 Welcome to the RF Elements Unlicensed Podcast. I'm Caleb Nowher, and we're joined with Tossos Meet Sweets. Alex, what's going on, man? Hey, Caleb. How are you? Good, good. I think we're getting to that age where it's like, is this Meet Sweets or is this a bigger problem about to have here? Am I about to drop out or not? Yeah, I definitely can't eat like I used to for sure. That's hands down, not possible anymore. We still keep trying that, and that's the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't yet switched the types of food that I eat. So I still eat the same types of food, like the fattier steaks and what have you. I just don't eat as much of it as I used to, because it really starts to take its toll. It really does. So a little food centric on the mind the last couple of weeks we've been missing. We've been really tied up with TitanFest, and then we had Thanksgiving holidays here. So pretty much a food centric way of thinking lately, but we're shifting, we're pivoting into the rest of this here winter season, and thought what we'd do today is kind of give you guys some updates as to what we've been up to lately. Some of the things that are working on in the back end, that's not super prevalent, or you guys might not be seeing, and just give you some updates and let you know how things are going. But before we launch into that, Tossos, if you will please give the good people their call to action. Yes, absolutely. Don't forget to like, listen, and subscribe to our channel here on YouTube or anywhere you download your audio podcast like Apple, Google, and Spotify. All right, all right. So let's tell folks about TitanFest. So that was a couple of weeks ago, really went off well. I think it was a great event. It went off with as few hitches as you can imagine. So it was a little nerve wracking leading up to it, the scale of what we were doing and everything else, but I think it turned out really well. Yeah, TitanFest was a really good time. We had more people attend this year than last year. We pretty much had kind of, let's say, the core group from the original one, plus some additional wisps. We even had a wisp out of Canada join us this year. So that was pretty cool. Of course, the menu was fantastic. I'm waggled out now, I think. So I probably won't be eating any waggled for at least a couple of weeks. But yeah, a lot of good food, a lot of good talk, really kind of getting everybody together to have this kind of social interaction and really getting to know everybody for who they are and how they do things is really important. And it seems really appreciated by those who attend. And we're basically growing this wisp family a little bit more every year. So I look forward to TitanFest 2022. Yeah, for sure. The camaraderie and getting to know people and a relaxed environment or like that, it goes really far. So a lot of times you see folks over and over again at these shows, we just saw a lot of them in Vegas. But everything's got that Vegas energy. There's so much going on with all the events and the sessions and the show floor. I mean, it's exhausting, as we all know. So this was a sort of much more lower key sort of thing. But we got to learn a lot about people, their businesses, their personalities and spouses and stuff like that, which is good. Got to talk a lot about partnerships. We've kind of hit on that quite a bit, but people getting to know people in your region, maybe even their competitors, there's still a lot of ways where folks can work together on things. They're not the big bad. The neighbor down the road from you is not the big bad. The big bad is the guberment and all their help that they're putting in, but your cable companies, your electric co-ops and stuff like that. So as we've got to be more sort of creative as an industry, I guess it'd be a way to put it and looking at tackling these, but also tackling these open opportunities. I think there's never been as many opportunities in our industry to grow your businesses as there are now. And it's hard to reinvent the wheel every time. So getting to know people, figuring out where you can work together or where you don't work together and stay away from things is super helpful and just leads to more of the social aspect and the bonding aspect of what this is and what we're really trying to push. Yeah, without a doubt. And it's great to see these wisps from even from different states and different places get together and really try and help. I mean, there was talk about, wisps from one state, now going to travel to another state to show them how they do fiber, right? How they're putting in fiber and how they can grow their business and really leverage the wins that everybody has. Cause every area is obviously different as well. It's really useful to have people you can rely on and people you can depend on to help you. And yeah, this wisp industry is really starting to come together as a one, to fight the greater good and come and achieve the ultimate goal of providing internet to everybody without the big boys being involved or trying to do as much as they can without having them involved. So it's good to see. I love it. It really is. And that came through nowhere more than like the storm response stuff. We've talked about it. We talked about it with Spencer in the last podcast and then in general, but we got some of the stories cause a lot of those guys that were there have been through a bunch of storms lately. So hurricanes and stuff like that and getting their real world experiences to what was needed. Fuel seem to be the main thing. It's fuel fuel and being able to move it. You can have 5,000 gallons of fuel, but if you can't move it, and that's where these partnerships and being friends with folks really comes into play. You help some folks out down the road, they'll help you out. And it's super important. