On this episode, our guest is Vance Martin, an amateur radio operator who goes under the callsign N3VEM.

Martin became involved in rocketry as a kid in the typical way; seeing model rockets at the local hobby shop, and discovering the hobby with a friend. 

As he moved into middle and high school, he discovered mid and high power rocketry through  online rocketry communities. 

While in college he built a PML 1/4 Scale Patriot rocket to use for his Level One, but was unable to find a nearby club to certify, so his L1 rocket sat collecting dust over the years.   

After college, Vance discovered ham radio, and earned his amateur radio callsign N3VEM, and built  a portable station in his vehicle so that he could play radio while being out and on the road for work. 

As seems to be a pre-requisite for Ham Radio, Vance also became a software and hardware 'tinkerer', so for him, building radio-related projects turned out to be a lot of fun, and is still what he calls his 'primary hobby.'

Vance became a Born-Again-Rocketeer about a year ago, when his two older kids found the Patriot rocket stashed in the corner of the family storage room.  They asked 'What is this!?!'  "...and just like that" says Vance " we started building up a fleet of little Estes kits." 

Vance decided that it would be fun to combine the two hobbies, and start tinkering with radio and electronic payloads for their rockets. "I knew that 'off the shelf' stuff was available, but being a tinkerer, I wanted to build my own." he recalls.  

He continues. "I wanted to target mid-power sized rockets with my projects, since I still live in the same town, and still don't have easy access to a club with a high-power launch site."

Vance enjoys his hobbies, and is having fun, saying "I'm still very much a rocketry noob, but I'm having a blast dabbling around with building the rockets, and hacking around at hardware and software for the rockets' payloads."

Vance's website is :

 https://n3vem.com/blog/RadioRocketV2/

Are you really 'GO' to use your full FAA waiver?

Greg Young shares his experiences with this topic, and what he learned is an eye opening education for all rocketeers!

About our guest...Greg shares his background in rocketry...

My rocketry experience started in 1961, at the ripe old age of 10years, when I ordered, built and flew rockets from Estes Industries. Try as I may, I was not successful at getting local hobby shops to carry rocketry supplies at that time, as the owners felt they were dangerous fireworks. 

My flying continued until taking a hiatus during my college, and then post graduate years.
When my oldest daughter expressed an interest in rockets (while in 3rd grade) my flying resumed. I joined NAR, and TRA at that time and formed a local rocketry club, the Southtown's Amateur Rocket Society (STARS).

When my youngest daughter left middle school for high school, I wound up taking another hiatus, and the club disbanded.

My flying hiatus ended when my grandchildren expressed interest in rocketry. I rejoined NAR and TRA, and decided to go through the official high power certification program (something not required back in the 1980's when I flew) and am currently a level 3 flier.

I have been involved in 2 NY rocketry groups, one in Geneseo, the other in Penn Yan, and have served from 2016 through the end of 2022 as a member of board of directors, the VP, the waiver holder, the RSO and also served the Prefect of the former for part of that time.
I have served on the planning committees for LDRS 34, NSL 2018, and NARAM 62, and during those launches was involved on the field running the range safety operations.

Currently I have been involved with local youth (high school and college age primarily), and officially have mentored several school ARC teams which have gone to nationals, and most recently a high school team who was chosen to participate in the 2023 NASA student launch initiative and went on to the nationals in Huntsville.

I am hoping to get time to be able to fly more, and mentor more student groups going forward. They are, after all, our future...

The Rocketry Show team talk NSL West 2023 with Ed Lacroix and Matt Abbey.