0:00

Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to

0:03

you by Pizza man Productions . Hey

0:07

, this is Scott Townsend , welcome back to the Scott Townsend

0:09

Show . And today I have with me executive

0:13

producer of the Scott Townsend Show

0:15

, ben Townsend . You and I were talking the

0:17

other day and it's your estimation

0:19

that things are heating

0:21

up around the world . I think everybody would agree with that

0:23

. Things are heating up around the world

0:26

. I think everybody would agree with that . We've

0:35

seen discord and disorder to the greatest extent since the Civil War

0:37

and division and all that kind of stuff

0:39

, and it's just nobody's there's

0:41

nobody happy out there anymore

0:43

. Everybody's got something

0:46

to say , an opinion to throw out

0:48

, and

0:50

this is an election year and those

0:52

are always especially

0:55

fraught

0:58

with tension

1:00

and people trying

1:03

to win other people over to

1:05

something they'll never win them over to . So

1:09

, uh , everything's

1:12

kind of heating up . There's

1:14

a boiling , boiling point . It seems

1:16

like we're china into

1:18

, was it taiwan ? And uh

1:21

, or they're talking

1:23

about that , and um

1:25

, of course , russia and ukraine

1:27

and that's all kinds of stuff

1:30

going on . So we

1:33

are going to talk about communication

1:35

. So , uh , when it comes

1:37

to these these

1:39

times , what

1:42

were you thinking when you made the decision to

1:46

become a ham operate

1:48

radio operator ?

1:51

yeah , well , I mean , I've actually wanted to do it for a long

1:53

time because I like , I

1:55

like I'm a technology kind of person

1:57

. Um , I used to

1:59

work in technology I'm presently

2:01

retired , but , um

2:04

, I've always had it

2:06

or not always for probably like seven

2:10

years , seven years . But you've gotta

2:12

in order to get going with video

2:14

, uh , gotta

2:18

go , you gotta study .

2:30

It wasn't high

2:32

on

2:35

the priority and

2:42

your audio is really breaking up .

2:45

Mr Technology . Yeah

2:47

, I'm in the city right

2:49

now . Is it any better right now ?

2:52

yeah , can you move your phone around or something ? Can

2:55

you move it to another location , the other

2:58

side of your desk , or ?

3:01

yeah , let's see , I've got a better

3:03

idea okay , let's

3:06

do this , let's see . I've

3:08

got a better idea . Okay , let's

3:13

see , let's

3:18

go here .

3:23

I'm going to join you from my iPad . It's on a . It's on a .

3:26

Wi-Fi ? I don't know .

3:27

Wi-Fi Okay

3:29

.

3:30

Okay

3:37

, okay

3:43

.

3:45

Cool , are you going gonna show your face

3:47

?

3:49

yes , just

4:03

chill out okay

4:06

, all right , let's go so so

4:09

I guess , yeah , I guess , the reason why I was interested in

4:11

, uh , in ham radio , um

4:14

, was just because I like the idea of

4:16

, you know , really not needing

4:19

any , any kind

4:21

of infrastructure , um , you

4:23

know , to communicate with other people , no

4:25

people because you know we're all kind of dispersed here in oklahoma

4:28

. Uh , I have a son in houston

4:30

. We're in austin here . I got friends all

4:32

over the place I mean texas yeah

4:34

, yeah . Well , I got , yeah , oklahoma

4:36

and texas , and then friends

4:39

, you know , in different states and stuff , so

4:41

anyway , so I like the idea of being able to communicate

4:43

without infrastructure , so I'm not dependent on infrastructure

4:46

.

4:47

Um and you think you're gonna be

4:49

in a .

