GEARS W TX (146.115 MHz) recordings for 2026-03-23

K6LNK, System 36. Snow Mountain Range.

KN6SLF, Washington.

KN6MGK, KN6SLN.

Negative contact. KN6SLN, monitoring.

System 32, link up. K6LNK, System 36, Snow Mountain Range.

System 19, link up.

System 7 link up.

K6LNK System 36. Snow Mountain Range.

Los Angeles, link up.

Los Angeles link up. K6LNK system 36. Snow mountain range.

K6LMK System 36. No mountain range.

System 26, link up. K6LNK, System 36. No mountain range.

K6LNK, System 36. Snow Mountain Range.

Fresno, think up. K6LNK, System 36, Snow Mountain Range.

Los Angeles, link up.

Speaker A: Kilo 7 Oscar Foxtrot Oscar on the sun. Uh-oh. Do you need a tow truck? Um, to put you back on your wheels?
Speaker B: That's a negative.
Speaker A: I appreciate the humor on a Monday morning, though. I'm glad you found that humorous. I am very easily entertained, but I'm usually not very entertaining.
Speaker B: Good morning.
Speaker A: My name is Ken. N6KNE.
Speaker B: Good morning there, Ken.
Speaker A: This is KE7O.
Speaker B: So I think we've talked before. How's the weather down there in Columbia today?
Speaker A: It's very good. It's currently 76 degrees. We did have some rain this morning, and I hear thunder off in the distance in the now. So it feels like we're going to have some more rain probably all day.
Speaker B: I got a kind of a weird question for you. So they're forecasting a, uh, pretty significant El Niño event for the, uh, Eastern Pacific, which here in Nevada is really just, I think, allegedly a little bit more wet than normal. But how's that affect you guys down there?
Speaker A: Um, well, that, that El Niño doesn't Some, or I should say most El Niños, they do hit southern parts of states, you know, west coast of Mexico, Panama, west coast of Colombia, and all the other south or north end of South America. I think the El Niño The current El Niño is just too far north of us to really affect us. Um, a lot of the, the rain and the moisture gets caught there in the, uh, uh, the jungle and the, uh, elevation rise there on the west coast of Colombia. So if any, if any of it does make it over, I think We get, we get some pretty good rain here.
Speaker B: Well, hopefully it doesn't, uh, do anything too crazy. I know it's gonna— allegedly it's gonna wreak a lot of havoc. Especially in Africa and I guess the, uh, over in Indonesia. I guess it's gonna be a pretty significant drying event for them, even more so than it already is.
Speaker A: All the time. Not as much anymore, but yeah, it's, um, uh, you know, the— oh, what I wanted to say is the west coast of Colombia is all rainforest, and because of that, it's barely even populated. So, uh, but that's the first— that's the first ridge of the Andes Mountains, and I live on the, uh, basically I'm on the top of the second ridge of the Andes Mountains. All the water that I get here just immediately flows downhill, so I don't have any flooding concerns. I kind of live up on a plateau with two canyons and a pretty good-sized river down below me to my north and to my south. But we do— I love the rain. I mean, I love Mother Nature and what she gives us.
Speaker B: I couldn't agree with you more. One thing I miss about really living anywhere but the desert Southwest is having seasons and predictable rain.
Speaker A: Well, rain here is definitely very predictable. It rains about every other day, sometimes 2 or 3, 4 days in a row, usually tropical thunderstorms. As far as seasons, we only have basically one season here for the most part. Being that I'm only 4 degrees north north of the equator.
Speaker B: I'm going to be pulling up to where I work, so I'll be clearing off the repeater here, but it was nice talking to you, Ken. Hope you have a great day. K7OSO, 73.
Speaker A: All right, good to hear you, and, uh, enjoy the rest of your day. Good to— good talking to you. N6ANE.

CWJ AM6 GSO Fresno. Fresno, link possible.

And fix GRG 36 local.

Los Angeles, link up.

System 32, link off.

System 26, link up.

