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Thank you for comment and question! Short answer is that you can keep your family isolated from other, and when setting up devices for my wife and kids I won't include the public main channel. You can set up an encryption code that you only share with your family, and I've seen a new meshtastic software update will be making messaging even more secure in the future... Link attached is to the Comms Channel video about setting up channels, and I've watched a few times when thinking about how to setup for my family. th-cam.com/video/2Z8_-EVwizw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=YIncLIsuSJCcyf6t This link is for channels on Meshtastic site, and AES 128 or AES 256 is encryption methodology (does sound like will be improving encryption in next update for privately communicating with another station that you don't have a shared private channel. meshtastic.org/docs/configuration/radio/channels/ Hope this helps! James

@@wa7jnjradio awesome answer and support

Thank you Chris, and hope you had a great time on your SOTA weekend trip a bit ago...our summer is going to fast and almost gone. )-:

@@wa7jnjradio it won't be long before we get our snowshoes out again!

Thank you Todd! That's funny about VHF vs. HF, and another reminder for me to continue learning CW for the automatic spotting when there is no cell! It was great to watch your videos from this summit and why I actually activated it...and so glad i did! 73, and thanks for comment!

Thank you Jim! Very kinds words, and the respect and appreciation goes both ways!!! 73, James

Thank you (-: Chasers are great and I love using VHF/UHF as able. My first SOTA summits were actually VFH only around the Puget Sound until getting general license and an HF radio. Thanks for watching and comment! 73, James

Thank you Reid, and hope you enjoy!!! Been a bit since we've caught up on air, but hope all is going well this summer and that you enjoy these last few weeks! Always hard to believe my kids start school in just over 2 weeks...(-: 73, James

Thank you so much for kind words about content, and glad you like the shirts! I'm working on the Park Butte video (one of my favorite hikes) now, and hoping to get posted in the next few days... Hope you have a great rest of the weekend! 73, James

Great idea and beautiful designs, love it!

Thank you!!! ... and I'll have to pass word to my YL. She put a lot of time working on the designs, and I'm grateful for! 73, James

Thanks for watching and reaching out with question! For N1CC, you only need to make 1 contact on each of the 10 bands for that park and the contacts can be on different days or activations. For nearly all my parks, I got the 10 bands over 2 or 3 activations... (I do still have 2 parks that I can activate together and need to get the last few bands to complete the award...) 73, James

Thank you Mike! It's definitely fun to share as an option to see what it's like on summit! 73

Thank you for watching and appreciate the comment! Sounds great about next time, and hope you have a great rest of the summer! 73

Agree Mike (-: ...and I believe someone donated to club just before I got licensed and joined the club. Have a great rest of your weekend!

Agree with you that it is beautiful landscape, and one of my favorite hikes! Awesome on soon being back to USA, and thank you for warm wishes. All the best to you as well!!! 73, James WA7JNJ

Love it Mike! I haven't been out as much this year, but it's been nice the hit a few summits the last few days... now back to work tomorrow. (-: 73

Thank you Bob for taking time to comment, and very cool to hear about doing your first SOTA activation in June! Love that you're a veteran POTA guy as well, and that you also enjoy sharing video with others! Thanks so much again for comments, and have a great rest of your week! 73

Thank you for taking time to comment, and appreciate your feedback on more permanent antenna install. After having a temp install the last few years when switching vehicles, I do want something more permanent and will have to check out your recommendations. I recently bought the Yaesu FTM-500, DIAMOND SG7500NMO, and a bracket to attach NMO mount to a ditch light hood bracket. Haven't bought the ditch light bracket yet and may reconsider? For your question, LP came up when searching for skid plates, and I liked the simplicity of their ditch light brackets as well. Also liked the simplicity of install, and opening are working well so far for oil changes. Overall really like it, and have felt much better getting to trailheads the last month or so...and also with new AT tires (-: 73, James WA7JNJ

Love it... Hope you have a great weekend, and thanks for watching!

Thank you Jeff...it's a little different on phone to move around, or on tv / computer etc...but fun for sure. Great to see you at campout! 73, James WA7JNJ

Thank you, and glad you found the video! Sorry for delayed response...just got back from southern Oregon hiking and summit adventure. (-: The Blue Mountain parking area is within Olympic National Park, and I've included a link to information on "Camping". It appears camping in vehicles is only allowed in campgrounds... )-: I've included a link to campground and camping guideline page for more info. Hope this helps and that you have a great time in the area! www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/camping.htm

Maybe if it helps save money for more radio equipment or get to a summit to play radio? (-: I normally just change the oil, but had fun trying a different style of video as I get ready for hiking and Summits on the Air (SOTA) adventures. Also loved that my dad was there to help, and hoping this non-radio video may help others learn about our great hobby! (-: 73, James WA7JNJ

@@wa7jnjradio Nice. 73

Love it! I need to get back over to that area and try a few more... but about 5-6 hours away from me. (-:

@@wa7jnjradio at least once this summer!

Congrats on getting your license, and fun to hear it's first time learning about SOTA! The main sota website is www.sota.org.uk.. If you're interested, I also have a SOTA getting started playlist which may help. Please reach out if questions. 73

@@wa7jnjradio Thank you Sir!

(-: smiled a bit this am when saw the comment. While it get's many of us in the hobby to learn about... I will say, when first bought a Baofeng... it was a massive step up from the bubble pack GMRS/FRS Motorola radios I spent too much money on previously. (-: 73, and have a great weekend!