4:49

You think we're gonna be at a point where we aren't gonna

4:52

be , can't be dependent on the

4:54

infrastructure yeah

4:57

, I mean , I , I think you know , just I

5:00

listen to some guys who , um

5:02

, they , they're , they're

5:04

former military , they're intelligence

5:07

officers and they're

5:09

no longer in the military but they still have a

5:12

like an information

5:14

service for a civilian

5:16

audience and they talk about you know

5:18

a lot of different things you

5:21

know related to how things are going domestically

5:24

, how things are going internationally , and just you know , related to how things are going domestically , how things are going internationally , um

5:26

, and just you know , kind of keep

5:29

an eye , help people understand

5:31

. You know kind of do what news

5:34

used to do years ago , is report

5:36

. You know what happened , uh versus

5:39

look at what happened and then tell

5:41

you from their perspective , kind of the how

5:43

versus the what . So

5:45

you know , so it's hard because you get you

5:47

get somebody else's bias , um

5:50

in that . And you know , I think I think

5:52

news media today is

5:54

, um , is probably more biased than I've

5:57

ever seen it , and so it makes it difficult

5:59

to understand what's actually going on . You know

6:01

, I want to know what's going on , um

6:04

, from an objective as objective

6:06

a viewpoint as I can get , um

6:09

, and then you know , kind of make

6:11

my own interpretation , you know

6:13

, of what happened . I don't get somebody else's

6:15

interpretation of what happened with their

6:17

bias a lot of bias thrown in there

6:19

, a lot of agenda thrown in there , and then

6:22

try to make sense of something that that's already

6:24

you know . Maybe if we saw the same

6:26

event , I wouldn't even see it the same way . So

6:28

you know , I think you know a journalist

6:30

. You know what is a journalist . A

6:32

journalist is somebody who takes a journal

6:35

of events , you know , and the

6:37

idea , I think , is to get yourself out

6:39

of it and witness

6:41

something . If

6:43

you're seeing a parade and you're a journalist

6:45

and you're writing to an audience

6:48

or you're reporting it , you want to . You want

6:50

to make it so real to them from

6:52

where you are , take them in , you

6:54

know , to what happened at the parade , what it sounded

6:57

like , what floats came by . You know

6:59

all this kind of stuff without injecting

7:01

yourself into it , because once you've done that , you

7:03

kind of tainted the experience . You know

7:06

you're either trying to sensationalize it or downplay

7:08

it or whatever your agenda happens to be

7:10

. I think our media is full of agenda

7:13

and bias and therefore it's really

7:15

hard to know what the truth is , kind of

7:17

like what's going on , and so

7:19

I feel like you know , for a paid

7:21

service and

7:23

kind of you know , listening

7:26

to , you know some people with

7:28

their own you know kind of version

7:30

of the news , um and

7:32

you know , and

7:35

also their their um prior

7:37

training as military intelligence officers

7:40

you know to to kind of give you

7:42

um the bottom line up front

7:44

, the bluff you know , and

7:46

of give you um the bottom line up front , the bluff you know , and um help you understand

7:49

what's going on so

7:51

you can kind of make your own determination

7:53

. You can start connecting a lot of different you

7:56

know , dots you know , and doing that

7:58

and um draw your own

8:00

conclusions . And it's fine to

8:02

get somebody else's opinion , you know , and I think

8:04

that's extremely valuable to get somebody else's opinion

8:06

, uh , but they're also

8:08

it's also extremely valuable to be able

8:11

to get facts you know , like actually

8:13

what happened without opinion , and

8:15

I think that's what's missing from

8:17

the mix . If you're turning on and watching network

8:19

television , okay

8:21

, what is ?

8:22

what ? What are you ? Uh , what's this ? Where

8:24

are you getting this information ?