Speaker A: WB6KHP, WB6KHP, Dave, are you listening?
Speaker B: I'm Carla.
Speaker A: WB6KHP, K6QFL, Plasterville calling. Hello, hello. Once again, WB6KHP, WB6KHP San Jose, this is Noisy Kid K6QFO up in the Go Country, Placerville calling. Okay, we will check back later. This is K6QFO on Carla, we'll be clear and monitoring from Placerville.
Speaker B: K9KAD, Shasta County. I'm not on CARLA, I don't think, but do you copy me?
Speaker A: Uh, we do copy you. I'm not sure if you're on the CARLA itself, but, uh, you're— I can hear you just fine.
Speaker C: Okay, great.
Speaker B: I, uh, my radio is programmed to the Stony Ford repeater. I'm not sure if I'm on Carla. If I am, I put all my Carla PL tones on local, not linked, so maybe that's what we're doing. Does that sound about right? I'm kind of a newbie.
Speaker A: Okay, let me go to, uh, let me go to local. I'm on 36 right now. Let me switch to from wide to local. Be right with you. Okay, we're back to K36 local. This is K6KIL from Placerville.
Speaker B: Affirmative, you're coming in loud and clear on both, so Even though I have it programmed to local because I didn't want to go linked. Um, there's nothing wrong with being linked, but I was trying to restrict my traffic to local. But I'm getting you on both, so that's good. Could you, uh, slow down and give me your call sign so I could write it down?
Speaker A: Sure, it's, uh, I'm a bootlegger. It's Rubber Duck. Name is Mike. Mike India Kilo Echo. That's funny. Uh, the call is Kilo 6 Quebec Foxtrot Oscar, repeating, K6 Quick Flying Object, and— or the Noisy Kid.
Speaker B: Got it. I'm K9 Kilo Alpha Delta, K9 KAD. Did you say you're just getting out on a rubber duck? Is that on an HD?
Speaker A: No, I was just messing with you. I was just saying my, my call sign is Rubber Duck, like for CB. You gotta throw humor once in a while. There's a lot of stress out there. Also too, uh, just let you know, uh, if I didn't tell you, my name is Mike, Mike Kilo— Mike India Kilo Echo. We're up here, uh, 5.5 miles southeast of Placerville Airport in Pleasant Valley in a hole It's a gorgeous area up here. It's really beautiful. You're in boonieland up here. And, um, so, um, yeah, like I said, we're 5.5 miles southeast of Placerville's airport. Now, uh, the wide's good, that we connect in the network. Is there enough activity on CARLA, uh, the local CARLA that you can chit-chat on?
Speaker B: Well, I don't have a good answer. I have it program, so my, uh, my radio just scans, and when, um, people come in, I, I usually respond, you know. So I can't answer you like intelligently, is there enough repeater access, or I mean enough traffic. Although I think it was on this, uh, frequency earlier this morning, there's a guy, you may hear him Um, he used to live up here. I live in Shasta County. He used to live in Siskiyou County by the Oregon border. He moved down to Colombia, South America with his wife, and he gets on through All-Star Link. Okay, I'm drifting into All-Star now, but, um, he gets on and you can hear him like he's sitting inside your Radio Shack. So there are some new technologies I need to, um, explore. The AllStar Little Node thing, uh, you can get worldwide around that. Um, the, um, Carla system repeater— I think he goes from AllStar into Carla, if I, if I, if I understand correctly, if that's possible. But in any event, he's— he moved from, uh, Northern California by the Oregon border down to Colombia And he gets on every day. I heard him this morning chatting it up. And I'll break for a second.
Speaker C: Go ahead.
