WD6AXM TX (146.085 MHz) recordings for 2026-02-15

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Speaker A: Kk6vzd
Speaker B: mobile wp6a x n
Speaker A: repeater.

Speaker A: This is KK6VZD.
Speaker B: Whoever that is, you're completely unreadable.

Speaker A: JK 63 CD and 6 item. Will you wait? That's better.
Speaker B: You're still pretty staticky, but at least that time I heard you. Good afternoon.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Radio trouble, Mr. Ham Radio Operator. Hello? All of a sudden I'm real scratchy, weak. Everybody's saying, are you on a handheld? Actually, this is a four element be. Oh, should be full squash. I don't know.
Speaker B: You're on a handheld. What? In chico,
Speaker A: I'm on a four element beam with about 80 watts. Okay.
Speaker B: Did you do anything? Because all of a sudden you. You're. You're much clearer with a. With less static.
Speaker A: Well, Chris, I'll tell you. It's called a rotator. Or some people say roll. So I pushed my little buttons and I saw the red numbers changing. Whoopee. So how are you doing?
Speaker B: Well, that makes an awful lot of sense. I thought you might have done something like that. I'm all right. I'm heading down to Roseville to pick up a new telephone.
Speaker A: Sunday afternoon. Roseville. Never been there, but it could be a nice trip. I don't know, stop and get a Subway sandwich or something.
Speaker B: Well, Sunday afternoon in Roseville, it's going to be busy. When I get down to Roseville, there's a section of 65 that's always busy. Like from. What is it? Pleasant. Pleasant Grove Road on south to Galleria. It's always, always down there. But, you know, at least I know about.
Speaker A: Well, you know, in my book, learning how to live by N6IWH. It's all about stay in a happy mood, Sing Kumbaya as much as you can.
Speaker B: Well, you know, and actually it's all of a. It's just accepting. It's like that is the way that it's going to be. So just roll with it.
Speaker A: There you go. You know, you're. You're getting a handle on it. You know the old phrase, don't cry over spilled milk? Well, in life things go as well as we'd like. Always. So sometimes you just have to stand down and let it roll right on you.
Speaker B: Yes, siree. So did you hear the news about the penstock failure up at Colgate? Supposed to be a fairly new penstock, and the darn thing broke.
Speaker A: I really feel out of the loop. I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker B: Well, apparently not too long ago. A couple years ago, within the past couple of years, they had a new pen stock constructed to feed the Colgate power house up there somewhere up there and. And failed. It collapsed or something like that. So you know, they've got all this water, of course, Fenstock, you know, on the side of Hill. So. So all this water comes tumbling down the hill and. Well, I guess, you know, the. The power station itself was. Was okay, but. Yeah, it's kind of a mess up there.
Speaker A: Oh, my God. Well, where is that?
Speaker B: Downstream of Bullard's Bar, I think.
Speaker A: Oh, my God. I used to live in Challenge. That's right next to Bullard's Bar. And they do worry about that, Dan, that reservoir, because, you know, all that water coming down. Whoa. You remember when Orville was going to blow up? What Was that in 2017?
Speaker B: I forget. Oh, that one's a hard one for me to forget. Mostly it was the. You know, they were talking about it. It's going to overtop the emergency spillway. And I'm like, well, all right. And it did. And then they were. They were showing images of. You know, they were showing videos of it overtopping. And I'm watching this huge wall of water coming over the emergency spillway and hitting the foot of the spillway. And the foot of the spillway was dirt. And I trust sitting there thinking, when you get that much water coming down on dirt, what does it do to the dirt? It washes it away.
Speaker A: Yeah. You know, there was a lot of stuff going on. You know, don't pay attention to this. A lot of stuff going on that they didn't want us to know about.
Speaker B: Yeah. I'm just looking at that, thinking, oh, my goodness, that's a disaster waiting to happen. You know, they couldn't do anything but let it flow over the emergency spillway. And now that water is going to erode the base of the spillway. Somebody obviously wasn't thinking when they finished that. Amazing to me, when they. When they did the repair, that the first thing they did was they poured a whole bunch of concrete at the base of the spillway. The emergency spillway.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And I guess you could say it's older technology. Or are they just, you know, they didn't know what we know now. But a lot of people were very scared, very worried when they were saying, the dam's gonna bust. You better get out of Dodge.
Speaker B: Well, I can tell you that I was. I packed up and left, definitely. But, yeah, it just kills me that I guess they thought when they finished the construction of a dam in, what, 68. If anybody thought of that emergency spillway, they probably like, well, it's never going to overflow anyway, so we don't have to go to the additional trouble and expense of reinforcing the foot of it.
Speaker A: Well, you know, there's something that happens when you hire a lot of educated people. They have low self esteem sometimes, okay. And they want to justify their jobs by, you know, doing something. And what they do is they go out and create situations that are worse than what you started with.
Speaker B: Yeah, well. Oh, well. So, yeah, it was interesting. I wonder, I wonder who the. The company is that built that, that pen stock and I wonder how much they're going to get sued.
Speaker A: Well, I don't know. If it were me, I'd be packing, really. Myself, I moved to Columbia, something like that. But hey, have you heard about alien spacecraft and stuff like that? I know you have, but recently there's a lot more activity going on and, you know, other countries as well. But the Grand Canyon, where I'm from, that area, they've found something going on underneath. There's caves and stuff that they're trying to close off. And, you know, they actually can't get in because there's forces that block every, every way to get in this cave. Mini caves. It's getting kind of scary there, Chris.
Speaker B: Oh, what are you saying? That there's some subterranean creatures down there that we have known nothing about, and their activity is interfering.
