GEARS W TX (146.115 MHz) recordings for 2026-01-16

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System32 link up.

This is kn6jkp listening. Who might be out there? System seven limp.

Km6uv h1.km6uvi. This is km6uvi responding to qf6uvh. System 12 linked up.

Speaker A: Cam6uvi. This is another test from
Speaker B: cam6uvh. Zerk qm6uvh. I could hear you loud and clear. I change change the quality to 7.

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Speaker A: 13, link up. Redding, link up.
Speaker B: K9k. A
Speaker A: d monitoring.

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System7 link up.

Speaker A: Y2sw m connected.
Speaker B: Nevada Hill 6 Nicaragua Kilo Kilo lima november kilo indeed station from all over. Washington, mexico we are echoing standby. Florida, washington, mexico papaya washington, mexico.

We are echoing.

Papayan ke2 florida washington, massachusetts it.

Mike papaya, Nevada, washington from paulo.

Wn disconnected.

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And 60sl j i6u w6.

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Please forgive my ker chunks. I'm just testing some adjustments and hang time. Adjustments here.

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Just a couple more kajunks here and I'll be done. N6T and E.

Sam. N6 knee will be clear and listening.

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Redding link. Well, there goes the ghost of Redding.

Sa. It.

Cam 60th oki 60w.

System32 link up.

This is km7dal testing km7dao.

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Oh, six lbk connected.

Bk disconnected.

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Mo. System is link up k6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

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K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

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Speaker A: K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range,
Speaker B: Kn6mgk on local. Good morning.

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Speaker A: Good morning, ab4ld. Good morning.
Speaker B: With the alpha bravo 4 lima delta from anarch 7g. How are you?
Speaker A: I'm doing good, thanks, and I hope you're doing well. I'm here in Arab Alabama and It was like 24 degrees this morning. I used to live in Pahrump years ago. Well, not that far ago. I. I moved out in 2015, but I moved there 1985. So yeah, that's.
Speaker B: That's where I lived for a while. Wow. So 84 to 2015. So yeah, you saw this place grow. Got out of here. So yeah, same for me, man. I've been here since 94. I've been since 94. I probably got about two years left. I'm out of here. I'll be up in Northern Nevada, Spring Creek area. This is south of Elco, right?
Speaker A: Oh, very nice. Yeah, I moved out of 2015, moved up to Sparks,
Speaker B: bought a house.
Speaker A: And then 2018, I think it was.
Speaker B: I don't know.
Speaker A: My wife wanted my new wife.
Speaker B: I remarried and she wanted to be over in Northern California with.
Speaker A: And I didn't want to go, but we went anyway.
Speaker B: I talked to one of her daughters
Speaker A: coming here, so we put a down painted on the house for them and then the oldest daughter moved out here and we moved out here.
Speaker B: So living the life.
Speaker A: I'm surrounded by a cattle ranch. There's not a whole lot of cattle, maybe 100 head. And you know, it doesn't have the smell that a lot of ranchers do, but we have two acres right in the middle of it. The only way to get out is go out to Fort 400 foot driveway and the lady domes all the way around it. So that makes it nice for day shifts and no interference. You know, as far as you know, man made noise and none of that. Name here is Larry St. Romeo Romeo.
Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, very good Larry Name here is John Juliet Oscar till November getting the call November Romeo 7 Gulf here in Continental hills, Northwest Las Vegas. And. And yeah, my wife's family. I mean, I'm sorry, my mother's family is from south central Kentucky. I live north of Bowling Green, around the Cade City area. Smith Grove around there. But I used to live in Chattanooga. Facts before I came to Vegas, I was in Chattanooga for a year. So I used to ride my motorcycle down to Alabama right around 10. Now download 59, 59 driving around, you know, whatever. So have fond memories of love Alabama. Everything about it is great. So I'm sure you're enjoying it. Be up galore have enough field Nothing but cattle than Car and good for you. So, yeah. So what part of Alabama are you? Right.
Speaker A: I'm in a small town called Arab Arc and it's about 15 miles south of Huntsville. And the next town joining this one you have like Morgan City to the north and to the gosh, I'm trying to think of to the east. To the east is Gunnersville. So the other directions were kind of out in the middle of nowhere. And then you've got within driving distance, you know, 30, 40 minutes, you've got Decatur and Coleman. So we're in that section, over.
Speaker B: Oh, okay. Yeah, I know what that is. All right, well, pleasure, pleasure chatting with you. I got a. My wife and son are doing 6:30pm here. We're on the West Coast Civic Time. 6:30. I'm off today. I work at city government. I work at the finance department at Las Vegas City Hall. So we're off on Fridays and then I get a long weekend because it's not Monday. So I got a four day weekend here and I got a number of activities. We got the church coming over for game night tonight. Tomorrow we got. I'm in charge of program called Trail Life at the boys. Folks know kind of like what boy show. So we have an activity tomorrow afternoon for that and then tomorrow morning there's a funeral out with that, you know, like memorial service. Sunday we got church and our friends and church out. We were having a surprise party for her in the afternoon. Surprise. Could be a birthday party with a bunch of people. Monday I'm doing just getting ready for a talk. I'm giving a church on Tuesday. Lot of church stuff going on this weekend. There's a lot of activity, so just a little bit going around. Crazy plus with team baseboards. My wife helping with that part. I'm helping with that project. So ham radio, I don't know, maybe I could do a little bit in between here and there. 84lb. Larry, great challenge and our stuff.
Speaker A: It was great talking to you also. And if you know ralph n7dnb. I've known him for over 30 years. He belonged to hxo.
Speaker B: Alrighty.
Speaker A: I think you said it was nr7g av4ld73. Take care. Good chatting with you.
Speaker B: Very good, Larry. Well, any friend of Ralph's up in the mountain. Yeah, I know Ralph very well. He lives around the corner about, I don't know, maybe as a crow flies, maybe three quarters of a mile mile on here. So. Yeah. All right, take care. And Larry, great shouting with you, meeting you. And I've only been a member of six or seven years now. Anyway, have a great day. I'm sure we'll talk to you. NR 72nd clear.
Speaker A: All right, take care. 84 lD.

