Interview with Scotty Perkins

Welcome to Episode 072 of the F-Stop Collaborate and Listen podcast with Scotty Perkins!

Scotty is a fantastic landscape photographer living in Boise, ID and he's on a mission to educate other landscape photographers about the importance of being safe in the wilderness that we love to photograph. Scotty is a wilderness EMT and an Amateur Ham Radio enthusiast.

We covered some great topics this week, including:

1. The Landscape Photography Community.

2. Being safe in the back-country as a landscape photographer.

3. NOLS Wilderness First Aid Certification.

3. Amateur radio and its uses and applications as a landscape photographer.

Below are the links to the radios Scotty was describing on the podcast and some notes from Scotty himself:

• All of these are Yaesu brand. Kenwood and ICOM are the other two brands and both make excellent gear as well.
• Each of the radios below comes limited to amateur radio frequencies for transmit. Ham Radio Outlet will do a modification that will allow each to transmit on other frequencies, such as those for the US Forest Service, EMS, and public safety. Transmission on these frequencies is fully legal in emergencies and I would strongly recommend this modification. It's shown in the list of options at Ham Radio Outlet as the "MARS/CAP modification" and costs an extra $25 or so.
• For the handheld radios I would recommend getting at least one extra battery. Same logic as for cameras.
• The line items in bold I own personally
• I would recommend buying from Ham Radio Outlet. I don't get any consideration for that recommendation. They're good people and the prices are comparable to Amazon. Plus, you know the gear will be genuine, which is actually a problem on Amazon.

For the handheld radios I was describing:

1. Entry level VHF/UHF analog: $116, 5W (25% more powerful than CB) - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-015573
2. Mid-range VHF/UHF analog and digital: $190, 5W with Fusion digital - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-015655
3. Rugged, compact VHF/UHF analog: $240, 5W, waterproof/submersible, ruggedized - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-007681
4. High-end VHF/UHF analog and digital: $362, 5W with Fusion digital, GPS, and APRS - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-013899

For each of these I would recommend getting an upgraded antenna. It's not necessary, but a good idea. This is the one I use: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-006297

For mobile radios (mounted in-vehicle):

1. Entry level VHF analog: $166, 80W (20x the power of CB) - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-015771
2. Standard VHF/UHF analog and digital: $303, 50W with Fusion digital, GPS, and APRS: - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=71-002024
3. High-end VHF/UHF analog and digital : $515, 50W with Fusion digital, GPS, and APRS plus touchscreen and cross-band repeat - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-014544

Cross-band repeat is a really useful feature I didn't talk about on the podcast. You can park your vehicle someplace and use it as a repeater to extend your reach from a handheld. Imagine you’re heading into a canyon that doesn’t have good reach to a local repeater. You can turn on your vehicle radio in cross-band repeat mode and from your handheld in the canyon send and receive through the vehicle radio to the repeater tower and in and out potentially dozens or more miles from there.

Finally, this is the HF radio I use in my FJ Cruiser. It’s the one that gets me out all over the world and requires the upgraded license:

HF: $635, 100W 160m-6m SSB - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=71-002216

Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! There's a ton of bonus content over there for subscribers! Your support is critical - it helps with production costs and to improve the podcast over time. Thanks!

Over on Patreon this week, Scotty answered listener questions from the Facebook group.

To learn more about Scotty, check out his online presence:

Website.

Instagram.

Here are the photographers that Scotty recommended for the podcast:

1. Joseph Rossbach.

2. Andrew Steptowe.

3. Marc Perella.

Some examples of Scott's photography can be seen below.

I love hearing from the podcast listeners! Reach out to me via Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter if you'd like to be on the podcast or if you have an idea of a topic we can talk about. You can also join the conversation on our Facebook Group! We've also started an Instagram page and a Facebook page for the podcast, where we'll be sharing updates as we go!