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. So we got done with that, left the beautiful middle of nowhere, Texas, wherever we were. Apparently, Kingsland, Texas. Yeah, Kingsland, Texas. They're like, where is that? And I'm like, ah, kind of towards the middle. I don't know, it's a big place, but. So we got back from that, rolled immediately into Thanksgiving. So I'm like, well, cause I haven't had enough to eat lately. So you guys have a good Thanksgiving? Yeah, yeah. And I gotta give big props out to my wife, Tina. Man, I mean, she did a lot. So when we plowed through Titan Fest in three days of all this prepping and cooking and everything else, you know, to come home and then, you know, my brother and his family flew in for Thanksgiving week, right? So we only had about like a day and a half, two days of kind of like calm and rest, you know, before we had more family come in and a lot of more preparation and more eating to do and everything like that. So yeah, we got through Thanksgiving. It was a blessing. You know, everybody was there. It was a good time. And, you know, now, now we get to rest a little bit before Christmas and New Year's, right? Yeah, yeah. I love this time of year, but towards the end, it's like, all right, let's kick into salad mode. Let's kick into not, let's not prep a seven course meal. Let's just kind of dial it back a hair, maybe call the old door dash and get it done that way. So yeah, we had a real quiet one here. It was needed, but we're back to it. We're going to run hard. You know, this time of year, you know, a lot of folks sort of dial back. I always think it's a good time to get caught up on a lot of stuff. So a lot of those sort of tedious projects that you need to focus on, you kind of kick the can down the road a bit. It's that time for a lot of people, I think, and hunker down and be like, all right, New Year's coming. Let's get everything cleaned up and ready to roll into it. And that's a lot of what we've been doing, sort of behind the scenes. You know, there's a lot of stuff that goes on, you know, we're very much the public face, you know, in a lot of different ways, there's so much that goes on in the background that folks don't see. So we thought we'd kind of highlight some of those things that we've been hitting lately and bring them to the attention, stuff that maybe you don't know or you don't know this coming. So talk about maintenance and updating. So we have gone through and updated a bunch of the documentation for the antenna. So the .ant files for the new and updated models, we've published all those on the download sections for each individual product. The Google network planner, we've now brought that fully up to date, which was a little bit bigger for tasks than we remembered from the last time we did it. But, oops, but no problems. We've got those upgraded. So, you know, we're very much like I said in the past an educational company, we wanna make sure people have all the info out there that we can provide so that you guys can do your jobs. Definitely. Yeah, and now especially with the addition of our CVRS antennas coming, it's even more important to make sure that we update all that information for a Google network planner and stuff like that and going beyond that as well, even in our spec sheets, right? So we're making some additions there. We've been asked by many Wisps to provide the EPA data, right? It's the effective projected area of our antennas because they're very kind of oddly shaped compared to your standard, the rectangular sectors or round dishes and stuff. This type of information is needed when you're going on certain towers, typically like your American towers where you're leasing tower space and stuff like that. You need engineer documents. You need to know what the exact win load is of our antennas. So we finally went through and we did all the calculations. So that should be coming on our spec sheet soon, the EPA data. So we'll have the surface area and even like the drag coefficients and everything like that for our antennas added into our spec sheets pretty soon. Soon, I hate saying soon all the time. Soon. So it's there. We have the data. We just have to update it all. Exactly. So, but we're for real soon this time, not necessarily. It's done. We're pretty much just reviewing everything. So like I said, yeah. The towers, your bigger tower companies, your American towers, your crowns and stuff. We see it a lot requested too for people that are calculating ballast requirements on rooftop mounts, especially if you're near the coast. You know, a lot of places don't care, but we're seeing more and more of those to make sure they've got the loading and safety requirements and stuff for those hurricane prone areas. So something you don't really see in a lot of our competitors' information, but again, we want to provide all the information we can and that's a big part of it. Yeah, it's a big data set, really big data set. And it took a lot of time. We thought it would be a lot quicker, but apparently we had to buy more computers or more computing power in order to really do it and give you the most accurate data. Yeah, I was like, oh, how hard could this be? Can y'all just figure this out? Yeah, we were wrong. So we had to remodel a bunch of stuff compared it to the wind tunnel testing, which was super cool. Yeah. And they matched up, so that's good. So we're on the same page there. Yep, been verified. So we've got products. You know, we announced a number of products at Whispapalooza. So we've got the array, excuse me, the array sector 217, the three gig array sectors, the asymmetric starter horn, the 45 degree, and then a couple of updated models for the current existing asymmetric