Speaker A: N7t&d las vegas.
Speaker B: Good morning, ralph. 84lp.
Speaker A: Larry Good morning. How's the world out in Alabama?
Speaker B: Hi. It's cold. Woke up at 20 degrees and I don't know what it is right now, but it's been pretty chilly. We're supposed to get some rain today. And the daughter lives next door on this two acres. They left, went to. Oh God, where did they go? Philadelphia, I think. And Gina's taking care of their chickens and feeding her cats and we're watching their dogs. Kind of crazy here. I just got done talking to nr7g. Very nice chat.
Speaker A: Yeah, that's John, you know, one of the club members. Great guy, very resourceful individual. You've got, you've got a really loud tone on your signal.
Speaker B: I'm not sure what it is. I don't know either. Hang on a second. Let's go over to a handheld. Let's see if this makes any difference.
Speaker A: The tone is completely gone, but you're not into the repeater or whatever. It's a lot of crackling, but the tone's gone. So. Yeah, I guess the tone was the radio.
Speaker B: Okay, I've got my notice out in the living room. It's probably, I don't know, 30ft away. I've got one in here and one out there. So I just, I just boosted the power a little bit. So anyway, how's your morning?
Speaker A: Oh, not bad. Just getting started, making my way into the office. Very day out here, it's like 50, 52 corner of my car and yeah, there's you know, Mondays. Heck, is it some kind of holiday? Oh, that MLK thing. Anyways, so Monday to holiday. A lot of the government people are taking today off, making it a four day weekend. So it's probably gonna be pretty quiet. But I just hired a new director of engineering. Started a week or so ago. So I got a meeting with him to talk about just generally how things are going and stuff like that. I got some HR issues to work, which I always, always love that stuff. So it's gonna be, gonna be one of those days. But try to get out of here on four or five o'.
Speaker B: Clock. Okay? I lost part of that. I don't know if there was a pack of loss on my end or what, but. So you've got to train this new person. No, no, no.
Speaker A: I hired him to replace my engineering director. The guy, the guy. I've got my running my division retiring and so I got this new guy on board. So they're, they're working a transition Thing right now. I just need to talk to him about a few things.
Speaker B: We've got a.
Speaker A: We've got a lot of subcontractor employees that work for us directly day in, day out. Ones tend to be. Their companies tend to be a little bit of an issue. So I gotta make sure he understands that and give him some, some pointers.
Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. John says that he works four days a week. So he's got today off and then he's got Monday off for mlk. So that's a nice weekend. The friend of mine back in Northern California, where I moved for a little bit, he works for the City of Paradise. He takes care of all the emergency vehicles, police, fire, ambulance, all of that. His normal day off is Monday. No. Yeah, Monday. So he's gonna have Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday off, and then you go back for like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. He's got a pretty good, you know, if he falls on Tuesday or whatever, and he's got Monday, Tuesday, and it's pretty slick. But he works long hours. He puts like, I don't know, 10, sometimes 12 hours a day. And when a vehicle comes in, needs to be repaired, he's there maybe 4lb.
Speaker A: Yeah, that is pretty cool.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: John works for the City of Las Vegas contracting, I think. But. Yeah, so he's one of those. He's that, that 410 thing. I guess it is. You know, we do kind of a hybrid at my place. I let. I let the department heads figure it out. As long as we got coverage and
Speaker B: I don't really care.
Speaker A: But we got people that work 980s, you know, every other Friday office, some people work 4, 10, but I can't, you know, I just, I gotta be there. So I just, I just work by five days a week and typically 10, 12 hours a day is my day, but goes to the territory, I guess.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, you'll retire one these days and I don't know if you're going to stay in Las Vegas or not, but God said he's moving up to Northern Nevada. I guess they're already starting to build. I got out of prompt because I got the divorce and got together with a girl I knew many, many, many years ago, back in 72 or 73. So we got together, got married. Here we are in Narad, Alabama. So I've been moving around quite a bit. I like Sparks. Sparks was really nice. Had a nice house up there, but wanted to be with her kids and, you know, I'm glad that I moved out of Peram. Gosh, that place has really gone to the dog.
Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I've got a few people I know that live in Parrot, and they're kind of telling me the same thing. It's really changed a lot of drug usage and unfortunately. But yeah, I'm probably another. I don't know, maybe two years out from hanging it up. We'll see. A year and a half. Two years, maybe we'll see how things go. But, you know, I don't. I'm not sure what we're gonna do. I. I can't attend Las Vegas. The town has really gone to hell. And I've been here since 83, so a long time. But wife doesn't want to move, so that's gonna be a whole thing. We'll see. But, yeah, like I said, I like that. Pretty much like the weather here, except for the summertime when it's really the blazing heat. But a guy I work with bought a house up in Carson City and his wife lives up there. And he goes up there on the weekends. Just gets one of these, you know, cheap Spirit Airlines type flight, Sereno. And he loves it up there. He sent me some pictures of this place. Looks really, really nice. And they get more Four Seasons up there. Not really stupid winters with a lot of smell, but a little bit. So he kind of. He kind of like. So I might. I might go up there one of these days, Just kind of tour around for a while, get a hotel for a few days and see what the city's all about. At least that keeps me in Nevada where there's no state income taxes. I definitely don't want to move to a state where I got to pay income taxes when I'm retired, but who knows? So where in Alabama? I do a lot of business in Huntsville with a couple of the major contractors out there, like Lighthouse and SRC and EWA and those guys. I'm out there probably a couple, three, four times a year, depending on what kind of projects you got on the books.
Speaker B: Are you.
Speaker A: Are you fairly close on still?
Speaker B: Yes, I am. South Huntsville, you know where the Tennessee river is. I'm about maybe 15 miles from there. 12 miles. It doesn't take very long. It's right off of 231. I'm about two miles to the west of 231. So it takes probably, I don't know, 30 minutes to 20 minutes get to Huntsville. So like I said, we're not very far. It's. I. Well, to the airport. It takes about 40 minutes south to get to my place.
Speaker A: M7tnd Las Vegas.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's not far at all.
Speaker A: I usually work around the area by the airport, private airport, probably a 10, 15 minute drive from where I usually stay. I stay around Redstone Arsenal I guess it's a major area. I don't really do a lot of work with the army. It's mainly Air Force and Space Force, but a lot of the contractors that I work with.
Speaker B: Okay, well I'll have to send my phone number for. You know you shoot me an email when you're this way because I checked my email all the time but love to meet up with you, go out, buy lunch or whatever, stay here, you know, come over and get a cup of coffee or something. But that would be great because gosh, it's been eons since I've seen you before. AB4LD Arab, Alabama.
Speaker A: Yeah, sorry about that drop out Larry. I'm using up. I don't have a radio in my car so I'm using some POC radio to connect a quick drop out on my cell carrier. Yeah, no, I heard the back end of that. Yeah, I'll definitely do that. I'm not sure what I'm going to be out there next. I've got a meeting with one of the. One of our subs I think in the summer I late spring summer. So I'll definitely tie up. Like I said, I usually stay in a hotel right around Redstone Arsenal, one of the Hiltons there. So that's not too far away from me at all.
Speaker B: No, it's not. How much time do you spend here? A couple days.
Speaker A: You know, it really depends on what I got going on.
Speaker B: I don't make.
Speaker A: I at least stay one night. I mean it's a long flight. I usually take a Delta flight out here on six in the morning. Gets me there early afternoon. So that's one day just almost just on travel.
Speaker B: Although I can probably.
Speaker A: Usually I do a couple of meetings in the later afternoon. But you know, anywhere from I would say three to four days I would guess I'm usually there three nights, sometimes four nights depending on what's going on. So I'll definitely figure it out even if I have to just explain end of day.
Speaker B: That would be a fun Ralph, I'd love to see you. God, it's been forever. You know, we talked and I'm glad that Carla's up and running and by the way, I connected to 29150. I don't know if that's where the hum is coming from but being different radios, you would think the hum would still be here if it was, you know, if it was the network, so. But we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll connect back up to my friend Larry. He's connected the car all the time. We'll see what happens. And time I talked to you, I was connected to him. I tried to stay awake for the. For the net. Last night? No, Wednesday night. And I just couldn't do it. I was up for. Gosh, I don't know.
Speaker A: I got up about 3 or 4
Speaker B: in the morning and I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Come nine o', clock, that's pretty late for me.
Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't make a net this week either. I got some other things going on in my personal life, so it's got me a little occupied.
Speaker B: But.
Speaker A: Yeah, no, 29150 is our. The HXO hub. We hosted a Vulture server in la and we're all tied. We're all meshed together. So Carlo's online right now, Larry's tied to Carlo, then he's hearing us, yada, yada, yada, Everything. Everything's all tied together. And the only time we disconnect from Tom and the guys and Carla is when we're running our nets so we don't muck up the entire system with our traffickers. But other than that, we're. Unless there's a technical problem, we're tied up 24. I don't know if your battery's going dead on your Larry or what, but nothing on that one. I heard a little bit of audio and you went away.

