GEARS W TX (146.115 MHz) recordings for 2026-01-26

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Los Angeles link up.

System7 link up.

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That's. Nine Link check in. This is system four. Link shack innovation. This is system 19. Link check in on AC power at 19, paused all the way to 60.

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System32 link up.

Speaker A: What somebody calls kkv. I have the thing laying face down.
Speaker B: Well, flip that handy 180 degrees. I saw the pictures. Yike. So we're still running on some kind of antenna up there that you probably should find.
Speaker A: Yeah, we're on one of the poles that didn't get damaged.
Speaker B: Yeah, so ours is still there. But the only downside, or downside, let's
Speaker A: make that plural, is the phasing harness on the CP408. There's phasing harness that's come loose from and the dipole.
Speaker B: Just laying right on top of his eyoles just, you know, stuck right on it.
Speaker A: That would explain above the 30, 35%, things like an hour and six watts going forward.
Speaker B: Yes, indeed, that explains that. So thank you there. I guess the link north is okay then for the antenna. F20 and 0F got Yagi that's sitting up there right below it. Okay, well, I guess there's a lot of work to be done.
Speaker A: Are you going to be involved in
Speaker B: that or is that going to be done by someone else or. No, 100%.
Speaker A: Me and some contributors you have.
Speaker B: All right, well, let me know how it goes. I don't know if I can get down there or not, but we'll see. Thanks for your update there and I'm glad you're okay. And the equipment is for the most part. Okay, so take care at 33. Thanks.
Speaker A: Had to switch radios. Yeah, the other one died. Left it on all day and forgot to put it in the charger. So I got a couple of squeezes out of it. So anyway, the wifey's a little Olinko always works as a backup, saying, yeah, I'll be 100% involved. There's a few people that offered to help contribute. So I'm buying a new superstation master and it looks like I'll be ordering it through Cali maybe this week.
Speaker B: Okay, we need to organize a GoFundMe for that or something.
Speaker A: I'll let you know. We've got some contributors over on this side of the pond and on the coast that they were willing to contribute. So if we fall short, I'll let you know.
Speaker B: Okay, well, stay safe and well grounded. More weather coming in, so wear those conductive boots that ground you.
Speaker A: Very good. Well, thanks. Yeah, this would explain why I can walk around the house with the HT and hear a little bit of swishing before I could never make a swish, you know what I mean? So, yeah, and that coupled with the more than third reflected power for what it's Worth, man, it's radiating less than 1 watt, so all things considered. Yeah.
Speaker B: Okay, well, we'll get WD6Q00 on tap Finals Restoration member there, so I'm sure he's activating all possible resources.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I have an external MICOR VA that I would most gladly utilize for the project. All we have to do is program the radio, the transmitter to put out about 3 watts instead of 25 or 30. So if we set it to 3, we can let the repeater just coast along and run. Cool. And let the micro or PA do the work. I've got a separate PA and power supply this set aside for whenever we get around to doing it.
Speaker B: Yes, that would certainly work and probably help out Grantly. Unfortunately, I don't think I have any of that programming stuff. I bet our good friend 106 MBC has that in his library.
Speaker A: Yeah, we've been considering doing that for a while. And if we run on battery power, the PA drops offline and just runs off the exciter, which no big deal, but can't see. Running the PA on batteries, that would probably be no bueno. Not really necessary.
Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. That sounds like a great plan there.
Speaker A: Yep. Probably have to run it by the collarboard, but anyway, that would be my choice since we're making stuff happen. Yeah, the only thing we really got to wait for is American powers. They claims that instead of just fixing the one pole, they want to replace all four of them, which, hey, as long as they don't overload these, they're not going to snap. Right. The one that snapped was just, you know, grossly overloaded and that's the reason why it went. But I noticed next to my attendant up on top, there was a fire camera that was up there, arms there
Speaker B: but
Speaker A: dangling out of it. But the camera's gone.
Speaker B: Yeah, either carried off by the wind or maybe it accelerated towards the ground and one of the local flora or fauna has taken off with it.
Speaker A: Yeah, the wind up here is brutal, man. When I worked for cable tv, got up here, same type. So start the generator. When I opened the door, the vehicle, the wind grabbed it, yanked it right out of my hand and slapped it right up against. Much better, you know, mess up the hinge and everything, but brutal wind analog, wind zero to 100 that carried live on Channel 8. And we watched the wind and the thing that just took a peg at 100 miles an hour for, you know, minutes at a time. And that's when we really cringe.
Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. The weather has become Definitely more interesting lately, so.
Speaker A: Wow.
Speaker B: Yeah. Stay safe when you go up there and let us know. Good to hear from you and Kayla.
Speaker A: Yeah, a company man went up there today. Rockin and old buddy man, Aladdin of a band. They come along for the ride and actually couldn't make the last stretch. Yeah, there was a big rut in my teeth the first time I took my teeth up there and haven't been up there over two years. My bad. But anyway, actually I was getting hung up on a rock down a rut. So it's like, nope, I'm gonna stop here and we hike the rest of the way. So anyway, there you go.
Speaker B: All right, sir.
Speaker A: Unit 7 3. And now you know the whole story. WTKV for sepic.
Speaker B: Okay, thanks, Mike. I had to wait for this system 16 ideas here. All right.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Best to be able to get there safety, but safely. But also be able to get back safely. So good to see you there. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Other details as they become available. 73 is there. Stay safe on the coast. And.
Speaker A: Yeah, even pulled the AC power. Make sure the battery was working and everything was good. So 73. And this is funny, this little tiny Olinko handheld is actually putting out more power than the repeater is. And isn't that hard to imagine. So 73wd68.
Speaker B: All right, thanks, Mike. Stay safe over there. I got to go do some other stuff here, but good to talk to you, 73.
Speaker A: Good day.