Speaker A: Okay, fine biz. I swung the beam around so it should be a little cleaner and stronger here. Yeah, 'cause you know how the Carlos system works, right? You're only on one repeater, it's usually a local repeater. You go on wide, that local repeater then ties into the network and you can talk to the network. While you're on local, you can still hear all the network traffic even when you're in a local state. I've listed all my memory channels from local and linked. I use link as W for web. Or wide, wet or wide. So I have Alt+L for local, and the other PL change, you know, change your PL to network, I call that W for wide or web type access. That's how I separate one from the other on the memory channels. This is Mike, the Noisy Kid, in Placerville, K6QFO.
Speaker B: Okay, that was a good explanation, but again, this morning I heard you on the wide, I guess is what you're calling it, the linked repeater. And when I responded, you heard me and you responded. So we were talking, if I understand correctly, on the linked repeater, uh, system even though I have my PL on the, uh, the local Carla. That's what appears to have occurred.
Speaker A: Yes, correct, because I, I was using the repeater that you're on for local. That's what I was hearing. And I went on to, to the link, uh, side. So they talked back down to San Jose to a ham radio friend of mine. I wanted to get some information. So that's how you heard me. And like I said, even you're on a local machine, you'll hear all the network traffic too.
Speaker C: Yeah, affirmative.
Speaker B: I got that part about hearing it, but we were also more than just hearing it. We were talking back and forth, uh, on the Link system, uh, even though I thought I was on the local local system. I heard you on the link, I responded, and you responded, and that was before you swapped over to the local. So it's just a point of interest for me. It seems like even though I have my radio set for local, Carla, I'm getting, uh, link Carla, as you said. I'll hear it, but it seems like I'm getting out. So I picked up my, uh Mike and I called out and he responded, and we've been— we talked on the link before you switched over to the local.
Speaker C: Info.
Speaker A: Yeah, that happens a lot. A lot of times I could be on the link or you could be on the link, and we find out we're on the same repeater that we're using for the link. We can switch over to local, that we won't tie up the link itself. We can just chit-chat on a local local one machine.
Speaker B: That's what we were doing earlier.
Speaker A: Now, was there— was there a breaking station? Uh, I think I heard some traffic in there. Go ahead, this is Mike K6QFO.
Speaker C: Hey Mike, good to hear you again. This is Mike N6GRG up in, uh, far Northern California. I want to explain to the, uh, somewhat new user the way to figure out what's going on. If you listen, I'm gonna make the repeater give the sound that we identify as the local beep. So that's what you're going to hear right now. You'll only hear one per conversation. I just repeated it 3 times, but that means you're transmitting on local. When you're transmitting on local, you are you actually mute the link system. It mutes for 30 seconds. You can't hear anything that's on the link system. Now, you've heard the other one, the link. I'm not going to go over there and make that noise. It's not the same as the local. So this is N6GRT. Did you copy that and understand?
Speaker B: Yeah, affirmative. I'm K9KAD, Shasta County. I did hear those 3 really small faint beeps that you put out. How did you effectuate that? How did you make that happen, I guess I should say?
Speaker C: Well, I have my radio set to a PL on transmit of 123, and when the repeater hears that 123 tone, it says, oh, you want to be on local? I'm going to mute the link, uh, audio. I'm going to mute the link audio. That's the repeater I'm saying is saying— the repeater, uh, controller is saying, I'm muting the link audio and putting the system into local. And by, by system, I mean System 36. System 36, the one, the one and only repeater that we're on when we're on local. Uh, so K9KAD N6TRG, Mark, uh, does that make it a little more clear?