Speaker A: And7PND. AB4LD.
Speaker B: How copy? Oh, man, that is 100. You've been. You've been scratchy the entire time we've been talking. Now you're, you're. You're full crunch. So whatever you did, keep it up.
Speaker A: Okay? Yeah, it works. Let me see. I gotta turn some things down over here. Gosh, I lost my train of thought, you know, when I got married, she wanted to be with her family, so I gave in, moved over there. And then I met Larry N7T Indy, and we became good friends. When I switched over to a different radio, I happen to be connected to him on his other node. And he says, larry, you're on the wrong one. So I had to switch back over here. Anyway, yeah, we're supposed to be getting some rain today, and like I said, Gina's taking care of the cats, the dogs, the chickens. Just a regular farm girl. Over.
Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Yeah, I remember first time I heard Larry on it, I was like, did I just hear my call sign? It's a T instead of a T. So anyway, we started talking based on that, and then somehow we stumbled across the fact that we both know you. So interesting. Interesting how things go. So, all right, Larry. Well, I gotta go. I'm just pulling in the parking lot here. I gotta get in. I gotta 7:30 teleconference with actually some guys in Huntsville. I got that. I got to get out. So I get off. And 17d las vegas. Have a great day. Yeah. You two are al 73, 84ld arab,
Speaker A: alabama.

