03]And let's see, let me inigen me from over here.

[02:11:13]So, black hair is the model siren. Pink hair is the photographer in training.

[02:11:22]Then we're going to go back to that screen. There we go.

[02:11:27]Let's see. Where is Yeah, I'm not finding it.

[02:11:37]So, I will have to Yeah, I'm not finding it. So, you'll just have to wait for the pay phone photo in the general section of the Discord of my Discord, Ham Radio Wilderness. Uh, let's see. I Oh, I don't have that up. Um, let's see. We'll do it this way.

[02:12:05]Hopefully that'll do it. Uh, yeah. So, if you're not in the Discord, come hang out in the Discord. It's very quiet, but it's fun. Uh, you know, when when there's activity. There we go. When when there's activity, there's activity, and it's fun to hang out in. All right, let's see here. I I think we all rang parents reverse charge from a pay phone for a pickup. Absolutely. Or the uh the the one that gets me. I've never had to do it, but uh you know, you uh ring it and sort of like the paraphrase the ad here.

[02:12:44]It's Bob. It's a boy, you know, and leave it at that. Yeah.

[02:12:52]Just tell Mark. Tell tell Mark what?

[02:12:56]All right, let's hear a pay phone with Wi-Fi.

[02:13:01]Screen share. Hit the right one. There we go. See, it's great when I hit the right button the first time.

[02:13:12]Wow.

[02:13:17]And you can also tell.

[02:13:20]So, yes, I know I'm zoomed in, but you can also tell as a photographer, they went for the motion blur of the bicyclist, but they weren't doing the photography any justice cuz this writing, even zoomed in as far as I have, should still be crystal clear, and it's not. So there there was some uh camera shake or ground shake if it was on a tripod uh because they wanted a motion blur shot of the bicyclist. The sign should be crystal clear, too. Little things you pick up on as a photographer. It's annoying sometimes because I'll sit there and I'll go, "Oh, that's a great photo." And then I zoom in on those little details. I'm like, "Oh, never mind. That's not as great as I thought it was." And I do that with my own stuff, too. And that's why if it's not 1,000% perfect, oh well, it doesn't get published.

[02:14:36]So, there we go. Now, now I'm Now I'm really wanting to know where this Huh?

[02:14:47]Okay. Someone has me worried now. They They just messaged me that my Instagram disappeared.

[02:14:54]That Instagram's there.

[02:14:57]Oh, I I think I know what they're talking about. Actually, hold on. Do I have that photo in my Instagram? Maybe. No, that's going to take too long to zoom. I'm not I'm not going to bother. Let's see. You supposed to pick a pay phone in from Phoenix in Discord General. All right, let's take a look at let's Yeah. Yeah. Uh what what what pay I mean I I get it, but uh what pay phone?

[02:15:36]I mean, yeah, I get it. it. It's still a pay phone, but um yeah, I don't think you're going to be able to hear the other end too well. Just saying.

[02:15:48]Let's see here.

[02:15:50]623 582 9 something.

[02:16:01]It It's faded slashcut off there. So, and it's not super zoomed in, but yeah.

[02:16:10]Very cool find.

[02:16:14]All right.

[02:16:16]Uh, yes, I know the timer has run out, but I didn't set it for a full time time.

[02:16:24]Yeah, timed time. There we go. And I I will find my pay phone photo and I I will definitely post it in Discord for everyone to see it because I'm literally doing like something like that for and it or maybe I wasn't covering my mouth. I was doing a self because I was I was doing a selfie or so maybe I was like you know whatever. Anyway, let's see here. One more. This is a standard rural phone box.

[02:17:06]Yeah, that's that's not too bad until until what should actually be good.

[02:17:17]So, I'm plused up as much as I can here.

[02:17:21]This is good. This is good. I don't expect this sign to be good, but this is this is pretty decent.

[02:17:30]It wasn't quite taken on a potato cam, but it wasn't taken on the uh highest quality either.

[02:17:42]Oh yeah, Lily Tomlin. I love that.

[02:17:45]H might listen to that on my way to work, Hollywood.

[02:17:50]Uh, absolutely.

[02:17:54]So, let me clear out some tabs here real quick.

[02:18:00]There we go. Clear that out. Colin, I will definitely look into that. I'm going to uh as I as I showed earlier, I made a note for myself in my private me.

[02:18:13]You know, fun fact, if you're on Discord, you can send yourself messages or if you have a second account, you can send that account messages. Um, so that's what I do with important stuff that I need to take get taken care of or whatever. That way, I don't lose it, I don't forget about it, etc., etc. So, I will reach out to YouTube Studio and see what they have to say.

[02:18:43]Uh I I I'll have to see what they say about that because yeah, that is the fact that you cannot leave a message in the membership milestone is very very odd.

[02:19:11]So yeah, um got me distracted with Jenny's girl in my Yeah. Jesse's girl in my head there cuz cuz you know the the the the meme about Chess's girl, Stacy's mom and Yeah. Anyway, um there was something else I wanted to.

[02:19:39]Yeah. Okay. So, let's go.

[02:19:44]Let's see.

[02:19:47]Oh, that's what I wanted to talk about.

[02:19:50]So, you know on my Thursday night live streams rank something else how I've been posting a comment to the Reddit replies. I'm we're not seeing any responses from the Reddit posts.

[02:20:10]So, we all know I've been having issues with Reddit being stupid. I I'll leave these comments like we did last night, right? Well, watch what happens.

[02:20:25]I've been banned, huh?

[02:20:29]you know. Okay. So, that there there's that. But let's log in with my photography account. Actually, shoot.

[02:20:42]Hold on.