Speaker A: All right, we've got it back. Uh, something happens and we lose it completely. N6GRG. Okay, Mr.
Speaker B: GRG, thank you for your help this morning explaining things, and I need to get back to weed whacking here before it gets any hotter. I did back the garage now, and I need to start working around the driveways. 73, guys.
Speaker A: Good talking with you.
Speaker B: This is K6KUOFA Placerville.
Speaker A: Have a good day. Yeah, great to hear you from Placerville, uh, N6GRG up near Redding. And, uh, yeah, we've got people keying up on link, we've got all sorts of things going on. But, uh, anyway, good to hear you, uh, N6GRG.
Speaker B: Oh, and now I'm on link.
Speaker A: Actually, that is the link tone that you hear, uh, and I heard it and I looked down and sure enough I'm on link. N6GRG, sorry about that, guys.
Speaker B: Okay, well, I'll sign off. I've taken enough airtime, and thank you for guys, uh, hanging in there with me and trying to explain it to me. To me. K9 Kilo Alpha Delta, beautiful Shasta County in the foothills, clear the frequency.
Speaker A: Well, real quick, did you hear the difference in the tone when I, when I mistakenly went to link on the last, last transmission? I'm on local now.
Speaker B: No, negative. I wasn't perceptive enough. I wasn't like anticipating, you know, listening for it. I'm sure I probably would if you would have let me know ahead of time, because I did hear the other one with the 3 faint beeps. But, um, we can keep up later on. Um, I think if you're down in Redding, is that what you said?
Speaker A: Yeah, I'm to the west of Redding, about 300 feet above the valley. And, uh, what you're hearing right now is the faint, uh, bop. We call it a boop or a bop. It's a single boop, uh, that's the local boop. And the multiple beeps, that's when it's on link.
Speaker B: Okay, got it. I just looked you up online. Are you out? At least your address is Anderson, is that right?
Speaker A: Well, I'm not, you know, if you look at these, uh The way that the post office sets up an area code, it's like a big, big long egg-like or maybe watermelon-like circle. And this particular one goes southeast towards Anderson and northwest towards where I am, and I'm on the northwest end of it. About 10, 10, 15 miles away from Anderson.
Speaker B: Okay, great. Well, just for reference, I'm up in Manton, M-A-N-T-O-N, Manton, and I'm at 2,200 feet overlooking the valley. Uh, final question before we break or sign off: have you ever tried, uh, 2-meter simplex?
Speaker A: Yes, sir, I use it quite often and talk to my buddy in Mineral. He's at 5,000 feet. Uh, K6SLN, you've talked to him, I imagine. And, uh, uh, I can reach— most likely reach you and him, but you may not be able to talk to each other because of what's in between you and Mineral, possibly.
Speaker B: Yeah, good observation. I just met him on, on the air. Uh, I think we're on 2-meter repeater. I just met him a couple nights ago, but I've talked 2-meter simplex all the way down to, uh, well, Chico frequently, Amador County, um What's the other one? Grass Valley, and then Vacaville on Vaca Mountain. I guess the guy has his shack on Vaca Mountain, the actual mountain, and I get 2-meter simplex as clear as if they were sitting right here, right next to me, because I guess I just have a good shot where I'm sitting. I can get across the valley to where you're at, and I can go south as far I could go 100 miles. I checked out the air miles, it's 100 miles, um, and I was really surprised.
Speaker A: Yeah, and when they say line of sight, it's, it's, uh, it doesn't really happen that often, uh, true line of sight. There's also a thing that they don't talk about called reflections, and, uh, you know, a person can be reflecting off of a different mountain into a spot that they want to reach. And, uh, but yeah, line of sight does make a difference. That's, that's for sure. I'm not saying it's not important, I'm just saying it's not always what's happening. But yeah, when you're up high, uh, then, uh, when I— like when I used to go— I don't go much to the repeater sites anymore, but when I used to go, some of the guys would, uh, set up uh, FM simplex, uh, systems. And, and, uh, now, you know, they probably do what they call a SOTA, S-O-T-A, which means someone's on the air. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker B: And also about your, uh, mountain, uh, reflector, the guy down in Grass Valley uh, said, and this was his term, and I think I've read it somewhere, he said I was knife edging, knife edge off the mountains. And it kind of makes sense because I'm on the edge of a mountain range and there's basically the mountains all the way down to where he's sitting. So maybe my FM signal is bouncing off the mountains, you know, and extending itself, if that's the correct terminology. He said, yeah, you're knife edging down to me. You called it reflection. But yeah, you're right, it's not, it's not just line of sight because there's no way I could get down to Vacaville, Amador County, Grass Valley, even Chico, uh, just by pure line of sight. So I'm bouncing off the mountainsides. And for what it's worth, I guess my, my spot here is like perfect for it.
Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be perfect for a lot of places. Uh, KN6SLN has, uh, to the south, directly south of him, he's got Mineral Summit. So that's kind of in the way, but he reflects around it. And lately with the new spot for his VHF antenna up there at Mineral, he's really doing a pretty good job, but conditions can change with this reflection stuff. Reflection is the term that professionals and the ARRL have used forever, and then people come up with other terms. And 9 bits though, that's kind of a tricky one there. What they're saying there is that you're right up on the edge, I think they're saying you're right on the edge of a cliff and just slipping right by it, things like that. Knife edge is a little different. But yeah, there's 40 billion different combinations of how VHF and UHF get to where they go. And one way to find out a little more about what's happening is to have a a directional antenna, and then you can tell which direction it's coming from. And that, that can tell you a lot, kind of like DNA tells us where we came from. All right, really good talking to you. And 6GRG, thanks again.
Speaker B: 73, K9 Kilo Alpha Delta.
Speaker A: You're very welcome. N6G, Romeo Golf 4, N6G, Romeo Golf 4, up kind of west of— well, definitely west of Highway 5, that's for sure, 300 feet above the valley.