K7g&d k7gnd84ld. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. Just some light noise in the background. We could probably possibly do a different comparison than my other one in here. Yeah, I'm using the standard rubber duck that came with this radio. And the other one, the D74, I'm using a diamond whip a little bit longer, so let me switch over the D74 and see what you think. Okay. Yeah. Your audio is a little stronger than 29. There's some kind of tone on it, but it's not big deals, that. Big difference in the audio. I'm gonna have to look for the memory number for the mic gain and turn the mic gain up, Which is only 1 11. Okay, let me. Let me check that. I'll be right back.

Maybe4ld.

Speaker A: It.
Speaker B: Okay, I hear you loud and clear.

7g and d a before lt.

K7gnd.ab4lb. Okay, that's good and strong. All right, thanks. Back over to your ab4ld.

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A7gnd84lb on the d75. I'm going to switch to the d74k7gnd84lb 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on a d74. Okay, there.

Ab4ld. Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4.

P7g and d84ld. How copy?

Good morning. We're hearing a lot of clicking, popping, touch tone attempts, but no call signs at all. WB6 KHP System 7 link up.

Ab4lb. Sorry about. I'm just trying to get things straightened out here.

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And fix grc 36 local.

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Speaker A: Kn 6 mgk mobile.
Speaker B: Good morning, steve. N6trq.
Speaker A: Hey, good morning. Good morning. Yep, got my radio in the mobile here on this morning. Seeing what's going on.
Speaker B: Well, I think there's a chance that there was a big solar storm. I'm hearing noise on all bands, including this one. And at first on hf things were extremely long. You could only hear stations that were quite distant, nothing in California whatsoever, and that included San Diego. So it was a very unusual band this morning and it changed rather quickly and I couldn't even hear Sierra Yankee who was just bombed in from. From Las Vegas. So, yeah, it was a strange band. Actually, she's not Las Vegas, she's eastern northeastern Nevada.
Speaker A: Yeah, she's like an Elko. Anyway. Yeah, I probably could have told you that this morning. I've been up since 4 and I was working the digital. You can look at my PSK reporter on 40 meters from this morning and you could see that the band was real long. I was getting a lot of east coast and a lot of Asiatic. Even Asiatic Russia, China, Indonesia, all that stuff over into Asia. So. Yeah, but the stuff along the west coast just wasn't coming in this morning. So I could see it was definitely long.
Speaker B: Very strange band. A lot of strange things going on. I switched over to this other Baja net, 72.33.5, and Tony India, Golf Zulu was over there and even Golf Papa happened to jump over there and hear him, which is probably one of the reasons why Tony left the. The other net. So. Yeah. Oh boy.
Speaker A: Yep. Well, as time goes on, some people will be leaving the nets and whatever. That's what seems to be happening. There's still only about. I haven't been listening. So about a dozen check ins every morning. Is that kind of where it's at right now?
Speaker B: Yeah, that's how the regular Baja Net is. Just a dozen or less and Tony's
Speaker A: not one of them.
Speaker B: And yet I was surprised to hear him doing weather over there at the other Baja nest. So he's one of the best weather guys out there, so they're lucky to have him.
Speaker A: Yeah, maybe you should start doing that and that instead. If it comes a little later.
Speaker B: Well, maybe. Yeah, it was a strange morning. My dog was all upset with something
Speaker A: and
Speaker B: allowed himself to get a little bit overly worked up. And so yeah, it was a strange morning, but weather wise it's just gorgeous. So. And it's also another strange thing is my window weather monitor is claiming that there's going to be rain coming up. I don't know exactly what makes that weather monitor decided, you know, it does its own little forecast, the regular weather system weather, people say clear skies and no rain for. Out for quite a distance.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing. Even my tulips and daffodils are starting to. Starting to come alive and stuff. So I don't know, definitely seeing signs of change. So kind of that La Nina pattern, like where we've gotten all that wet stuff at, you know, one particular time and then be dry for a month, you know, so kind of what I'm expecting. So a couple more weeks of this kind of weather and then we might get another good storm system in here, I would bet.
Speaker B: Well, from what I had heard, it was actually an El Nino pattern. And NOAA says, Excuse me, NOA said AA said that El Nino would be over as of spring, so winter weather should. It's hard to say what's going to happen. And it does this, you know, it'll swing back and forth between lots of rain and lots of clear skies for not quite as long as an extended period as we're having this time. But we've probably got rain in the distance forecast. Haven't even seen it on the ten day, though. Yeah.
Speaker A: No, incidentally, yeah. With these LORA devices, you know, you can get different sensors for them and stuff, and temperature, humidity, that type of thing is all possible. And I think if we build our own node, I think we're going to do that here. I think we're talking about that possibly today, ordering some stuff up to build our own, but we'll add some of those sensors to it. So then when it sends out its position packet, it'll send out its WX information also, so anyone in the mesh can see it. You know, pretty interesting. I strategically placed a node yesterday about 5 o', clock, and it's been banging real good heading into the about 140 miles to the South Bay area and then also directing its traffic into Chico and into the paradise area at the same time. So it's a pretty interesting little spot, but seems to be helping out the mesh network in those two areas anyway. But not getting over to my house. That's the only bad thing. So still nothing on. I can't seem to get much going on the north. Call it the northwest side of Chico.
Speaker B: Well, that's why I was asking you about rf, because I did notice that
Speaker A: the
Speaker B: charts, if you will, or maps or whatever they're, however they're deciding to call themselves, are saying that the signals are making it to the Bay Area, but They're really not. The RF signals are not making it to the Bay Area. What's happening is there is a connection, virtual connection to the Bay Area somehow. And, you know, it's just. You have to look at the whole thing and try to figure it out, actually, you know, and use a little common sense. And, you know, there's no way the RF signals are making it there. Some sort of virtual connection. But it's interesting. Another interesting mode, by the way. APRS has had weather stations on its network for a long time. Some of them are ham radio operators. And I think a few of them might not be. I don't know.