8:28

so , uh , there's , there's a , um

8:30

, there's a service

8:33

called the early warning network . I think you

8:35

can go on to early warning networkcom , um

8:38

, and you can , um , you go in

8:40

there and subscribe to their service , um

8:42

, and it's pretty interesting because , you

8:45

know , they do , they talk about what's

8:47

going on , you know , within our nation

8:50

. They

8:52

talk about what's going on inside the Beltway

8:55

, you know , in Washington , kind of

8:57

like the real intense political

8:59

scene at a national excuse

9:02

me , national level . And

9:04

they got , um , some guys who are

9:06

kind of experts on

9:08

, kind of in that , in that political

9:10

sphere , as part of what

9:12

they did as military intelligence officers , and

9:14

now they're just doing it for a civilian audience . But

9:17

you also have guys who are , you know

9:19

, uh , former um navy

9:21

officers you know , who

9:23

also give you know , who also

9:25

give you know , um , weigh in frequently on what's going

9:27

on with our Navy , where they are , um

9:29

, and some of the issues that they're having , uh

9:32

, some of the hotspots around the world that they're paying

9:34

attention to . So you get the domestic look

9:37

, you get inside the beltway look , and

9:39

you kind of get an international look , um

9:42

, look at where the United States is

9:45

engaging , but also

9:48

what's going on internationally

9:51

where the United States may not yet

9:53

be engaging . So

9:55

what are some of the emerging issues

9:58

around the globe ? So , anyway

10:00

, I found it pretty

10:02

informative . I like that kind of thing a

10:10

means of distributing their

10:12

national intelligence briefing

10:14

over ham radio , which

10:16

is really cool because , um , like

10:19

I said earlier , you know you can get your

10:21

um , you can get your reports and everything

10:23

, um , aside

10:26

from having to have infrastructure

10:28

, uh and I don't know if we're going to have an

10:30

infrastructure problem , but I do know , just

10:33

from listening to these briefs that

10:35

you know it's like in

10:38

. They're saying that in 2025

10:41

, you

10:43

know we're going to have more

10:46

electrical problems . You have

10:48

a lot of artificial intelligence

10:50

capacity

10:53

that's trying to spin up across the United States

10:55

. It's incredibly energy intensive and

10:58

we're taking down a lot

11:01

of electrical generation

11:03

infrastructure and

11:05

we're not replacing it . I

11:07

mean , we are losing ground on

11:10

our grid capacity . That's

11:13

one problem . The other problem is we're replacing

11:15

a lot of that grid capacity with either

11:17

wind or solar . I have nothing

11:20

against wind or solar , um , but

11:22

when the wind stops blowing or the sun stopped shining

11:24

, or when we had the whole snowmageddon

11:26

thing down here in the south a couple years ago , I mean

11:28

all that stuff shut down and

11:31

people were , you know , in these intense

11:33

conditions and they needed , you know , when

11:35

they needed energy most . They couldn't get so . So

11:37

I think , I think you know , and they're saying

11:39

, you know it's not going to start . They're not talking about any kind

11:42

of , like you know , armageddon kind of thing

11:44

. They're just talking about starting

11:47

in 2025 . This , this equation

11:49

of the power consumption

11:52

need in the United States and

11:54

the power generation

11:57

capacity the equation

11:59

doesn't work . The demand

12:01

is going to a place that cannot be supplied

12:04

by our current infrastructure

12:06

, especially as we shut down coal . And

12:09

, aside from any kind of environmental

12:13

argument , which I don't really get too much into

12:15

that , um , I just feel like , you

12:17

know , as a utility , you

12:19

know , I feel like government

12:21

state government most

12:23

, for the most part , but federal too , since

12:26

they play in that space I think they have an obligation

12:28

, you know , to make sure that we have the power we

12:30

need to , you know , run a orderly

12:32

society and that's that doesn't

12:34

look like it's the case going forward . And so I

12:36

think what they're thinking is , you know , we're

12:38

going to have more

12:40

brownouts um , you know

12:42

, kind of enrolling blackouts in 2025

12:45

. That will impact people , you know

12:47

, more than it has in the past and

12:49

that's probably going to continue to be the case

12:52

for a number of years . They'll probably

12:54

grow in intensity , you know , over the coming

12:56

years , because you can't just bring a power plant

12:58

online all of a sudden , and

13:01

so we got to get this figured out . But in the meantime , you

13:03

know , it could be a little bit of a bumpy road . So

13:06

I mean , that's what I'm anticipating .