N6KNE testing. This is System 20 link check-in. Reading link off. N6K, any clear? K7GPQ, N6K, what's going on with the repeater? Um, which repeater are you on? Which repeater are you talking about? Mosquito repeater. This is K7ZZQ in Mosquito. Are you getting some kind of an error message? Uh, yeah, we're just doing some— we were doing some testing here on the caller system. For now, we're all done. Thank you and good afternoon to you. Okay, well, thank you for the heads up. I'm glad you were doing some testing, and we just had to reset our system up there. Wi-Fi had dropped off, and a group of us went up and did a reset, and so I thought it was still Tango Uniform, but it looks like it's okay. Thanks so much. Yeah, I heard you guys, I think last week you were, uh, you were testing that out. Hope that you got it up and working and you sound great. You take care there, Mesquite. N6KNE, chin out to Columbia. All right, 73, my friend K7ZZQ. You got to remember, we're old, we all have hearing aids, so maybe that's what it was. So, 73. Yeah, and if you're married, you have selective hearing. Yeah, I know all about that stuff. Oh, I heard that one. System 11, link up. Well, if I was able to imitate your wife's voice, you wouldn't hear anything, right? Pretty much. So you mean it's not just me? I didn't hear what you said after your giggle. I'm sorry, I should enunciate better. I was saying, you mean it's not just me? Oh no, no. Um, but there's, there's only a few of us out here that will admit it. You hear us? Yes, indeed. And, uh, thank you again for, um, dealing with, uh, um things this weekend with Jeff and Victor. That's about Saturday. Yeah. I have to, now that I'm, you know, mobile and whatever and back into familiar setups and whatever, I can hear somebody from there. I can see how it really sounds because nothing like the real, you know, a good reality check, right? But it definitely was improved from what it was, so that's a good thing. Yeah, well, you know, for me it's just all part of the learning process. And if— well, the most important thing is getting some ports opened up up there as you As you probably know, if we can do that, then we can experiment and try out these things. But yeah, now that we know what we know and we saw what we saw, we know what to do and not to do next time. So we don't have to go back. I could go on forever. So we don't have to go back and to do it again and again and again. Yep. But also sometimes not every site's going to be exactly the same. It'd be nice if everything was, you know, identical and cookie-cutter and modularized. We talked about that, but the cost involved in that, you know, would just be astronomical. So, you kinda gotta take what you get and standardize what you can and jump through the hoops for other stuff. So anyhow, I'm trying to think if there's anything else, but regardless, how are things over in Colombia? Things are very good. I was expecting more rain today, but right now it's sunny and 83°F, and, uh, I probably have to go out there and fill my bird feeders up again. Uh, they've, they've been very active the last couple of days, so they probably ate all the all the, uh, cracked rice that I, that I put out there for them. But it's all, it's all good. I'm just, uh, doing a bunch of playing around here and still, uh, still learning the ins and outs of this ETMS stuff on these repeater sites. So I think I may have found something. I don't know if you heard me, but I was able to get Link 20 to check in, and I haven't been able to do that before. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] The other gentleman came on about me causing havoc, you know, which is pretty much an everyday occurrence. Well, we're just used to it, I guess. So, all right. Well, you know, that path going up there gets iffy at times. So, you know, who knows. But we'll cross our fingers for some encouraging news maybe. You mean drive off that bridge when you get to it? System 19, lift off. That's right there, unit. All right, well, good afternoon and good luck. Hello, one and all, and time to get back to work— I mean lunch. W6JKV, Andy Scratchy in San Ho. All right, Mike, just don't touch the hose, but get back to work. All right, see you later. And back to you, Ken. Well, you know, I try to do this testing stuff early, early morning before everybody wakes up. I was a little excited that I may have found a solution, so I thought I'd give it a try. Um, you know, it's these COP commands from the Superbond. Dashboard. Do we need it? No. Is it nice to have it? Yeah, probably. Anyways, uh, it also has to do with getting the GTMS, um, the GTMS stuff to pass through Lockup. So hoping that this will help that also. Well, you know, all right, that just reminded me of something. So remind me to remind myself of what I was going to say after I say this other thing. So yeah, we don't know if it's getting blocked at the server. Or whatever, or if it's getting blocked at Dacca, or if it's getting blocked everywhere, or what. But the one surefire way for us to tell is to, you know, be looking at the controllers and the LEDs and see seeing if it sees the DTMF and if it's decoding it properly or not. And if it isn't, especially at DACA since that's where it hits first, right, after it hits the, uh, the, uh, the hub or server or whatever. So if it's not making it there, then it's either being blocked by the, uh, the box there or it's being blocked back at the server. And keep in mind, codes at BACA, if you wanted to try something, are different than most all the other sites because it's a different controller up there. And back to what I was just thinking of, it's like we might have a camera pointing at that cabinet. And if we do, that could come in really handy then to remotely see if those decode, DTMF decode LED is doing its thing or not. Oh, okay. All right. Well, let me ask you this. The DTMF command that you would use over the air to get, say, 20 to check in, how many other sites— just give me a number— uses that same command to get the site to check in? And then later, sometime later, we can— you can send me a list of those sites that actually use that command because right now that's the only command I'm testing with. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it should be the same first 2 digits and then you change things after that to be site-specific. Does that sound about right? Yes. Yeah, so they all use that same prefix and then the— we'll call it the suffix— is just the system number? And is that the same on all the sites or no? Yes, or at least 99.9, as we call in the business, three nines. Um, that yes, it should be. Um, I know VACA is different because it's got a different controller. Um, train number 5 is different. VACA and 5 might have one flavor of controller and, um, all the others have the other flavor of controller, which could cause with the code that you're using. So, but now if you get an error, right, from say VACA or something, or one of those two sites that have different controllers, that's basically saying it's decoding something but it doesn't understand it. It's wrong. So it's actually decoding but it's not hearing what it's expecting to hear. So there's also that, but yeah, we should probably talk about it either in an email or a phone call or something at some point. And Jeff can probably, you know, be of better use as far as what you can try and yada yada yada yada yada. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, you or Jeff or somebody told me that. VACA uses different ETMS command to do that check and stuff. So, yeah, I kind of knew that's why it was giving the error message. That's why I was ignoring it. When we get another site accessible via open port then I can move these DTMF tones over to that one. That way we don't get the error message. Okay. But, you know, if you're getting error messages fairly consistent, then that's, you know, saying that the DTMF is hitting the controller. Getting past the Raspberry Pi and All-Star stuff and hitting the controller. Or at least some of them are. And the other thing to keep in mind is, you know, not all of them are going to respond all of the time. Because sometimes there's noise and path issues, and sometimes level issues are a little different. It varies. You know, pre-emphasis, de-emphasis will affect things and so on and so forth. So just because you don't get a response doesn't necessarily mean you're not getting somewhere. But you would— we need to find something that's consistent, you know, that responds and got a good clean path, and then that can kind of be the test thing. Anyway, all right, we're gonna go make a phone call. Call here, but thank you again, and we'll keep eating at it. And there he is on the phone. How about that? All right, see you. Bye. N6KNE.