Speaker A: I see subterranean creatures driving cars all
Speaker B: the time over here, but.
Speaker A: Yeah, and people are disappearing. They've blocked off this one cave with a huge concrete abutment. But people go down the canyon and they're gone. And it's not just the Grand Canyon. There's other places in Arizona and also underwater, you find these, you know, huge. What do they forgot bass, I guess, for the spacecraft coming in and out.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, I can see these people where they're disappearing, going places where they shouldn't and then getting in trouble and then. Yeah,
Speaker A: well, also, you know, I look at YouTube videos, I get a lot of information, but you don't know what to believe. You know, a lot of things could be fake. Like, you know, Bigfoot with fiend north of Redding. Okay.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. What was it? There was. Oh, I don't remember. I'm thinking back. Probably the beginning of the 1900s. Somebody faked. An ancient creature that was supposed to be precursor to man called Silt Down Man. Completely faked. And a lot of people fell for that.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's great fun. You know, the guys who make these big, you know, big foot footprints, you know, I'm sure they're laughing like hell.
Speaker B: When I was, I don't know, early teens, I had a Friend that really believed in UFOs. Don't ask me why. We had this. My family had this lid of this old diaper pail and it had a little dome in the middle of it. I remember taking it out to the beach and we throwing it around like a Frisbee. Well, I took a picture of it and then I took it back and showed it to him and told him I saw a ufo.
Speaker A: Oh, you're so bad. But there's, you know, a lot more evidence. You know, I guess the government also was starting to, you know, the Freedom of Information act and they're loosening up documents. And of course there's that area of 51 or whatever it is in New Mexico that they all talk about. Ooh, spacecraft. Oh, Chris has been at it again.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, well, so I got tomorrow off because of President Day, and then I got two more days off for vacation. So I had a long weekend.
Speaker A: Oh yeah, and you're counting the days. What did you say on the 30th? I think it's a. I think I'm
Speaker B: down to 33 workday. 33,
Speaker A: yeah. That's great. It'll be over before you know it. You know, time seems to fly sometimes. So I'm just wondering about the party. God, nobody cares. You're leaving and nobody's gonna even wave at you when you go.
Speaker B: Yeah, no parties. I think they are the admin services people would probably say they want it, you know, put together a, a gathering for me. But all of the people that I was close to, you know, all my, my co workers that I've been there with for years are gone. So I don't really care whether they have a, you know, send off for me or not. What I'm going to do is I'm going to wander around the county and I'm going to go to the different offices and I'm going to see the people that, you know, that I've known for quite a while. I'm going to say goodbye to them personally
Speaker A: now. Does the, the company I work, would they pay for a pizza party or something with the. They cough up for some food or no?
Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I don't remember what happened, you know, with the last guy that left, but I was actually kind of surprised that he let them go ahead and put on a going away party for him because I think he felt the same way as I did. Yeah, you know, the guys that I
Speaker A: used to work with, they got a
Speaker B: raw deal and were forced out of the county and So I don't know that I have that much love for, you know, for my management and just said, I'll go see my customers and the people that I had a good relationship with, but I don't need a party.
Speaker A: Well, that's a good, honest approach. I've had places where I was glad to leave. Just said, hey, you got it.
Speaker B: Cheers.
Speaker A: Goodbye.
Speaker B: Yeah, you know what I count? What? What I care about getting from the county is my pension.
Speaker A: Oh. Oh, well, that's pretty for sure, isn't it?
Speaker B: Yes, it is. And the only thing is, I actually have to go through the effort of actually submitting my application for retirement. I just am kind of procrastinating. I've been. I was procrastinating on submitting my application for Social Security, but I took care of that yesterday.
Speaker A: Oh, that's good. I have a friend that I'm trying to help around here locally with a homeless guy. You know, give him brides and stuff like that once a while. And I learned something. Don't yell at the people at Social Security if you say, yes, sir, yes, ma', am, no, ma', am. Whatever you say. Okay. Don't stand up and start screaming. They don't like it. You'll never see any money ever.
Speaker B: Well, yeah, and more than likely, you know, if they're. If they're, you know, telling you something or whatever, you know, I. I learned a long time ago that, you know, generally the guy across the table from you is. Is the guy at the very end of the chain, and he has no W. So it's not their fault. Don't yell at them. Well,
Speaker A: you're gonna be free. Change your middle name to I can do anything I want. I'm retired. Yeah, this is KK6VZD, Chris.
Speaker B: So, yeah, I was. You know, I found that if somebody seemed to be, you know, putting roadblocks in my way, the best thing I could do is to plead my case and ask for their help. You know? This is my problem. Can you please help me?
Speaker A: Yeah. But overall, don't you think you've had a good, productive work career?
Speaker B: Oh, mostly. And, you know, my customers still value me.

Speaker A: You know, everybody that I run into, you know, we got talking about me retiring. Everybody that I talk to, you know, oh, we're gonna miss you so much. Well, that's nice to hear.
Speaker B: Ah, that is a perk. Might not put money in the bank, but, you know, hey, it's worth something. Kind of like, reminds me of my artwork. Just
Speaker A: really
Speaker B: a real compliment. When people look at my stuff and say, oh, God, you know, Dad, I go, hey, well, I'm an artist. You know, you really
Speaker A: kicked
Speaker B: it for me, you know,
Speaker A: But
Speaker B: I'm not rich.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Actually, you know, it's interesting system that they use to track people's problems. You know, a ticketing system. People call in, we say, there's a database with, you know, I'm having this problem, and then it gets assigned to somebody, and we
Speaker B: throw,
Speaker A: you know, annotate everything that we've done in there and then what we did to fix it. And when you close the ticket out, I guess an email gets sent to the. To the customers and for. With a survey. Well, you know, I guess the managers see the survey. We don't see. We don't see it at
Speaker B: all.