System7 link up.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

Mike, you out there? Wfp.

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System21.

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Of today. Fresno link up.

Of your day.

System32 link up. It.

Speaker A: I will be out here at about 7:30 tomorrow morning Monday and we'll be listening for your call in if you are up and about. Plus AMC gso I'll wait for your
Speaker B: response on the phone.

Ewjkm60 so my phone turned down, so hopefully I'll be able to hear you.

Cwj, kmc, cso. If you are transmitting, it's apparently weak enough that I'm not able to receive here between my garage and the front of the house. So I may not have a good signal. Receiving very well from transmitting a lot more strongly.

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Kilo oscar 6 kilo oscar november. Is anyone listening? Los angeles link up. K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

Kilowatts per 6 kilowatts per November listening.

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K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

System9, link up.

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Los angeles link up. K6LNK system 36, no mountain range.

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System 9, link up k6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

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System12 link up.

Speaker A: Kn6MGK in the mobile de icing.
Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It was when I grabbed the steel on the gate, it was very hard ice on it. So that was a cold one this morning. And it's slowly increasing from 30 degrees. It's up to 33.1 now as insect go to.
Speaker A: Well, it says 35 sitting here right now inside the truck. And I imagine since that's pretty accurate because it's been sitting all night. So I don't know. But that doesn't mean that the windshield isn't, you know, 32 or whatever because it's frozen over and got the defroster going. It's going to take me probably five more minutes, I would say, at least of engine running.
Speaker B: Yeah, I thought since it's so cold outside, I take a little time here and try to figure out more about that FP8 preset stuff that you gave me and find out what it's actually doing to the radio. Since I'm not, you know, I'm not actually using FT8 and it's doing things to the settings on the radio that I need to know about.
Speaker A: Yeah, but you, you load it into that mode and then, then, then you just go on your JS8 program and do everything like you were doing before and it probably won't work. So. Yeah, but, yeah, I understand you want to delve into understanding what they did to set up that FT8 preset, but when you find out, let me know. I'm curious, but it's not something that I was going to look into consideration, especially it's not my radio. It's the only one. Like even their 7610, they didn't have to do that.
Speaker B: You're saying the 7300 is the only one that you needed to do that with?
Speaker A: Okay, well, I don't, I surely don't know every radio, but at least with icon like friends of mine that have the 7610, they don't have to have a FTA preset to operate, you know, but the 7300 they have, they do. So anyway, I don't know if it was just something with one of the later Updates to Windows 10 or Windows 11 why they've had to come up with that. But anyway, for some reason there's some difference between the 7300 and the 7610 as to why they, they came up with.
Speaker B: Well, it's probably people specifically using Windows too, because, I mean, I didn't have to do anything special for many, many Years. And all of a sudden with this, when this. I think what happened was this machine went from win 10 to win 11. And that's part of the description of what they. When they say you're going to have trouble with the drivers. And on an ICOM 7300 or maybe all the driver, all the drivers, all the icon, seven radios that have that use the icon. Silicon chip, whatever they call that. Silicon chip. UART kind of a thing.
Speaker A: Yeah, all that language is kind of Greek to me, but yeah, like the U, A, R, T or whatever. Yeah, the bridge or something.
Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah. For those who were into electronics, uart, it was always an important chip because what it does is communicate between different modes. In fact, we had to use UART as far back as 19, I think it was 1980 when I was using them, 1986 when I got my deck degree in electronics. We had these little square devices that were used in the classroom and they, they used what they call machine language, which was specifically for intel chips, you know, and machine language was strictly what you would use to. It meant basically ones and zeros. It was down to the basics of digital. And so, yeah, we had to use those. And you were talking with, you were able to talk two chips. You know, you had a microprocessor and then right after that you had the uart. And then right after the UART you had wires going to the next guy. And part of the, part of what you had to learn how to do was make a program, a machine language program that would make it possible for you to talk to the other guys. And the other guys couldn't use your program. They had to write their own and they just had to use compatible stuff. It had to be compatible. And then if you got. Got through that, you passed.