13:09

So this with

13:11

the ham how did you get started

13:13

in the ham radio business

13:15

? I mean , what , uh , if

13:18

I was going to start and

13:20

I told you I would , so I'm

13:22

going to be , I'm going to be a hammy

13:25

here pretty soon . How

13:27

do you get started in ham radio ? So

13:29

someone out there listening wants to start up and

13:32

says I agree with everything Ben just said . Hmm

13:35

, I think I need to be a ham radio operator yeah

13:38

, well , I mean , anybody can get a ham radio

13:40

.

13:40

I mean it can be something as simple as you

13:43

know something like this . You know little

13:45

radio like this . It's five watt radio

13:47

um and you

13:49

know people look at that and say , well , it looks like

13:51

, looks like a walkie-talkie . It kind of is

13:53

, but it just has greater capability

13:56

, has a capability of

13:58

talking to you , can use repeaters

14:00

. So , for example , like on this

14:02

little radio that I just showed you , I

14:05

can hit a repeater 17

14:07

miles across town and so

14:09

when I hit that repeater I

14:12

say something to that repeater , or

14:14

on this frequency , and then the repeater

14:16

amplifies what I just

14:18

said and it shoots out . You

14:21

know , a signal that can be heard

14:23

at much greater distance . You know , using repeaters

14:25

, that's on a VHF

14:27

, uhf radio , which

14:29

is what I just showed you . Then you have

14:31

high frequency radio that

14:34

doesn't and

14:37

VHF and UHF . It doesn't use

14:39

the atmosphere to propagate

14:41

, to send its signal out . It's basically

14:44

line of sight

14:46

HF radio where you see people , they have

14:48

a house , you see a gigantic antenna

14:50

. It's like what are they trying to do ? Talk to Mars or something ? And it's like

14:52

what ?

14:52

are they trying ?

14:53

to talk to mars or something that's like that . Those hf rigs , radios

14:56

, you know , they , they do depend on

14:58

the ionosphere , so a signal goes

15:00

up from where you are , your location , it can

15:02

be your . Your antenna can be something as simple as

15:04

a wire . You know which is what I have

15:06

. It's a 73 foot long wire , but it's a wire

15:08

um , and it'll

15:10

send it . It'll send , you know , the hf signal . It will bounce off the atmosphere

15:13

and it'll send it . It'll send , you know , the HF signal . It will bounce off the atmosphere

15:15

and it will bounce back down

15:17

to earth and , and that's how

15:19

you know , and it just keeps bouncing back

15:21

and forth , you know , between the atmosphere

15:23

and the earth . And that's where you get those kinds

15:25

of like extreme distances , like you can hear , into

15:28

conversations with people you know on different

15:31

continents , you know , let alone the united

15:33

. It's easy , you know , have conversations

15:35

within the united states and I hear people all the time

15:37

from california and oregon and texas

15:39

and um that's the farthest

15:41

you've gone or heard uh

15:45

, you know , I think , uh

15:47

, you know , I've heard people up in the northeast

15:49

like around maine , um

15:51

, but you know , also here are people

15:53

from Puerto Rico and Mexico

15:57

, and you know , just all over . And

15:59

I , you know , I don't have the kind of gear , like the kind

16:01

of heavy duty gear , I would need to talk

16:03

, you know , to Australia , like I , I

16:06

can't do that with my current setup . I

16:08

have the licensing to get that set up , but that's

16:10

really not my interest . My interest is really

16:12

more on regional communications . So

16:15

, you know , know , just think about

16:17

drawing a 500 mile circle

16:19

, you know , around my

16:22

location here in texas and

16:24

that kind of gets me in communication

16:27

with about 80 percent of the people that

16:30

I feel like I would like to communicate with

16:32

or need to communicate with , and so

16:34

that's really kind of my objective

16:36

. And the rig that I have very nice

16:38

, it's a newer Yaesu HF

16:41

model and with my antenna set up and

16:43

it accomplishes that objective . If I want

16:45

to talk you know they call it

16:47

DXing distance communications

16:49

If I want to do that , I could , but that's

16:52

not my objective .

16:52

If I want to do that , I could , but that's not my objective

16:55

, so would your little walkie

16:57

talkie looking thing reach up

16:59

here to Bartlesville ?