System 32, LinkOp.

Speaker A: Anybody monitoring K36 can give me a time check. This is K6QFO. Once again, anybody monitoring K36 can give me a time check. This is K6QFO, Placer Bell.
Speaker B: Nothing heard. We're back to listening, K6QFL.

Los Angeles, link up.

WB6KHP, WB6KHP, Dave. K6QFO on, Carla calling. K6QFO, WB6KHP. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you're on, uh, you're far away, so I'm on link. Over. System 7 link up. Yeah, it's like you're on System 7 there. Hi Dave, uh, good afternoon. I just had to take a break here from all the weed whacking and so on and so forth. So, uh, tried to call you earlier this morning, but I took another break. Uh, just FYI, um, I know N6NFI is on low power. I thought I can hear it up here. Is there any way you can go over to NFI and see if it's up and kicking? Hold on a minute, I got something going, but yeah, I can check on that for you. Hold on, they'll be at the— and I'll be sending by K6QFL.

Speaker A: Mike, I turned another radio over to, uh, NFI and there's nobody talking. It's 12:43 on a weekday. Shouldn't that repeater be busy?
Speaker B: Yeah, Dave, it's busy pretty much all the time. Um, it's pretty active machine. There is spots at the time that it's quiet, but, uh, there's a lot of senior folks or retirees that use it all day long. So, uh, okay, I'm just kind of curious because I cannot bring it up or hear it at the house or in my shack here in the garage.
Speaker A: Okay, do you have another radio that you could listen to it right now? I could make a transmission and you could listen.
Speaker B: Yeah, I do, and it's on a collinear antenna. Let me see if I have it programmed in this Kingwood radio. Dave, I'll be right with you.
Speaker C: K6QFO. WB6KHP.
Speaker B: Okay, Dave, I do have NFI programmed in the Kingwood radio. Go ahead and give it a try if you like.
Speaker A: Okay, I'll give it a try right now.
Speaker C: WB6KHP. Nope, I unkey and there's nothing there.
Speaker A: So preliminary results indicate NFI might not be on the air right now.
Speaker B: Yeah, before they had the power problem, Dave, uh, I don't know if they lost a final. They're only working a driver. If they're using amplifier, it failed. I don't know. The NFI right now, until it gets fixed, um, it's not workable in the South Bay in a mobile environment. It's just way too much multipath. You couldn't hold a conversation. So, okay, thanks for checking, Dave. I appreciate that. Try to get a hold of couple folks in the valley and, uh, can't raise anybody on Phi 2 or, uh, LPRC or someone, or K6FB. So I appreciate your help and thinking, trying it out for me, because that's the same feeling I have too. It's down. Maybe they're working on it.
Speaker A: Okay, well, as we know, stuff happens. All right, enjoy your weed whacking. I did mine yesterday.
Speaker B: WB6 I got 5 acres of weeds. You come up and join me, Dave, you're such an expert. Hey Dave, have a great afternoon. Thank you for your help, I appreciate it. 73 for now. I'll get back on top of the hill. K6QFL Placerville, 73.
Speaker C: Hello Dave, N6M Alpha DT. Hi, Tom.
Speaker A: I don't usually have too much to say, but I listen much of the time. Things sound pretty good.
Speaker C: Hope you're okay. Well, that's okay. And I do the same quite often. And yep, hopefully you too. So there is some work done this weekend on both 7 and 10. I'm not sure which one you're on, but I want to check and see if you notice any difference. If it's 7, it'll be with audio response. And if it was 10, well, it was down, so it would be better now.
Speaker A: The duplex signal coming back on a mobile radio with an outdoor antenna sounds fantastic. The audio is great, signal is good, everything sounds fine to me.
Speaker C: All right, all bueno. That means we can send Jeff and Victor out more often to go do work, huh?