Speaker A: Yeah, for me, what counts is does it work? You know, that's all I care about. Right. I don't really care about the specifics. Behind the scenes, there's getting to be less and less people who do. Right. Care about what's going on. So less and less people with minds like yours, you know, that have more of a, say, some sort of engineering or electronics background like that.
Speaker B: Well, that's the case in the United States, or it was. Now you're going to see changes with that. And the people who are setting up the changes do not even know that they are, that they're making it this way. But the changes that they want are not going to happen unless people become educated and learn how to really do electronics right down to the component level. And because, you know, that's what it takes to manufacture electronics. For instance, they, they outlawed Chinese drones and they said, you know, we can't have Chinese drones in the United States. Security problems. Security problems. Right. Well, the reality is they, what they want to do is they want to make it so that all the drones come from start manufactured in the United States. Well, that ain't going to happen unless we have engineers who can do it. And that's the biggest part of the problem, is that we don't have very many engineers here. And it's a serious problem for the United States. I would have to use the terms dumbing down. Dumbing down. The, the people of the United States saying you don't need, you don't need to know electronics anymore because the Chinese will do it for you.
Speaker A: Yeah, well, even if we wanted to build them ourselves here. Right. We're still going to have to use their components because we don't have a way of manufacturing the components. Right. We sent that to other places too.
Speaker B: No, the part of that bill that was passed that made it or that, you know, declaration, whatever it was from the Defense Department is that we can't use the Chinese components either. We have to be able to build a drone from scratch. And they use security as the reason. And whether there are security problems with. Well, it started out the US Military couldn't use Chinese drones and then the next thing you know, nobody could use Chinese drones. So yeah, we can't use Chinese components at all.
Speaker A: Well, the other problem that we'll have then is okay, we figure out we can build them. So now say that we can build one an hour and China can build 10 an hour, then it becomes attrition. Right. So labor would be the other issue. Right.
Speaker B: Well, that relates to cost and the cost is 10 times right now it's the cost of a drone that, that I would purchase from dji. An American made drone that does the same stuff is going to cost ten times as much. But you know, the war in Ukraine is exacerbating the whole thing because the components both for Russia, Russia is making drones and Ukraine are making drones, but they're using the components and they're using their own programming and they're taking them off rf. They're not using RF anymore. They're using, basically it's like a long fishing line. It's filament. It's, you know, same thing we get our Internet from now, only it's going through the air. And I had one going right over my house you remember when I had that one going over my house that I had to get rid of, get it out of the air because it. If they're left up, then they'll knock and drone down. So, yeah, crazy stuff. But anyway, yeah, it's a complex issue that people are making declarations that don't really understand the problem and the issues are just doing what other people are telling them they should do. And it's crazy. But anyway, yeah, uart. That's how this conversation started. Microprocessor level electronics. Nobody knows how to do it. You're right.
Speaker A: Well, hopefully you get it solved soon. Like to see you back on there since it's one of your favorite modes.
Speaker B: Well, I've gone two directions at once. I'm going into Linux and I'm going. I'm still studying the problem with Windows and it's looking like the Linux part is the most successful. It was the most successful before. The only problem is that I wasn't backing up any of my, my Micro SD cards. And that is a problem. And it's a problem that I talked with Tom about, Mike, you know, Tom, with Carla about. And it started biting the butt of Carla because the Micro SD cards were being used in every All Star radio. So they started failing and we started losing. We lost System seven, for instance. And, and if it wasn't for Ken, and who doesn't. He doesn't really have a complete grasp on what he's. What he's doing there. He doesn't understand much about Linux. He just knows that he's got to write scripts that work with All Star. So it's kind of a crazy deal.
Speaker A: All right, well, I just pulled up. I'm gonna head on inside and grab me some tea. I'll have to say kn6mgk. I'll have to say 73.
Speaker B: Well, I wanted to ask you, how cold is it? Getting up in Paradise. Are you losing plants?
Speaker A: It's warmer there. It's usually a couple degrees warmer at least. So, yeah, inversion layer. Right now I got that fall spring going on. It gets to be warm during the day. So nope, not losing anything in terms of cold.
Speaker B: That is so strange. Okay, talk to you later. N6GRT KN6NZK.