17:00

No , no , I

17:02

mean you can link repeaters , but

17:05

you know , I

17:07

don't . I don't think there's a big network of linked

17:09

repeaters . So , basically , what

17:11

repeaters do is that they'll give you the

17:13

ability to communicate . I'll

17:15

say within um , you know

17:17

just people , as

17:20

soon as I say this , somebody's gonna say oh no , you're wrong

17:22

about that , but you know

17:24

, I'll say uh , I'll say 40

17:26

miles . Okay , you know , depending on how

17:28

you're set up which is

17:30

really nice because , like you know , especially in the

17:32

event , like those people in north carolina , um

17:35

, you know , they don't , they

17:37

don't have cell tower

17:40

coverage right now . They don't have cell tower , they don't

17:42

have any communications at all or

17:44

power , you know . And so

17:46

what's kind of saving the day for those guys over there

17:48

is that little radio . I just held

17:50

up that one right there , but you know vhf

17:52

radio . Now I know it's kind of line

17:55

of sight and it's a hilly

17:57

terrain but , they're using it to great

17:59

effect in those areas

18:01

because it's their only means of communication right

18:03

now . So you know that would be another scenario

18:06

, a little more extreme of course , but

18:08

one where you know .

18:09

We're seeing a lot more extreme going

18:12

on ever since the snow

18:15

, what you call the snowpocalypse or whatever

18:17

it's again texas

18:19

a couple years ago . Yeah

18:22

, um weather , crazy weather

18:24

, hurricanes , big hurricanes , you know . Seems

18:27

like they're getting bigger all the time yeah , so

18:29

you know .

18:30

Back to your question , though you were asking how do

18:32

you get ham ? You don't have to be

18:34

licensed to get a ham radio , you

18:36

just have to be licensed to

18:38

hit that transmit button so

18:41

you can listen all you want . And there's a lot of value

18:43

actually in just listening

18:45

without license . But

18:47

you know , you kind of have to learn how to use

18:49

the equipment , how you

18:53

know the various frequency ranges

18:55

that that are available to you , depending on

18:57

what kind of rig you get um

18:59

. But you know . So once you

19:01

do that , it's really about you know

19:03

passing your test . There's basically three levels

19:05

you can get . The first level is technician , which

19:08

allows you to talk on that little radio I just showed you

19:10

. It allows you to communicate on vhf and uhf

19:12

, primarily two meters also , but um

19:15

. And then there's a general class

19:17

, which is which is where I am

19:19

that allows me to also use

19:22

those hf bounds . It's bands

19:24

that skip off the um , the

19:26

ionosphere , back to earth , and does that kind of

19:28

, you know , back and forth , skip propagation

19:30

, um . So that that's that's what

19:32

I'm doing to you know , to be able to get out in

19:34

a 500 mile circle . So it's

19:36

about you can get the equipment you

19:39

can start , you know , studying for that those

19:41

exams , take the exams and you can start

19:43

transmitting and learning how to use it right

19:45

the

19:51

line's really knocking me out there . So

19:58

what tip would you give listeners

20:00

who are wanting to start out ? Based

20:03

on your experience , what would

20:05

you recommend ? Uh ?

20:08

what's your interest in ham ?

20:09

radio .