Speaker A: Well, you know the old Polish saying, not my circus, not my monkeys. I'm sure they do a fantastic job. I wish they could get more rest instead of having to fix stuff, but at any rate, yeah, it sounds great. I'd like to say carry on. Maybe we'll see you in October.
Speaker C: If Tom would stop buying radio equipment from Timu, everybody could take a better break. Hey, hey, hey, hey, I resemble that remark. Oh, that'd be something else if they had repeaters on there and mobile radios and handhelds from Temu. I mean, can you get any cheaper than what the stuff that's out there already? Oh my goodness. All right, thank you, Ken, for the vote of confidence there. Um, all right, Dave, uh, back at you. Likewise, thank you very much for, uh, confirming. And, uh, I forgot to mention, uh, Ken was part of that, uh, improvement session on 7, so— but he's already been thanked. That's all he gets is peanuts, as you know. All right, have a good rest of the day. I'm gonna jump out and actually try to do some work here, so talk to you later. 6 AM, lovely Castro Valley.
Speaker A: Change the buzz one moment. All right, I had something to do here, but I got all of that. 73, see you later, Tom.
Speaker C: WB6KHP.

K6LNK System 36. Snow Mountain Range.

Los Angeles, link off.

System 19, link up.

Speaker A: Hey, Al, Simon says give me a quick audio check.
Speaker B: You sound just fine. 6K&E.
Speaker C: Okay. I'm up at 17, and when I got here I thought it sounded like the audio coming out of 17 was low, but it's not. It seems to be okay now. Must have been some kind of an operator error.
Speaker B: All right, well, you sound fine coming through the machine. Um, okay, well, there you go. Uh, you, uh, enjoy the rest of your day. And sikkei en

106 GRG on the portable. Ready.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Don't feel bad. KKE Mobile, San Ho. Hey, what's up, Dennis? Oh, just here, my stuff. My initial, uh, idea was correct. That I didn't count on was had a bad link radio too, so another trip in order. All right, good deal. Let me switch ports here. There we go, over on 32 with the broken end. System 32 link off. You sounded better on 7. Probably, but coming back to me, 7 sounded like the audio was pretty low and it's all chained and compressed and it was kind of hard to hear with all the noise in the car actually. No, that was just monkey business, doubling with you, that's all. Over there, see how you sound. All right, I'm 7, go ahead. Yeah, you're much better here. I hope the audio is not too low. Oh, we just got all that adjusted up there. Yeah, unfortunately, uh, it is. But, uh, yeah, it sounds like it's lacking lows. Oh, well, Jep just went up there. Sunday? Sunday. And we turned off the pre-emphasis and the de-emphasis, and everyone said it sounded much, much better. Oh, it sounded— it used to sound really, really bad. I would say it's improved, but again, I'm listening to your input, and I jump between 19, 32, 5, and those all sound the same. Sounds nice and full and rich. Hi-fi, man. But now unfortunately you're sounding maybe a little compressed, perhaps. Yeah, maybe it sounds like there's a little too much compression somewhere, and Dolores. But I don't know if I heard somebody that's actually on 7 to see what it sounded like just straight through, you know, local. That would be a good comparison, but so far I've just heard you. All right, well, I'll go back to listening. It's been good to hear you, and you enjoy your drive. N6KNE. Yeah, if I was just gonna guess, I'd say the audio level's about 50% what it is over on the others. But again, it's good and readable. Hey, Greg, KJ6KO, would you go to see what you sound like? That was a whole bunch of nothing. So anyway, all right, pulling up to the gas pump here at Costco. WB6JKV, no other mobile for a few, but I'll be back to offer more criticism.