Speaker A: Which is really kind of strange. Why in the world they wouldn't want to see the survey results on our work.
Speaker B: Yeah, that is kind of creepy. Yeah, but all that bureaucracy.
Speaker A: I mean,
Speaker B: you're gonna be drinking, you know, sweet tea and. Oh, no, there's the phone. Oh, sweet tea and talking on the ham radio. N6 iWhere.
Speaker A: Answer it. It might be somebody you need to talk to. KK6 Lee ZD standing by.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was the telephone. You know, I would think while you're out here. While I'm here, somebody else might want to break in. Like Ernie. I met him. Or Paul, you know, big, green, yellow, whatever his call is. Yeah. How come. How come you don't hear me me? Minnie Ham's, you know, doing rag Chew out here Over.
Speaker B: Well, I don't know. That's a good question. It's not even as busy, you know, apparently it used to be a fairly busy repeater years ago. It's not even as busy as it was when I first started with Ham. Yeah, I kind of missed there where there was. Well, you know, Doug up the. In Nimshu up there. Him and Grant used to be on. Every morning on my way to work, I'd hear them and. Yeah, I don't know. I. You know, when somebody is out there and they throw their. Throw their call sign out there, I try and. I try and answer back and talk to them, even if it's only for a minute or so, but I don't know. I'm not sure how many people are actually out there monitoring and are not inclined to answer.
Speaker A: Facts. Yeah, answer back. I've heard of that. Well, I used to enjoy the Carla system. I was meeting people on Link, and then the owner gets on and gives me this big lecture about, why don't you find another home? Okay, What. What are your issues? Well, like you. Comes along, same thing over on the car. Nobody's there, they don't talk. Everybody's hearing this, I guess, but I've met somebody actually from the Bay Area who knows the Carla system, and he says he's tired of it. You know, guys get on, they put up a repeater, and then they say, don't use it. It's for emergency only. So, anyway, I was asked to find another home, Chris, but like a little puppy dog, I don't have one.
Speaker B: Well, my understanding of the Carla. Well, you know, if they're gonna put up repeaters and link them together and discourage people from using them, why in the world they put him up in the first place? And my understanding is that Carlo repeaters have two frequencies, or maybe one frequency and different tone, so that, you know, one of them is used for what? Just finding out who's on. And I think the other one is supposed to be for rag chunk, but that's the way I understand it.
Speaker A: But I couldn't swear to it. Well, I had some people, you know, nice guys, you know, commuting in the morning, and I don't know I didn't use profanity. I didn't attack anybody. I can talk a lot if you get my motor going. But actually he can't prevent me from using the frequency. I have a valid ticket. But he can, you know, keep me off his equipment.
Speaker B: Well, they can keep you off by not telling you what the pl towns are. There are people like that and okay, but yeah, put it out there and advertise it and then get annoyed when people use it. That's just silly.
Speaker A: Well, I'm not the only one who feels that way, thank God. There are others who say, you know, why did you put it up? But anyway, I like to encourage people to get on and talk and yak it up. I did meet a ham, a young 14 year old ham through the grapevine that I did give us. So I gave him a HM rig, you know, but he was so happy. He just got his general class ticket and had no radio. So I said, hey, I have an extra.
Speaker B: Oh, that would amaze his day. Yeah, that's really cool. And you know, that'd be nice to be able to do something like that. I'm not sure I'm rich enough to do that. But you know, I have bought a
Speaker A: couple
Speaker B: relatively inexpensive from like a
Speaker A: Silent
Speaker B: Keys estate and then sold them on because I didn't need it. But you know, I figured, okay, I'll buy it and then find somebody that I think could use it and sell it to them for the same price. I'm not making any money on it. W e 6 a x n receiver
Speaker A: Hey, I got a quick story. I'll make it fast. There were a couple of hams, I think on Carla. And I said, I have a whole bunch of radios that I've been hanging on to. You know, tube rigs, receiver, transceivers, kenwood, this and that, you name it, scanners. But I want to donate it to a club or, or you know, somebody who can work on these kenwoods, right. And make them run. They light up. It's all good stuff. So two, I won't say who one of them died. He says, if you don't mind. Sure, we work on those things. Yeah, we take them. Yeah, we'll get them. So he comes over here, takes everything and then even asks me for other stuff. Like he said, hey, you have an extra bofang and the. Okay. And this antenna tutor I had, he said, if you're not going to use it. Okay, okay. So he rolls away all of a sudden I don't hear anything. Call the one guy. No, Answer. And finally he answered, and he says, well, the other guy's got all the stuff, and I can't get in touch with him. I said, what? Said, yeah, the guy took off with all the radios, and he's not answering the phone or email or anything. And I said, okay. So anyway, I wait and I wait. Well, that guy Bill, he died. So I finally heard what's his face on the radio, and I said, hey, you guys were gonna, you know, give me a something to trade for that equipment. Oh, no, I was just into it for. I was just the driver, that's all. And, you know, so and so passed away. I said, okay, thank you.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I've got some stuff that I want to give to people, but I don't want to open it up to just everybody because there's people out there that will take equipment just because you have it to give away. Not that they'll necessarily use it, but just because you have it and you're giving it away for free, they want it.
Speaker A: Well, I don't mind helping somebody, you know, who can really use a radio. Hey, you know, but it's kind of like their intent. I mean, not the guy who died, but the other one. It's something everybody knows. Okay, I'm just going. Ah, man, you know, whatever, you know, have fun.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. All right, let's see. Oh, this guy's coming up behind me and. And he thinks I'm going too slow, so he wants to past me on the right even before he sees that I'm moving right.