horns and stuff. So the asymmetric horn models are starting to process for the channel now. You know, it takes a little bit with shipping and stuff. The 45 degree starter horn is coming soon, but again, actual soon, not us soon. So I think production's ready. Now, whether or not, you know, it processes during a normal amount of time through shipping and everything else, we'll see. So that's sort of out of our hands at that point and kind of ties into this whole absolute mess at the global supply chains at now. Yeah. So I mean, most of this stuff was pretty much slated to be ready before Chinese New Year, which we know is coming right around the corner, right? So it looks like everything is still online. If we get it shipped before, then we should be good and right where we projected for delivery of the product. So it's looking good, looking really good. Yeah, we've had a lot of interest in the three-gig array sectors for the CBRS folks doing what we can do with those. So we've reached out, we've got a list that we're keeping up a whole separate campaign on our CRM. So if you've got interest in those specifically, please reach out to us because we'll be able to get samples and stuff here pretty soon, it looks like. So we wanna go ahead and get that ball really rolling for 2022. Definitely, definitely. What about our link calculator, the updates to that? Yeah. So, you know, link calculator, we love that thing. Link calculator, here's the calculator. Please. So we're actually doing some really cool updates to that. One of the main requests that we've had people come, main requests we've had from people, excuse me, is saying, hey, I wanna save this data. Like it works really well, but there's no really way to save it. I mean, you can print out the PDF and stuff. So one of the major things that we've added now is the ability to create and log into an account and be able to save that data. So you build out a tower set, and your links and stuff like that. Now you can log in and play with that data again. In addition to that, we're also doing multi-AP mapping. So we're gonna put up multiple access points, cover up a whole area. We're adding more gerbils to the background so it runs and processes a lot faster, which is based on feedback from some folks for sure. So that's really exciting. And we're kind of tinkering with some other key, you know, some nice to have and then looking, you know, from a generational perspective, what do we wanna do, you know, phase two, phase three, as it goes along? So there's a lot of really cool stuff going on with the link calculator right now and we're excited to see it. Yeah, I think we're also gonna have the import and export functionality, right? To export to a KMZ file and stuff so that way it could be used later or, you know, could be looked at and put into your systems, you know, from our system. So that's gonna be really cool. Yeah, exactly. And then we can, you know, being able to save and log in, we'll be able to see, hey, what are your calcs and you wanna compare what you're calculating versus the real world? Like, we'll be able to do that a lot easier, a lot quicker. I think because so many of these calls that we have when we're training and educating users, just based, hey, let's pull up the link calculator showing it. So, you know, we continue to promote that as a super helpful tool, one of the most helpful tools we have and we're doing our best to make it even better. Yeah, it's been a long time coming too, right? So I mean, obviously, you know, the amount of use that our link calculator has been getting is growing and growing. And obviously, you know, the need to plot multiple antennas is an absolute nowadays with the density of antennas that people are putting up. So yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to see it start. So I don't know exactly when it's gonna be ready, but it's definitely in process and it's happening. So that would be really cool to see that. Yeah, that may be more of an RF element soon. Timeline, right? Yeah, the development time for stuff like that obviously takes a lot of time, right? So, and it's kind of new for us as well. You know, typically these kind of calculators and planners is something you see the radio manufacturers supply, right? It's not very common or it's not really common at all. I haven't seen any other antenna manufacturer out there really have a calculator that's as in depth as our calculator, right? So it's kind of a first for the antenna industry for sure. Yeah, exactly. So if you guys are looking for any changes or updates or you're like, hey, I would really like to see this here. I think this would be really important. Now's the time to let us know. So, you know, we've got a lot of feedback already that we're implementing in here, but hey, if you've got some ideas, definitely reach out to us, let us know, and we will see if we can get it done. Absolutely. Oh, let's see, what else is exciting? Oh, Canada. So. Oh, Canada, oh, Canada. What's this all about? So poor Adam, who came down for Titan Fest, super solid guy. But I think he was he was fully prepared for the Canadian ribbing that he kind of got. He was dishing it right back, too. So yeah, he's really cool grassroots internet, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think so. If we botch that, sorry about that, Adam. But no, learn a lot, you know, about how they do things up there. They're primarily a fiber outfit, but they're again, you know, getting into the whisk world to serve areas that they can't deal with fiber now, or, you know, which is taking a while, which is a story we hear all the time. But, you know, it's the same thing, but different challenges there. I see and everything's different, but a big part of what we're wanting to do in 2022 is further