[02:20:45]Yeah. Let's uh Do I not have that? Do I not have the right password? I don't have the right password. Oh boy. This just gets more and more fun. All right, we're going to do it over here. We're we're we're going to do it from the account that I know is logged in as my photography.

[02:21:11]Okay, that's the first time I've seen that. That's not great, but okay. Um, so let me we're going to pull that down and then screen share the iMac. There we go.

[02:21:33]So these are all the new posts, right? So if I go back, let's say, oh yeah, I we commented on this post, right?

[02:21:47]because everybody remembers the bow fang and me talking about the DM32 versus the UV32.

[02:21:54]Let's go look at new.

[02:21:59]So 24 hours ago, 20 23 24 hours ago is when I should have posted. If I if I just do a search of my call sign, nothing found. Zero out of zero. So, let me plus this up.

[02:22:18]There's that reply.

[02:22:21]That reply.

[02:22:23]That one.

[02:22:27]That one. They replied to LA. That one.

[02:22:31]That one. That one.

[02:22:35]And that's it.

[02:22:38]There is no my reply is not there. So, I checked a few other posts and the same thing happened on all of them. So, I'm gonna have to figure out why Reddit is not letting my Ham Radio account post because I try and keep Ham Radio and Frank's Rails separate for various reasons. And I'm not trying to have, you know, all the ham stuff on Frank's Rails. I'm not trying to have Frank's rails on all the ham stuff, but yeah, that that is uh quite the interesting interesting conundrum there.

[02:23:21]Let's see.

[02:23:24]Back in the day, those pay phone boxes saved many a stranded trucker. Yeah, probably. Uh when I lived in Japan, they had phones everywhere. You could use phone cards that had different types of advertising on them. It was pretty cool.

[02:23:36]Collected a lot of them. Yeah.

[02:23:40]I I I I bet they had some very fun types of advertising on them, too. Absolutely.

[02:23:48]Uh DMR code plugs suck. DMR is not good for beginner. So that that's uh that's a good point, Colin, but I don't know if it was the DM32 or the UV32 because they look exactly alike.

[02:24:06]Try I don't think so. I I don't think they block influencers.

[02:24:12]And I I'm sorry, but I Yes, I'm a hamtuber. Am I an influencer?

[02:24:19]I don't think so. I I I really don't think so. Uh but there's literally no there's no And I I've posted a question from my ham radio account. It's there. Just none of the comments I've ever posted over the last what four or five weeks, six weeks of doing the Frank something else on Reddit have I se there's been zero comments.

[02:24:49]Well, Colin, okay, so Colin, I disagree because if everything should block influencers, Ham Tube wouldn't be a thing. van lifing uh van life on YouTube wouldn't be a thing. Uh off-grid communication or off-grid anything wouldn't be a thing on YouTube or anywhere else for that matter because at the end of the day, well, I don't consider myself one. At the end of the day, all of us, even Greg, even Greg is a hamube influencer.

[02:25:34]So I I I don't know.

[02:25:42]Hey Rob, maybe it's thinking you're a bot. So that's the interesting thing. So that's what that that's one reason why I switched up how I worded things and I try to interact with as many posts as I can when I'm active. I give them the upvote if it's a good post. If a comment is stupid, I downvote it. If I have something to add, I will add it.

[02:26:10]But none of my posts that go, "Hey, we discussed this on my live stream. Here's the timestamp and here's the live stream link."

[02:26:23]None of those have gotten posted. So, all the help every Let's see here. How how many times have I done Frank something else? Let me let me look at my studio here. Content live streams uh pranks something.

[02:26:48]There are 11.

[02:26:53]Well, that's um there's 12 live streams total. Okay, 12 of them dating back to March 5th.

[02:27:08]And none of the Reddit comments that I have made in those 12 live streams are up there.

[02:27:19]It's weird. And then and then Reddit claiming I'm banned. Let's see. Let me on this on this monitor here. Let's see if I can log into the account.

[02:27:36]No, it's this here.

[02:27:39]Continue.

[02:27:46]It lets me log in. So, I'm not banned, but there's no You can see all my ham radio stuff here.

[02:27:57]But if I go to r/am radio, because that's where this thread was.

[02:28:04]Well, one of them.

[02:28:06]Let's go back down to this one. 14 comments.

[02:28:14]We'll zoom back in.

[02:28:20]Not one of these.

[02:28:23]Pat the sound guy got in there. I know.

[02:28:25]I know. I know Pat. He's over in the ham jazz discord.

[02:28:29]But not a single one of these is any of my comment.

[02:28:38]I'm at the bottom now. It's weird.

[02:28:42]It's weird. All right. So Rob starts in about 2 minutes here.

[02:28:48]Uh Colin says, "I mean the ones who dance around like clowns." Colin, you send in the right super chance super chat and I'll dance.

[02:28:57]It It's going to take a lot, but I'll dance.

[02:29:01]Uh Frank has the exact opposite effect of influence. Maybe Ted. I don't know.

[02:29:06]It's a conspiracy, Jeff. It might be Rob. I don't know. It's all the subreddits. It It's r/amradio. It's ran amateur radio. It's r, you know, it's all of them. It's so r/amradio, r/amate radio, r/amradio beginner, uh what was another one that I've been active in? Uh r/dmr and r/aprs.

[02:29:39]All five of those just done. So, I have no clue. All right. So, just in case this doesn't properly drop y'all, uh I'm going to hit the end button, Troy. Maybe that's it. Maybe maybe that's it. Anyway, I want to thank everybody for hanging out with me for Fridays with Frank. Saturday for some of you calling. I'm looking at you. Um, go say hi to Rob. I'm going to drop y'all into his chat here and uh tell him I sent you. Until next time, 73 and P on y'all.