Speaker A: Or I'll just push down on the skinny pedal.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, I try not to be too much of a jerk like that,
Speaker A: but, you know, I'll be driving along
Speaker B: in the left hand lane, and I won't be flying past the people in the right lane, but I'll be moving past them. And I'll send somebody come up about, oh, 20, 15, 20ft behind me, you know, like, move out of my way. And I just sit there. I was like, you know, I'm. That's your problem. You. You know, I'm moving fast enough and I don't feel inclined just because, you know, you feel like I. I will not be bullied. I will be past these people in about, oh, 15 seconds, and then I'll move over and then you can go back.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Hey, I just got to tell you, no thing, but I lived in Yuba county, you know, for 10 years, and I got the concealed carry permit, and I. You know, what the difference was I was so relaxed because I had a gun and people would cut me off, run me off the road. I would just wave. It's okay. Good. I mean, I actually kind of enjoyed it. Go ahead, man. Hey, cut me off, man. I'll just put on the brakes and get out of your way because you're so special. But I knew that if something happened,
Speaker B: You know, the people come flying up behind me and they want to get past me, but I'm behind somebody else, so getting past me is not going to help them out. So, you know, I just kind of ignore them.
Speaker A: That's what I do now. I don't know. I can't afford the damn permit up here in Butte. I only want so much money for this and that, and, you know, da, da, da, da, da. I mean, you know, I'll just try to make it without a gun. I mean, so far, so good. But my neighbor don't want to give out information, information here. But all of a sudden, I hear two gunshots. Boom, boom. I look out. He's working on his truck. Oh, no. His wife comes running out. Get in here. Get in the house right now.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah. All right. Well, here's the slowdown at Pleasant Grove Road. It's not as bad as it could be.
Speaker A: Oh, you got traffic. You're gonna say, well, Pete, I put two hands on the wheel here, you know, try to drive.
Speaker B: Well, I got a stick shift, so I gotta use my one hand for the. For the transmission, and I can shift and hold the microphone at the same time.
Speaker A: You know, you're a real man, Chris. Real ham radio operator. You're not a sad ham. You know, I bet you you could probably hold a Diet Pepsi in your left hand at the same time.
Speaker B: That one goes between the legs.
Speaker A: Hey, don't hit above.
Speaker B: Well, it's cold. It's not like a McDonald's coffee.
Speaker A: But still, you'll have a moist area down there. You get out of the car, some guy at the gas station go, hey, you couldn't make it to the bathroom.
Speaker B: I just look at him and say, well, as a matter of fact, no.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You know, I have a Bronco, and I painted. Painted it with spray cans. Skulls. S, K, U, L, L. Skulls. I have a website, you know, figureart.com.skulls. but I noticed right after I painted the Bronco, 50 million guys at the gas station while. Hey, far out, dude. Hey, could you give me a dollar?
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, yeah. So how old a Bronco? Was it one of the original Broncos or was like, the second and third Generation Bronco.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's the second generation. I've got two of them actually. I don't know what I'm going to do with the one. It's, you know, complete. It's not banged up or anything. I'm trying to sell it, blah, blah, blah. Won't pass smog. An O2 sensor went out and it went into the limp home mode and it was running really rich. Well, it wiped out the cat.
Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. All right. And those are not inexpensive.
Speaker A: Hey. Well, the skull bronco sketchy 302 and I'm real surprised. But it's got stock Ford headers which the smog people don't, don't recognize. They go. But this thing moves fast. I mean for a Bronco, which is heavy, you punch it and it gets into the power range about 35, maybe four grand and it really comes to life. I'm surprised for a Ford.
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, so that's the big Bronco. That's like a. One of the original blazers. Chevy blazers. Yeah. It was made out of one of the. That Bronco was made out of an F150, right? Basically.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. They just, you know, shortened the rear end a little and put a camper shell on it. Call it, call it good. I will say though, you know, Broncos can pull and they're heavy and usually they can pull just about anything out of a rut.
Speaker B: WD6, a X N repeater. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Well, okay.
Speaker B: Yeah, I remember, I remember those. You know, we start to see not a Bronco. The Bronco is the one that they came out with. I'm kind of a purist like that. I'm not sure what they should have called it, but they shouldn't have called the second one a Bronco.
Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, even the, the, the Gen 2 Broncos are selling for, you know, 10 grand. The Type 1 Broncos, the early V8s, they're selling for 20, $30,000. So I'm going, damn. Yeah, I know.
Speaker B: My son's father in law has got a Gen1 Bronco and apparently he converted it to fuel injection to three. That's kind of a neat upgrade for that.
Speaker A: Well, yeah, stuff. You can convert your rat motor to fuel injection and the, the body looks exactly like a carburetor, but it's fi.
Speaker B: Yeah, right. Well, that's what, Throttle body injection, right. It's not port injection.
Speaker A: I used to love working on cars when I didn't have to do it for a living. A lot of air cooled Volkswagens and you know, I learned one of the areas I had to learn about was auto air conditioning because I was not going to pay Joe blow, you know, $500 to do something that's pretty easy. Although now you know the Freon. Good luck. No more R12 when you could go into the grand auto and just buy some cans. Those were the days. Hey, you're getting scratchy. My radio is getting hot. I think it's time to take a trot. It rhymes. What? Out. Oh shoot. My KK6N6IWH. I'm going to be listening.
Speaker B: Out. Well, it's the perfect timing because I've just destinated. I was going to sign off anyway, so I'm going to do exactly that. Maybe we'll catch you on the way home. 73 KK 60 CV clear.