expand our reach in the Canada. You know, we've been there for a while. We've been servicing products through ISP supplies, Canada, MBSI wave, TDL, you know, and they've been great partners for us. And I think as we go to further expand our reach in to do that and get more stock in there, we have just now added Double Radius as a distributor for Canada. So they've been a great partner for us in the States, you know, been working with them for years, but they're making a, you know, distribution change with an outfit they've got set up in Toronto. And what it really means is in the end, you know, we've got a lot more product that will be in Canada and flattening out the supply chain and making product available so that you guys can get what you need, deploy in a time effective manner and take off with it. So they're supplying a lot of the resellers that are already up there. And it's just, again, more product, more availability. We'll have them in our stock locator and stuff here soon. And then that way you can find stuff. Again, talk to your resellers if you're already looking for product you're already buying, they're, you know, conversations with the others. So just letting you guys know that there's a lot of product heading that way. Awesome. So that's mainly it for the sort of big updates in the background now, I guess. You know, again, it's a time of reflection. We're like, okay, let's finish up this year. What are we really looking forward to next year? And you know, just thinking off the top of my head, the CBRF stuff is really exciting. Just giving people options that they haven't had before. The big push into Canada, really exciting for us. You know, what are, excuse me, the push, the 4,000, the 6,000 or whatever they're calling it for. Cambium. Cambium. Yeah, that's a big product. You know, we're tied in deeply with that. So we're really excited to see that and other sort of radio generation stuff that I've been talked about for a while but are starting to launch. Like it's gonna be a really interesting year for the entire industry next year. So we're gonna see a lot of really cool stuff coming out. Yeah, and a lot of it really depends on that kind of chip shortage, right? And supply chain kind of stuff. So there's a lot of unknowns for new hardware that's out or coming out on whether or not they'll be able to sustain delivering that product to the industry, right? So we'll have to see. Like I said, 2022 is definitely gonna be and a very, very interesting year for everybody for sure, yeah. Yeah, hopefully 6GIG, if the FCC will finally get their act together with 6GIG, figure out what the final solutions and rules and stuff are. You know, there's a lot of people prepping for it. We are too, but you know, a lot of it's like, well, you know, it's hard to commit until there's a final rule set. I mean, they could kick this can down the road for several years, same as CBRS, you know, the CBRS stuff was a thing for a really long time before they actually got that going. So, you know, I don't think this process for the FCC is gonna be nearly as onerous, but there are some requirements with their not really SaaS system, but whatever they're calling it, I forget off the top of my head. But you know, they've got to determine and give a final ruling on Max ERP and all that other stuff. So yeah, it'd be helpful. Yep, so do know we are fully aware and excited because I think that is gonna be the next really big push because it's all basically clean spectrum at that point. So it's gonna get. Let's keep it that way. Let's keep it that way. By using high quality antennas. No omnis. No omnis, no omnis, no omnis. No omnis, no sloppy sectors. You want to use, I don't know, we'll say horn antennas that work really good. No side lobes, no back lobes. And because the last thing we want to do is pollute a clean spectrum. I think it's the biggest tool that the unlicensed Wisp is gonna have in the States for a while. So between that, this next gen stuff, the AX stuff coming from Mosa, the AX stuff coming from Cambium. We've got a potential to really build big networks and compete with the big boys and get things done. So be good stewards. Who knows what comes from ubiquity too, right? We haven't heard from them in a long, long time, right? So I'm sure they must have something brewing, you know? Yeah, there's rumblings and rumors, we'll see. So, you know, they're definitely not sleeping over there. So that's, you know, there's a lot of really cool, exciting stuff coming down the road. So if we can make any of it. So, but anything, anyways, that's really about it. Just wanted to get everyone up to date and let y'all know that we did miss a couple of weeks, but we're back full steam and ready to rock. So Tausos, do you have anything that you want to add or wrap up with? No, not at all, not at all other than, you know, the standard stuff that we definitely want to hear from you. So please give us your feedback. If you want to join the show, please let us know as well. Speaking of kind of, you know, being away, obviously, with the new year coming here, we'll probably, you know, have another podcast or two before the end of the year and then probably start this right back up after the new year. So that's pretty much it. Well, like I said, reach out to us. You know where to find us. We are at RFElements.com. You can reach us, Tausos, at RFElements.com. Caleb at RFElements.com. We've got our Facebook pages, the RFE groups, our YouTube page, you know, we're there. So please reach out. Let us know about any of these things. Again, link calculator questions or any sort of updates and stuff you're looking for there. Definitely reach out to us soon as we start running it and that'd be great. Awesome, catch you guys next time. All right, see you guys. Be good.