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Los angeles link up. K6LNK system 36, no mountain range.

Some can link up.

Speaker A: Kn6iq.kn6iq.n6dxn.
Speaker B: Hilary, I'm doing fantastic. Let me. I only
Speaker A: have the. The link PL plugged in. Let me plug in the. The locals who are not tying up the whole system. Give me one second. Actually forgot what the local PL tone is. I was way off. All right, thanks. Give me one second.

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10 link up L.

Fresno link up k6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

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Kme. This is k17. Up.

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Km6h ec monster los angeles link up.

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Speaker A: Anybody
Speaker B: listening on 31 in Southern Cal and 6 MZT calling. One more time. Anybody in the Southland on 31 and 6 MBT calling from Carla 5.
Speaker A: Alrighty. Hearing
Speaker B: nothing. Tne are you out there, Mr. Ken? 6 mt.
Speaker C: N7 DWG station calling. You're kind of fading in and out. A lot of scratching with popcorn. Want to come back?
Speaker B: All right, maybe in a null I bumped the power up a little bit and the popcorn is mostly from the taste Paws radar. But let's see, is this doing any better?
Speaker C: N7dWg still got popcorn, but very audible loud. Hear you real well.
Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. The. The popcorn is inherent to the Comes from the pace Pause radar system in Northern California. So you'll hear that on a lot of UHF systems. Where routes are you located?
Speaker C: N7dwg located in las vegas, nevada.
Speaker B: Okay, copy that. Yeah, you guys get hammered by a different system down there on. I think it's on UHF stuff. I don't hear it on you right now, but certain machines, certain sites, I guess get it anyhow. Alrighty. Well, just trying to see if I could raise the dead from Southern California area, but doesn't seem like it, so. But make sure to come back there.
Speaker C: N7dwg73.
Speaker B: All right, have a good day. N6 mike victor tango, lafayette, california.

System 2 linked up.

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Two, oh seven. Oscar foxtrot oscar.

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