Speaker A: Well, we have a way of telling in the app anyway, where it tells you if you sent something direct. It gives you a special kind of a symbol. If it makes it and it comes back to you as acknowledged. So we do have a way of telling that versus just sending one out and have it go multiple hops and so forth. Then it might just give you a check mark. And so you actually don't know if you made that communication. So there are ways of knowing inside the app. And then you have traceroute. I could start sending you a couple of those if you have interest. And the traceroute is tracing the route of the signal. So like Ki6ssi, our friend there, Pete, in El Dorado Hills yesterday, I was hitting him direct. So. And that was from around the Lake Oroville area. As far as that distance. That might only be 75 miles or something. I don't know. Maybe as a crow flies. I don't know. I'd have to look it up. But I don't think it's. I don't think it's 90 miles or something. I don't think it's 100, in other words. But it's still El Dorado Hills. That's Sacramento area, but in the foothills. So foothills to foothills, we're seeing each other.
Speaker B: Well, that's quite remarkable for 100 milliwatts or less. So. And a little rubber ducky antenna. So, okay.
Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. You're not. You're not following, though. It's not 100 milliwatts. So you can. You can transmit up to 29 or. I think it is DBM. And that's what these are putting out. And the Heltech V4s are putting out somewhere near 800 milliwatts is kind of what we've calculated using. I think I've sent you that one machine anyway that Dan has. It's a Pretty nice machine. But anyway, that's kind of what he's with his devices. He's figured out that the Heltech V4s are putting out about 800 milliwatts. They're doing way better than the little rack ones are. They're only putting out like, like you say 138 milliwatts I think is what he's got.
Speaker B: Well, what are you running?
Speaker A: Yeah, the Heltech V4. Yeah, I have two of those. I have one T beam, but I pretty well shut that down. It's an old one. I don't know how much that puts out. It does drain the battery a lot. And then I have one Seed Solar. So seed is like km4ack showed on his video as a seed cap. And those have like a NRF5280, whatever it is, Chip. So those are really efficient. But they're only putting out like 140 milliwatts.
Speaker B: Well, still to, you know, to think that you can make it through the mountains, which are a ton of mountains in the way to the Bay Area between the Bay Area and, and you direct just doesn't make sense.
Speaker A: Well, I'll look up a trace route. That's all I can do. These people don't have call signs, they only have locations on a map. So that's about all they've got. And you know, a lot of times some people do associate their ham radio call sign with their node, but I've seen people use just a picture of a cookie, you know, so they don't have to, is what I'm saying. KN6NGK.
Speaker B: Yeah, and I've looked at the maps and seen all those direct lines to the Bay Area which are somehow making it directly through mountains like St. John and Yola Bola Wilderness and everything and making it directly through Phyllis Mountains.
Speaker A: So yeah, that's quite incredible. Well, I don't know. The one repeater in Magellia ought to get its height. I bet you it's around 3,000ft. So somewhere near there, maybe 2,500ft. So it might be above some of the those mountains, I don't know. And yeah, using a little bit different antennas too helps. I mean some of the ones we're using are, you know, eight or 10dB gain antennas, not just some. I mean, yeah, they look like, well, the half wave looks like a small antenna you'd put on a Bowfang or whatever. You know, they're about 7 inches long, but the other ones that have been home brewed or whatever Are collinears. There's instructions online for that, so I think that helps too. But yeah, certainly go through St. John, you're going to bounce off that somehow. Yeah, so, but anyway, St. John Mountain isn't in the way of these Paradises and Magalia ones that are going, they're not going to the North Bay, they're going to the South Bay, like San Jose area, Fremont and stuff like that.
Speaker B: Well, those stations are at about, you know, two or 300ft elevation at the most, maybe 100ft. And there's whole mountains range of, you know, huge bunch of mountains in the way. Not just one mountain, but multiple mountain ranges in the way between the Bay Area and, and Magalia. So okay, it's interesting that they're saying that one watt can make it where, you know, 50 watts can't make it. We know 50 watts can't make it. So okay, anyway, you know, without a true RF. System that, you know, is actually looking at the RF only and not incorporating digital modes into just makes it, you know, some errors are getting mixed in there I think because I saw those direct lines from, you know, from, from those stations to the Bay Area. I saw those and yeah, okay, anyway, it's an interesting, interesting mose, that's for sure.
Speaker A: I'll have to look up what the digital packet, you know, what spectrum or what bandwidth I should say is occupying, how wide it is. If it's like you know, tw 50 hertz, is it 300 hertz like other packet stuff? I imagine that makes a bit of a difference too, but I'd be curious. I don't know, but I know it's working to some degree. Anyway, yeah, Chico to there is a whole other story, so I would definitely agree with you that way in order for me to hit like there's this one guy in Redwood City I've been able to talk to a couple times and it should say talk but chat with or whatever and. But that goes through at least one hop, so maybe two.
Speaker B: So.
Speaker A: And that's pretty well defined. But anyway, it's repeatable, at least to some degree and it's getting better. But it's a lot tougher from Chico, I'll tell you that, than it is from paradise. Spaghalia KN6MGK becoming close to my destination.
Speaker B: Well, one of the reasons why it's tougher from Chico is that you've got fewer possibilities for Internet connected nodes in seco. We're in Paradise. It sounds like that's what they're all doing. They're all using a Internet connected node?
Speaker A: Nope, none. There's one right now that is. So I guess there's one. I know. No Internet connections. Now, where there is an Internet connection on hops would be like the Butte County Search and Rescue building. They have Internet connection in Chico, so. But yeah, there's like, I think 18 nodes, 18 nodes in paradise. And they didn't hook one up to the Internet until like yesterday.
Speaker B: Well, even with one, all it takes is one and then everything basically is funneled into the Internet.
Speaker A: Yep, that can happen. Yeah, for sure. But you know, those other stations have to have direct access to that unit. And we don't only like two stations have some sort of access to it. It seems like so far, yeah, it's all experimental. Anyway, I'm going to head on inside. Get me a cup of coffee. I think KN6MGK wants to chat with you later. 73,
Speaker B: you at that coffee shop?
Speaker A: I've already driven up to paradise, so. Meeting with the ham radio guys in about 20 minutes? Yep, something like that. They'll be here. So then I'll head over to the the property and work today. That's what I'm up to. Come home probably 4 or 5 o'.
Speaker B: Clock.
Speaker A: By 5 o', clock, I guess. All right, say 73 KN 6 MGK.
Speaker B: 73 Steve N6PRG.