Thank you for watching and taking time to post a quick comment! Much appreciated! 73

Hello Rick and appreciate the comment. Purpose of this video was to share what most SOTA activators learn pretty quickly through experience. Being overloaded, limited filtering, direct conversion receive, etc. are definitely things that work against you when on summit and I've experiences through testing and hearing from others. N7KOM has a video about the same topic with FT60 comparison th-cam.com/video/vkd07g7AmBQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=trKQMh2SkQq_lDW_ and at some point I may do similar comparison... since I've had the same experience on summit with Baofeng hearing half or less than what FT70 did. (-: Hope you have a great rest of the weekend! 73, James

Thank you, and appreciate you sharing your story as well! Think there's a lot of us who use one to start, and love that we use what we have and learn from it. I was definitely impressed with the FT70 on the second summit due to filtering and more sensitive receiver, especially since I was so reliant on 2m contacts early on before getting general license. Thanks again for comments, and have a great weekend! 73

Agree... I'm usually surprised at how well cheaper radios are, but better filtering and superhet receivers seem to work better. For me it was good learning to experience, and then compare the radios on my second (and other) summits. Hope you have a great weekend!

Thank you Fred for sharing your experience as well, along with your radios used! I have an Alinco as well for 220, and that is a good brand...of course Kenwood definitely is as well! (-: BTW, it's been fun to see a 2 new activators in our local Puget Sound area this week... just heard from another person who activated the first time today!

LOL...Thank you Mike! I'm so glad you were able to activate the summit, and thank you for asking the question! I completely understood and it hit home since I had the exact same experience. (-: I need to be better about sharing lessons learned with shorter simply edited videos, and got inspired to try doing one quickly last night. Even had fun playing with Microsofts AI image generator for the first time.. (-: 73, and will be great to see you at Field Day!

Great to chase you on the summit while I was on the way home from work, and thanks so much for posting the hike / trail update! 73, James WA7JNJ

@@wa7jnjradio Hey James, your video here was one of my sources/inspirations to determine this would be a good bikeable SOTA spot, so it was great hearing you on the air! I have HamAlert set up to ping me for any W7W 2m spots, so maybe I'll catch you on your next SOTA activation. (BTW, I did Taylor Mountain on Monday; quickly activated on 20m, then popped up to 2m before I headed down and added a few more.)

@@K7LFO BTW, fun to see another SOTA activator activate 3 Lakes Hill this week...was his first SOTA! Awesome you did Taylor...I still need to do that one. (-: Thanks again for nice comments, and so great to see you're out enjoying SOTA! Love it! 73, James

Thank you so much for taking the time to clarify the distance record, and fun to know it was Heltec! I'm looking at setting up a device in ham mode for hiking to summits with "Summits on the Air", and there are a few other SOTA activators looking at as well. Hoping to make some longer "summit to summit" contacts with Meshtastic this summer, and also want to do with non-ham mode. Great info about Anker power banks with low power devices! I'll have to try that out and will update video description, and may follow-up with update video based on other learnings since this video.

Thank you for reaching out to share about Lopez connection, and it must have been a very cool kayak trip around the islands! Thanks for nice video comment, and it helps keep me inspired to keep making them (-: Very awesome about recently getting your general license, and fun to hear you are sorting out how you'll activate SOTA on east coast! 73, James

Very true! (-: I love having them compared to GMRS cheap bubble pack radios and am surprised sometimes how well they work when I use with the kids, but completely agree with you. Thanks for comment!

Thank you! 73, James

Sorry for delayed response, and thank you for nice comments! Fun to hear you were able to get out to Mt Electric and also that you are looking for mountain bike-able SOTA activations this summer. There are quite a few summits with "road hikes" that would be good, and know a few activators have used bikes for certain summits. Hope to catch you on the air this summer! 73, James WA7JNJ

@@wa7jnjradio Hi James. I went back yesterday and successfully activated Mt Electric. The HF bands have been pretty dead the last few days, so it was a bit of a slog to get contacts on 20M, but the weather was nice, so all in all, a good day. From where I was set up I got a strong contact with KB7RYY in Bellevue on 2M, so I know I was getting out on VHF, but I think everyone was manning the BBQ grill that day ;-). I was watching another of your videos recently and spotted another good bike-able SOTA spot. Two weekends ago I missed a SOTA opportunity on Thunder Knob (Diablo Lake). My wife said "let's do a little hike on our way to Mazama", and I didn't realize it was up to a SOTA peak. Oh well, I'll just have to go back! BTW, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the SOTAMat app, but it's pretty handy for self-spotting when there's no cell service. 73, Jesse K7LFO

@@TheGhostfaceKLR Thanks so much for sharing follow-up about Mt Electric and fun to hear you activated! ...and very fun to hear you were headed to Mazama! I've been going there since I was born to camp with the family, and only recently finally stopped to hike Thunder Knob. It's a very popular but very cool summit! Due to being surrounds by much higher mountains and no cell signal, I was nervous about not being able to make enough contacts...but just got enough that night to activate! Not sure I know about the SOTAMat app, and will have to check out! I know some will use garmin satellite devices to send text for spotting, and some time in the future I should get more for safety hiking. Thanks again for sharing and sounds like you had a good weekend! 73, James WA7JNJ

Thank you so much Jon for saying a quick hi from India! There is definitely great activity in the area and hoping to inspire more... (-: 73, James WA7JNJ

Thank you Will!! 73

Thank you Mike... was definitely a fun way to celebrate even with the rain later in day! 73

Thank you so much Gary! 73

That's awesome you visited Friday Harbor recently... I need to get back there as well. Orcas is great, and probably our favorite one to go to with the family. Lopez is definitely more laid back and less to do, but still fun to explore. Thanks for the quick comment and sharing about your recent trip! 73, James WA7JNJ

Thank you KN4OK for quick comment, and hope you have a great week! 73, James

Thank you so much for the quick kind comment! I loved making this short inspirational video, and always encouraging to hear feedback. Have a great rest of your weekend!

Thanks for watching, and really appreciate the comments! Thank you! 73, James