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Speaker A: Kk6, vzb mobile.
Speaker B: Chris kn6, wnr.
Speaker A: Matthew, how you doing? What have you been up to?
Speaker B: Not a whole lot. I just turned my radio on and I heard you throw your call sign out like half a second later. Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Speaker A: Every once in a while I've been hearing Paul calling for you.
Speaker B: Yeah, I would imagine. I need.
Speaker A: I don't.
Speaker B: I'm not really on 2 meters anymore, that's the thing. So it's kind of sad because I'm not hearing it. Like, I'm in my truck right now. I'm not driving, I'm just sitting in the driveway. Decided to turn my radio on real quick and I heard you throw the call out. But, yeah, I am very rarely on 2 meters now. I basically just do HF and that's it. 20 and 40 meters, predominantly. Sometimes 15 and 10 meters. Really depends on the time of day and so on and so forth. When I'm operating, sometimes I operate late at night, sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes early in the morning, whatever bands popping, you know.
Speaker A: Well, that's understandable. When you're buzzing around town, though, you know, you're two meters. You can't do too much on H F while you're buzzing around town.
Speaker B: True. Yeah, I know. I've been keeping this radio off when I just hop on my truck because I'm just like, I don't know, kind of just focused on driving a lot more. Lately. It's just been collecting dust just sitting in my truck. I just haven't had it on as much as I used to. I don't know, I'll get back into it more. I'll probably get an itch for it more. That's where I'm trying to get back into using it more. But I've been getting a lot of HF contacts and I'm going to start doing PODA here pretty soon, too. I'm gonna start just doing poda, taking my HF rig along with me, sticking a antenna in the ground and I think looking at maybe getting a JVC12 or something like that. And these are really easy to set up, Koda and doing that.
Speaker A: Well, there you go. Yeah, well, you know, get as much H up as you can.
Speaker B: I don't know.
Speaker A: Are you much into climbing to do the summit on here?
Speaker B: Thing is, I already kind of climbed stuff, so, yeah. Just gotta tack along my heavy HF radio in a backpack and haul everything up to the top, I guess. I mean, I could do it. I've rucked around 45 pounds for like 10 miles. So I have to. Absolutely, I could.
Speaker A: Yes. Well, I haven't been doing much of any HF at all, you know, and that's for various reasons. But I got retirement coming up in oh, about a month and a half. So maybe I'll get to play around with it more. I'll have, I'll have more time at home and I'll have more time to dink around with my antennas and such and maybe, just maybe, maybe I'll have the time to study and get my extract.
Speaker B: Yep, I'm going to try and get it next month. That's my goal. So I have a few of you there. I've been studying for it because I want to work the lower parts of the bands where all the TX is. The problem with general class is it's all in the upper end of the bands where Europe has a different band plan entirely. Most of the world does have a different band plan entirely. They're all operating way lower and I can hear them, I just can't talk to them and it's frustrating.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I've actually been saying that I need to get my extra for the past three or four years and I've gotten the study materials and have done no studying whatsoever on it. So we'll see, we'll see, we'll see what my wife has for me to do once I retire.
Speaker B: You're going to be very preoccupied. I always hear people saying they're actually busier when they're retired than when they were working. W E6A X N repeater well, I'm
Speaker A: not exactly sure that's going to be the case, but we'll see. Of course a lot of people have, well, I don't know what, what, what they're doing but you know, they've got volunteer work or they, or they do still do some part time work here and there. I know that my extra work is going to come from home projects of various types. So I don't know. We'll see. I thought I might actually volunteer with the Ayuba County OEs also. Not sure how that will work out. If it does
Speaker B: would be cool. Yeah, you should definitely do that. That'd be really neat. But yeah, I don't know. I just heard that from people that, you know, saying that they're all, I'm busier than I was when I was working. I've heard that a few times and I don't understand how. But I guess there are people out there, I guess just from all the volunteering that they're doing with a good thing. That's actually awesome. I, that's something that I would want to do when I, if I ever retire. I don't think I ever will, who knows. But yeah, if I feel you there. Back to UK and 6W and R
Speaker A: Friday KK6VZD well, if things weren't the way they were at work, I might have just said I'm just going to keep working. But I'm, I'm ready to let go. I'm ready to not work finally. You know, too much has changed at work for me.
Speaker B: That's understandable.
Speaker A: I mean it's kind of hard for
Speaker B: me to fully understand because I'm not in your shoes. But I can understand from what you're saying the frustration became no longer worth it. So I understand that.
Speaker A: Well actually part of mine is I knew this was going to happen a very long time ago. Just watching the pace at which technology changes. I figured there'd come a time where my capability to support the technology changes would disappear. And I've reached that point. Things, you know, there are so much new out there that I don't understand that I really can't,
Speaker B: I can't
Speaker A: help keep it up like I used to.
Speaker B: Understandable. It's kind of actually been exponential in a way too. Especially like the last five, six years, especially mostly just being software hardware slowed down almost to a halt. There's not going to be a whole lot more actual hardware innovation. But from like you doing an IT support standpoint I can understand because it's mostly software that's quickly changing, just different fundamentals entirely. And as a programmer I see it and I can empathize with you on that and that there has been tons of different software packages and stuff like that being released and updates of which I mean everything from like active directory and all that stuff has changed over you know, relatively short period of time. Especially with AI kind of take taking over everything.
Speaker A: Oh yeah, I'm not even sure I want to discuss that. But yeah, because we used to have, we used to have all on premise servers and all of our, all of our programs, even our enterprise programs ran on local servers and now everything has gone to web based and well the changes in managing devices and managing user accounts, I mean it's just hugely different than it was before. And over the past couple of years my managers didn't feel that it was worth having me trained on any of the newer things.