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Speaker A: At 17 ot mobile benchmarks. System 24 link up. Hey, matt. Nr7g. La. Somebody call it. I had some traffic on the other side. N7 to die. Well, hello there, John. How are you doing? Good. It's been a while, man. A month of Sunday, six months ago. How's everything? Yeah, it's been a while, that's for sure. Now that I got the ice scraped off the windows. Headed out to eat somebody for breakfast here. You got some ice going on up there in Spanish. Yeah.
Speaker B: Any
Speaker A: temperature gets below that time of year where the temperature gets below freezing every night. So if there's moisture in here and you're parked outside, you have ice on the windows in the morning. Yeah, we just. We just don't have the moisture down here on the south. Not too much these days. Is there any way that you can increase your audio at all? You're probably fine, but I don't have a very good speaker on this radio, and with the background noise, the truck is kind of hard to hear. Okay, well, I'll try and yell a little bit more. Is this. This ain't better. I'm talking about as loud as I can without telling the neighbors on here.
Speaker B: Yeah, I can hear you now.
Speaker A: Like I said, I probably need to look into getting a little better speaker for this radio with the noise of the truck. I mean, it's not horrendous, but it. But it is a little noisy in here. Yeah, yeah, I got it. So anyway, what. What are you on one of the repeaters? How you're getting in? Yeah, I'm on Carla 24 right now. What's your. What's your qth now? Crossing the hill from Spanish Springs into Spark on the Pyramid Highway. All right. Hey, my neighbor just. My neighbor just came up to talk to me, so I got a cadaver. NR7G Las Vegas. Okay, John, thanks for the show. Good chatting with you. Maybe we'll catch you again here a little bit later. I'll be running around doing some errands for a while after this breakfast here, so 203 for now and 7. Tod Bumble Spin Springs.
Speaker B: Kf6cau mobile northern california reading link.
Speaker A: Where are we in Northern California this morning at 7 to 8?
Speaker B: Hey, good morning, Chris here. Redding, California. Nice and cold up here. Crystal clear and snow in the mountains all the way around the valley. It's looking beautiful. How about you?
Speaker A: Sounds like a nice day. Crossed over the hills here. Coming into the Reno Sparks metro area proper sundown. Supposed to be warmer than normal for January day, but the high pressure we get a pretty strong inversion between the smoke from people burning their wood stoves and dust and all that kind of stuff being held down the valley here. The air looks a little bit murky. Not terrible, but not. Not the best either. And of course, snow on all the mountains around here as well.
Speaker B: Yeah, roger that. Yeah, we had a little north wind blowing up here, and it blew all the goop in the. In the air out of here is crystal clear. It's still around on the. On the mountaintops. All the way around the basin is really, really pretty. And Yesterday, unbelievable day. 79 degrees in Redding. But the spirit morning I woke up and they. They claim at the airport in reading, it was 56, but at my place, I'm kind of down in a little valley. It was 34. And there's definitely ice on the. On the truck.
Speaker A: Go ahead. That's a little chilly for the valley there. Like I said, this time of year it's normal here. But we still got catches of snow on the ground here in town, too. We had some snow, what, a little over a week ago, maybe about eight days ago. Not very much, but it's been cold enough that it's hung around. It's warming up the next couple days. I'm sure it'll probably what's left here will melt away.
Speaker B: Yeah, Roger that. Is definitely melting away. I just got back from Klamath Falls, Oregon, and there was snow on the ground up there from previous storms. And I'll be heading down your way here end of the month out to Reno. Sparks up and over the hill and down into the eerington area, picking up Highway 95, heading south for the winter. I'll be down there for a couple months in the Arizona, eastern Nevada area.