20:10

Yeah , what's one tip you'd give to other beginners

20:12

starting in ham radio um

20:16

, well , I really think you know , get

20:19

, get your radio as you're starting , because you

20:21

know I think it's helpful to turn it

20:23

on , listen to it and kind of like , learn how to use

20:25

it . Whether or not you can transmit or not , that's

20:28

a different thing , but it kind of makes it a little more real

20:30

to you . There's all kinds of study courses

20:32

. You know you can get a book . Um

20:34

, you can get a book . Uh

20:36

, you know , go through study guide to go through

20:38

. You can go on to like ham studyorg

20:41

, just on the internet and study for free

20:43

. You know . And basically you

20:46

know they'll have 20 , they'll have all these chapters

20:48

like for your technician license you

20:50

need to cover . So I think it's 22 chapters

20:53

. There's about 20 questions per

20:55

chapter that are in those study

20:57

guides and when you go take

20:59

the test , the test is made up of 35 of

21:02

all those questions , 20 per chapter , so

21:05

450 questions , whatever it is right

21:07

. But those 35 questions

21:09

are taken directly from those study guides and you

21:11

know verbatim is the question , the range

21:13

of answers that are possible . So you

21:15

know it's , it's pretty attainable , it's

21:18

, it's a little bit of a pain but it's attainable , you know , for people if they really

21:20

want to do it's , it's pretty attainable . It's it's a little bit of a pain , but it's attainable for people if they really

21:22

want to do it . It's not that hard , you just you know , you can do it . You

21:24

know , if somebody just want to do it in the evenings

21:27

and spend an hour an evening

21:29

you know , kind of studying for it , I

21:31

bet you could get it done and get your technician

21:33

license in a week .

21:34

Yeah , what

21:36

uh wrapping this thing

21:39

up ? What is , uh what

21:41

? I forgot to ask you what you had for breakfast this morning

21:44

uh

21:46

, I had , uh , two eggs

21:48

and

21:50

a couple of blueberry

21:52

waffles what

21:57

kind of syrup ?

22:00

uh , it is a ? Uh organic

22:02

maple syrup that janet buys . It's

22:04

great slap sap

22:06

jack .

22:08

I think you can get it at uh heb here

22:10

yeah , well , as

22:12

we wrap it up , any final what's

22:14

your ? What last words ? How would you want

22:16

to wrap this up for those listening about

22:20

learning about ham radio operation

22:22

and your , your journey

22:24

here ? What , what

22:26

would you say

22:30

?

22:32

I mean , if you're , if people are interested , you

22:34

know , I think it's , it's worthwhile

22:37

, you know , to do Some

22:40

people really enjoy it . There's a lot of the older crowd

22:42

on ham radio but there is a younger set

22:44

also and

22:52

as I sit here , at 59 years old . I'm probably one of the

22:54

younger people on ham radio , but there are people under 30 , 20 , 30s

22:57

, 40s that are on ham radio . So

23:00

it's not exactly my hobby . You

23:04

know I have a use case for it . It's

23:07

not that I don't enjoy it , because you know there's

23:09

aspects of it that I do enjoy . I

23:12

wouldn't say it's my hobby . It

23:14

serves a purpose .

23:16

Would you call yourself a prepper ?

23:20

Forward thinker there

23:23

you go forward

23:25

thinker yeah you know , if you

23:27

, if you want to get into local communications , kind of like

23:29

what's going on locally , it's like bartlesville

23:31

, for example you can go on to bartlesville on to

23:33

uh , do a web search and

23:36

you can look at the ham radio club in bartlesville . They've got

23:38

a looks like a great radio club there

23:40

in bartlesville you can learn how

23:42

to talk with other people there and you know that they're

23:44

they're talking on the radio is

23:46

really kind of building up their skill set to to

23:48

make sure that they stay current with how to use it . So there's

23:50

value in that , um . So

23:53

yeah , it's , it can be fun . You know , it's

23:55

the kind of thing you can wade into um

23:57

or you can like dive into and

23:59

get over your head . So it's really

24:02

how you use it . But I

24:04

would recommend it .

24:05

All right . All right , with that

24:07

recommendation , we've got to go , ben , thanks for joining

24:09

us today and come

24:11

back and see us again sometime .

24:13

Will do See you .

24:14

All right . Well for Ben Townsend . This is Scott

24:16

Townsend . Thanks for listening to

24:18

the Scott Townsend Show . Have a great

24:20

day , everything's going to be all

24:22

right and we'll talk to

24:25

you later . The

24:47

Scott Townsend Show is a Dietz-O-Man production

24:49

. For

24:51

more episodes , visit the Scott Townsend

24:53

Show YouTube channel , listen on Apple Podcasts

24:56

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

24:58

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