Speaker B: Oh they're just switching over to VPs instead of self hosting. I can understand why they would do that. It's a lot cheaper. As somebody who actually self hosts, not self host, actually owns a website that's posted on a vps, I fully understand. And having all that infrastructure in the cloud that you can't actually physically touch, probably on an operating system that you may be not as familiar with. I don't know how familiar you were with. I don't know the exact details, but I can kind of see where you're coming with this. I understand.
Speaker A: Yeah. Well, part of my problem also comes from the management that came on board a couple of years ago and they were making these huge changes and they didn't bother to ask those of us that had the experience with what was currently there, you know, that didn't bother to get us involved whatsoever to find out how it might affect our customers. And you know, I was the primary support for the sheriff, so I knew their environment, I knew how they liked to operate, you know, and when they went to change to something and they didn't bother to find out how that would affect the Sheriff. Sheriff by asking me, you know,
Speaker B: some sort of snowball effect that should not have happened. Very true, very true.
Speaker A: But then again, that's what happens when you hire a manager that had no, no experience in IT support.
Speaker B: That's technically how it always works. Yeah.
Speaker A: You know, if he had a. If he had a clue at all, he wouldn't have done some of the things that he did. Fortunately, he's been gone for a year and a half.
Speaker B: Probably a sigh release.
Speaker A: Not only a sigh of relief, but a gleeful celebration of the fact that he was gone.
Speaker B: You'd be considered a level one or level two support.
Speaker A: I am Level two.
Speaker B: Yeah. So you get the hard stuff.
Speaker A: Well, harder. But for the past. Wow. For the past. Yeah. They've been treating me like level one support.
Speaker B: Not cool.
Speaker A: No, it's not. But I kind of got to where I said, you know what? They're still paying me for level two, so. Okay.
Speaker B: Yeah. That's still messed up though, because if you're level two and you've been painted that way and you have all this experience, you should be treated like a level one that has basically no experience. Really. Okay. That's unfortunate. I didn't know that. But that would. I could see how that would make
Speaker A: your life a little miserable.
Speaker B: It's almost like a form of gaslighting.
Speaker A: Yeah. And they've got this new system where when a request comes in, it kind of goes into a carousel, I guess you'd call it. And it doesn't look at, you know, people's skill set. It just assigns whatever ticket it is to the next available agent. And I get some. I'm like, I haven't the slightest idea to do that. And they don't like us reassigning them to people that do. So. You know, as far as I'm concerned, that's kind of a flawed process. They need to have a. They need to have entered into the system what everybody's skill sets are so they can make an intelligent decision when they're assigning things out.
Speaker B: W E6A X N repeater KN6WNR ID. Yeah, they would probably help out a lot, one would think because they should know what everybody's skill sets are. We're not six digit numbered random bodies. We're human beings with different skill sets and knowledge base.
Speaker A: Yeah. And I understand that the managers don't necessarily want to be manually assigning request, but I think that that would be
Speaker B: a
Speaker A: more accurate way of getting a ticket to somebody who would actually know how to fix it.
Speaker B: Yeah, that would, that would actually be really useful. I mean, I would imagine you guys have like a ticket system.
Speaker A: Oh yes we do. And I was going to say. So you can see why I think it's time for me to leave.
Speaker B: Yes, I can. Oh no,
Speaker A: that's okay. I will miss some of the people that I've worked with over the years. Although many of the people that I worked with it, the vast majority of them are already gone for one reason or another. Out of the 15 people that were in it four or five years ago, there's only two of us left. Everybody else is a newbie.
Speaker B: Typically how it works because they get that job and they probably get a state job or they move out of state or they find a job at a tech company that probably pays better. They're just using that as experience. They probably didn't like the environment, so on and so forth. That's probably what happened. Either that or just going to an entirely different field altogether, especially the level one guys. Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me. As for me right now, I am Actively applying for IT jobs like IT support. Yeah, actively applying like right now. KN6WNR Friday KK6VZD.
Speaker A: Well, you missed your chance, your opportunity in the last four months because Cuba county we've put on six new people in the last month. Six.
Speaker B: All those things
Speaker A: and the people that are gone, all the oldies,
Speaker B: most of
Speaker A: them didn't leave of their own accord. Most of them were forced out.
Speaker B: Oh no.
Speaker A: Now that's another reason that I'm not really eager to stay. Because, you know, I think, you know, their treatment stunk. Of all the. This is funny.
Speaker B: This is.
Speaker A: They. Once I got called a tenured employee, and they said it like it was a dirty word.
Speaker B: That's not nice.
Speaker A: What, are they trying to force you to quit?
Speaker B: Yeah,
Speaker A: one guy, actually, there's a couple people that were in. There were a few people that were invited to leave. One of the guys that just recently left left before he got invited to leave. I was a little bit worried there myself about my position, except for the fact that, you know, retirement was coming up. And I think that, you know, management and HR knew that retirement was going to come was coming up for me, and they, they, they figured I'm going to be gone soon enough anyway, so they didn't have to put forth the effort to force me out. Oh, so that they're not going full
Speaker B: hard mode on you try and force you out. They're just buying time. It's like, oh, he's just gonna retire soon anyways. Okay. So it actually could be a lot worse for you, I guess. A positive note. But you're already real.

Speaker A: That,
Speaker B: yeah, yeah, after I'm on, I'm gone. This is, this is the interesting thing. You know, you generally have, you know, employees and there's a vast range of experience and employment. And after I leave, there will be only one guy that has worked for the county for longer than five years.