Speaker A: Okay, very good. Well, let me give you a little tip here. If you're traveling first off, hope you have a good trip. That's kind of a long, desolate run out there, but I enjoy it. If you're not familiar, something you might want to check out is cave agfn.org@little community radio station in Goldfield. Maybe you're already aware of it, but it says 89.1. They have translator up around Hawthorne and I forgot the frequency. I think it's either 90.5 or 92.5, but I'm not sure about that. Another one down towards Beatty, and it's really kind of fun. They play a lot of country, bluegrass, some other things that may not be your format, but just the little tidbits of entertainment they throw in there. It really makes it kind of fun to listen to. So I've been listening to it a lot on streaming off the Internet around here. But let me reset this for a minute. I heard about it and was aware of it, but I met the program director general manager in Beatty on my way back from Boulder City in October, talked to him quite a bit. And they bought a caboose from the Colorado Wyoming Railroad and moved it to Goldfield and have it right there alongside the highway there, downtown Goldfield. And that's their radio studio. But after talking to them, I started listening to it more and I kind of enjoy it. So just something you might want to check out on the trip there.
Speaker B: Hey, thank you for that. I appreciate the information. Yeah, I love going down 95, man. That's a lot better than doing i5 high five is nothing but potholes. And 95, man, it is smooth as baby's butt and fuel is a couple dollars cheaper than California. And it's a really nice ride. We'll go down, down into Vegas and our final destination is going to be Boulder City. And then we're going to continue on and down into Arizona.
Speaker A: Very good. Yeah, Boulder City's a neat little town. Probably a lot of people who go to Las Vegas don't even know about it, but they're old, historic downtown there
Speaker B: along the old highway and everything that's fun to check out.
Speaker A: So. Nice town.
Speaker B: And do you do this annually?
Speaker A: Has it been a while since you've been that way?
Speaker B: I do it every year. This will be, I think my seventh year going down. I used to do i5 down to where I go down to Bakersfield, cut over, up and over the attached piece and I don't do that, that anymore. Ever since I discovered 95. That's, that's my route. I love that route. And it's a, it's a really nice ride, but you gotta, you gotta pay attention to the weather. I got, I got hung up in weather here a couple years ago and spent three extra days in Reno until the weather lifted and I was able to make it home. That was, that was my route home. This, this year will be the longest one of the latest I've stayed. Usually I'm down there January, February. This year I'm going to be down there February, March and we're doing a,
Speaker A: we're going to do a run.
Speaker B: I'm a side by side enthusiast. There's a group of us and we're leaving Mesquite, Nevada and heading over to par 10 ranch on the Grand Canyon. The rim of the Grand Canyon. About 100, 110 mile ride one way and we'll spend three days over there and then head back home a different route. Another 110 miles back to Mesquite.
Speaker A: Looking forward to it.
Speaker B: It'll be a lot of fun. Go ahead.
Speaker A: Well great. That does sound like fun. And so you're an annual traveler there. I'm sure you're aware that there's a loves Travel center there in Tonopah. So that's a favorite fuel stop for me now when I go that way.
Speaker B: Roger that. Well, I'm aware of it and I carry a TSC logistics card. Gives you about, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 cents a gallon off of
Speaker A: your fuel at the truck stop, which is pretty good.
Speaker B: And then of course I'm always shopping diesel, you know, wasn't for the cheapest price. It's nice that the cost of diesel
Speaker A: is going way, way down. Yeah, it's been since October since I went that way. So not sure where things are now. Of course I think you get on their, their app loves app and see what the prices are. But I know that here where I'm at we're still north of $3 a gallon. But my sister went to Carson City and we have a, we have an extra tax that we pay to the regional transportation commission in this county here that they don't have there in Carson City. And she said she only paid two something I think yesterday while she was there.
Speaker B: That's a pretty good price. Yeah, I'm, I'm paying right now like
Speaker A: if I can find it for 365. I'm doing really super good.
Speaker B: But definitely it's below, it's below $4 a gallon now which is, which is really, really nice. Hey listen, I didn't catch your name. The name here is Chris. I gotta jump out. I gotta go pick up the wife's car and go do some stuff with it. Drop my truck, grab her car. So hey, nice, nice chatting with you and you have yourself a fabulous day and I hope to tie in with you another day. KF6CAU Charlie Alpha uniform Northern California.
Speaker A: Okay, Chris, good chatting with you. And you have a good day. We'll look maybe catch up with you again here at some point. Name here is Matt Mike. Alpha Tango Tango 73 for now. N7 pod mobile Spark Tahoe.

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System7 link up.

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