Speaker A: That's not a good track record. Okay.
Speaker B: Now, you know, I didn't like seeing the new guys come in, but I have to, you know, look at it and say it's not their fault. And a lot of the new guys that are coming in, you know, they look like they got heads on their shoulders and smarts and you know, I'm glad for them that they got the jobs. I'm just sad for them that they got the jobs on top of the, you know, on the backs of the people that are no longer there.
Speaker A: All right, that's unfortunate. It seems like they're cycling through people too fast. What it looks like to me, I know how that is. I've had jobs like that. I'm not naming names. KN6WNR, KK6BZB. Well, enough of that.
Speaker B: Enough of that. So yeah, I was just down at Roseville today picking up a new phone. Do you believe I got a new phone for less than 500 bucks? Do you believe that?
Speaker A: Oh, my phone. I bought like 800. I've had it. I'm gonna keep it until it breaks. I've already replaced the battery on it. The newer phones that are coming out are actually going to have less RAM because of the RAM shortage because of AI. The AI is ruining everything. Did you know that Samsung's gonna eventually stop making consumer SSDs?
Speaker B: No, I did not. You know, it's actually interesting. I wasn't sure. My son was asking me about memory for a laptop that I had given him and I went to look because he's, I think he's got 16 now and I know his, his laptop will hold 32. And I went online to find RAM for it and I could not believe my eyes at the price of ram. And I, I think he said something about AI driving RAM prices up and it's like holy cow, your not kidding.
Speaker A: DDR5 is a no go right now. I'll just be very clear on that because that's what data centers are using. They basically, you can't buy DDR5 ECC RAM. You know, we can't buy server grade because it's all sold out. Micron stops selling RAM to consumers, they will only sell to data centers. Now I've heard that Samsung's going to stop producing one terabyte solid state drives for consumers. That's a rumor that's being tossed around. That's not going to be good. That's a lot of. So it's because of data centers. They're using them, they're using the M2s and all that, you know, the PCI Express, whatever. Solid state drives are super, super fast. And these AI data centers are using, they're using solid state drives, they're using a lot of ram, a lot of processing power. They take a lot of resources to cool these things. They use a lot of energy, so on and so forth. I don't want to rant about it too much, but it's driving up and driving up the price and drying up the market for consumer PCs and phones. It is what it is.
Speaker B: Oh yeah. Well, you know, a nice thing that when I finish and I retire,
Speaker A: I'm
Speaker B: not sure except for my own computer, I'm not touching another computer
Speaker A: key is to buy DDR4 RAM, because that hasn't really gone up in price at all because the data centers are using DDR5. So there isn't a DDR4 shortage yet. And I say yet because all the consumers, because they can't buy DDR5 are buying older generation motor other boards that support DDR4. So those are going to become hard to get and then the used market is going to become hard to get. So that pricing will eventually go up because the demand is high, the supply is low, thus the price goes up. So me here with 16 gigabytes of RAM on my desktop, I wanted to upgrade it because I'm running what, DDR3. That's all my desktop is. I should have done it a long time ago. Should have done DDR5. I didn't think this would happen. I didn't. I knew about Chat GPT as soon as it came out. I knew about AI LLMs, all that coming out. I didn't think that that fad would actually grow to the point it has. I didn't think it would grow to the point where software developers would be getting fired in droves. I didn't think that would happen. And it's happening and I don't know what to do because I'm a programmer and I can't get a job. KN6W R4ID W E6A X N repeater.
Speaker B: You're telling me that your training is out of date?
Speaker A: Yeah, basically now my college degree is not worth the paper it's printed on now because basically According to these companies, because they think that AI can replace junior level software developers. So yeah, and I saw it coming as soon as I got my degree too, because I knew, I saw LLMs were starting to come out right around like 2019 or so. That's when I got my degree. That's why I never actually went to Chico State or SAC State, because I said, well, why do I want to take out a student loan to get a bachelor's degree in this field when I have a small gut feeling at the time that I'm probably going to get replaced and I have this lump sum of debt. That's why I never went to Chico State, if you ever wondered. That's why I saw the writing on the wall kind of. It was kind of foggy back then, but now it's supposed to look clear. What's ending up happening is a lot of these companies are actually hiring the people back that they fired because they realize the AI hasn't developed itself enough to actually fully replace them yet. I mean, we've all seen the AI slop on social media and the weird images and videos. The AI isn't fully there yet. It makes mistakes still. It's not able to fully replace employees. But they thought they could replace them, but they're kind of regretting it at this point. But I feel the AI is still going to progress to the point where they're probably just going to fire them again. That's what I think is going to happen. And so it kind of makes me a little bit depressed because I'm like, I just spent all this time and all this effort and all these years programming and I feel that it's wasted now. KN6W and our Friday.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, I feel for you. I feel for you. I'm not. It's not the same thing. When I. When I left the Air Force, I was a trained jet engine mechanic. Now, to be honest, I didn't have my licenses in place as that when I got out, I could go directly to work for an airline or something like that, you know, got to be honest about that. But at the same time, when I was getting out, I did have some compatriots that were also getting out and they were trying to find jobs in the industry and they couldn't because there was a glut of talent. So they weren't getting hired. And I knew I wasn't going to get hired, which is actually why I ended up in how I ended up it. Because at the time there was not enough talent in it to Go around. So, yeah, that kind of worked out for me.
Speaker A: For instance, this is how hard it is right now for me. I just applied for like 16 jobs and two days later I get like six or seven emails that were just automatic rejection letters. At least they're actually getting back to me on it. But I'm not even getting interviewed. And I have a website and I've built a bunch of different things. I've even worked on a flight simulator, too. If you go on my website, you'll actually see. See it. What I have worked on. Like, at least give me something. At least an interview. Like, I'm not even getting that. I don't know what to do.
Speaker B: Yeah, no, that must be discouraging.
Speaker A: I mean, I worked on an F4S flight simulator. I mean, I've been working on that thing since 2017. I mean, basically, like, it's using NASA, NTRS, source, wind tunnel data, all public domain. Everything I've. Every source I've used is in the public domain. As I find it, I implement it. And I basically, at this point, implemented most of the plane. It's not finished yet, but still, I've dedicated like a decade of my life to that. I mean, it shows consistent effort. I mean, I built a website, I wrote a lot of code in C and C and went ahead and Python and they're not even looking at it. They don't. I don't even think they're even going on my website because I can actually check. Like, come on, like, what's the deal?
Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I'm not sure what to say. I know that people used to look. Not necessarily, maybe at. Well, you know, they look at the skills you have, but they'd also look at potential, you know, and it sounds like they're not even looking at your potential.
Speaker A: And that's what's frustrating me. They're not even giving me two seconds of their time. I know it takes the average time somebody spends, like looking at a resume, seven seconds. I think they're not even opening the file, to be honest. They're not even looking. Of course, they're definitely not even checking my website. They're definitely not going in the About Me page. That's why I'm saying I can see them. I know what pages people are going on. I see literally everything. I see literally every request. That's one of the cool things about having a website in gps, you know, the access log. I know we're generally where the traffic is.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, maybe they're. They say, we need, we need we need 20 resumes. They've got a pile of a thousand they go through and when they get to 20 that they think they want to see, they just don't look at anymore.
Speaker A: I know, I think also I don't like AI is they're using AI to screen resumes. So there's a good chance that a human being never even gets a chance to even see your application because you're already getting pre screened out. That's another reason why people are having a hard time getting a job right now is because even though they applied and they did all this and they may be even contacting the person, they don't even see the application because they get pre screened. Why are they doing that? Oh, they ruined it. Jn6w r pride kk6vzd well,
Speaker B: you just mentioned, you know, you just say AI and it's. And I don't know, I've got a prejudice against it. It's like I don't want to, to hear it. I don't want, you know, to hear where. Hey, nice stop guy. Yeah. Where, you know, people think that they have to have something else think for them. Yeah, it's dumbing us down. And I thought there's a lot of things up to this point that I thought have been helping to dumb us down. But this is a big one.
Speaker A: Yes. I don't like AI at all, to be honest. I think it's done more harm than good. It's gonna get to the point where people are gonna literally, they, they already are. They're, they're literally going to ask Chad GPT how to make a cup of coffee.
Speaker B: Actually. Yeah, I kind of came to that conclusion years ago. I started noticing that, you know, when any decision, anybody had to make a decision, quite often somebody would head for their phone and they, you know, Google something before they would make a decision. And I'm sitting there thinking, come on, use your brain. It's not that difficult.
Speaker A: And what ends up happening, you just want to really dig deep into like the psychology behind that is then they end up just losing their own self confidence and their own understanding. Understanding and critical thinking skills. And then they start using AI as more and more and more of a crutch. I try so hard to actually avoid doing that because I understand it's actually a cycle and I agree with you. I mean I see it in a lot of people. They end up doing that and then they end up booting their phones with like an eight hour and a day screen time. My gear. Are you glued to your Just glue to your phone. Get off the phone, stop. Go do something else. Go chuck your phone in the lake.
Speaker B: I don't know. Well, this isn't quite the same, but. But it's just kind of a. An example of. Of, you know, people getting too dependent. My. My daughter was. Was dating this one guy a dozen years ago, and they were trying to determine what they were going to do one weekend, and they were texting back and forth, and it was taking a while. Every time that one of them was sent a text, it would take the other one a while to respond. And she said something about the fact that it was taking so long to get this set up because. Because of the test. And I text and I just looked at her and I. And I said, call him.
Speaker A: WP6A X N repeater.
Speaker B: KN6WNR.
Speaker A: Friday. Yeah, better yet, in person. Talk to them face to face. Problem solved. Not waiting five hours when it takes five minutes.
Speaker B: Yeah, I just. It just. It just kind of floored me. It's like, what's the matter with you?
Speaker A: This thing's a phone.
Speaker B: Use it to talk.
Speaker A: Kinda like just sending CW at like one word per minute to send a whole essay.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. You know, but, you know, sometimes when you can't do the voice, you know, it's nice to have the CW backup. I'd like. I'd like to be able to do it. I took a class on it and I never really followed up with practice. So, you know, I. Yeah, I couldn't. I could tell you what cq, CQ sounds like. And that's.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of funny. I actually have that written down in a notebook of sides. It's funny. Of cq, CQ and my call sign. And as I always kind of remember that, you know, so. Yeah, that's like every operator's first word is like, cq. Yeah, I do a bit of more. Not as much as I probably should. It's something else. The key to it, honestly, is identifying with your ears. The rhythm is actually a rhythm with the ditch and the. God. There's plenty of. Going back to the watching your phone thing, but there's actually plenty of YouTube videos on how to find the rhythm. Find the rhythm. That makes it easier. J&6WNR. Freddie.
Speaker B: That's very true, very true. I found out that I didn't have much trouble sending. It was a receiving. It was. Was, you know, that I couldn't get.
Speaker A: You definitely have to deal with headphones. And how do I say, I know you have a good set of headphones. Your QRZ shows it. I mean, I've seen it before. They're a really good set. Yeah, definitely. Headphones. I wouldn't do the audio too loud, to be honest. That's just me. Especially if you're really sensitive to it.