AB6CW, Alpha Bravo Six Charlie Whiskey, listening.

And 6GRT in rating with the portable.

AB6CW monitoring.

Speaker A: KN6MGK, mobile.
Speaker B: [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] MGK, you have a net at 1830. This is KI6UJX. I think it's the, uh, Paradise, Para Amateur Radio Association.
Speaker A: Yeah, there's definitely a net at that time, but I haven't been able to be on that net in the last couple weeks. Been too busy working like I am now. I'm just, uh, I haven't really worked that hard yet, but I just loaded my trailer with a couple yards of topsoil, so I need to bring that back down and start unloading that.
Speaker B: At Paradise or Chico?
Speaker A: Paradise, yeah, but I'm up here in Magalia right now where I picked it up. So anyway, um, friend of mine up here, he has a mound of dirt, so he's been giving me a couple yards every year.
Speaker B: SLN was on the coffee break net today, I think for the first time.
Speaker A: Who was?
Speaker B: I can't remember his prefix, but it's SL— isn't it SLN? He's up in, uh, you know, by Mount Madison.
Speaker A: I think he's a KN just like me. KN6SLN. Yeah, John.
Speaker C: Mineral.
Speaker B: Yeah, mineral, that's it.
Speaker A: On that in the morning. Yeah, and the—
Speaker B: there was another guy on it last Friday for the first time. I think it was Friday, maybe it was Saturday, but he's usually on the one that suffixes.27, and that's Rod from Sebastopol. I don't know if you've ever talked to him.
Speaker A: I think maybe Derek's talked to him. K6, what's his name, something B. Derek. Anyway, now Vaca goes to the pickle.
Speaker B: The green something, I forget what he's called, but, uh, not the green alligator, the green something. Yeah, he has a handle for himself. TRG knows the handle.
Speaker C: I don't know about that. How you guys doing? N6GRG.
Speaker B: The Green Donkey, I just remembered.
Speaker A: Yeah, I'm back there. K6DJV, I think it is.
Speaker C: Funny Green Donkey.
Speaker B: Well, you could claim the green sheep or something because you've had sheep.
Speaker C: Well, now I have black sheep.
Speaker A: I thought you had mixed color. They were gender— not gender, race undecided.
Speaker C: I have two white and— well, one's white and black and one's all white. But I have 3 black ones.
Speaker B: Which wool is more valuable? Which color?
Speaker C: Depends on whether you're a black sheep or a white sheep. In other words, whether you wear white hats or black hats.
Speaker B: Would be more valuable because you can dye it. I guess you could dye black, but you certainly can dye white.
Speaker C: Well, it's pretty hard to change white wool— I mean, uh, black wool into white wool, but you can change white wool into black wool, I think. What'd you say, Steve?
Speaker A: I, I don't, I don't remember now.
Speaker C: Uh-oh, that's what us older people do. You young people aren't supposed to be doing that yet. By the way, I got the RADTEL to scan all 3 VFO windows. They have 3 VFO windows and it will let, you know, it will give me conversation from any one of them. And I think I know how I can quickly turn it off if I need to.
Speaker A: Okay, well, I ordered up a couple of the TID radios, the new version of the H3s that have the SMS ability. So I'm going to try that out. And supposedly you can answer your phone somehow through the Bluetooth and all that, so— no SMS, we'll have to see. But, you know, they're reasonable priced enough to mess around with them, so we'll see. It's pretty amazing what you can get for $35.
Speaker C: What was the model number? Didn't hear that model number.
Speaker A: Um, Radtel? I don't know. Uh, the TID radios are the TD-H3 Plus.
Speaker C: Oh, that's what I'm looking for. TD-H3 Plus. 3 Plus. I'll have to take a look at that. Not that I'm going to buy them. I got too many, too many radios.
Speaker B: Do either of you know what the M1KE does?
Speaker A: I didn't even hear what he said. M1 something?
Speaker B: KE, kilo.
Speaker C: Echo.
Speaker B: It's a transceiver the size of a microphone. I mean, you know, a mobile microphone, and you don't have to have a license to use it, but ticket holders can also use it on the amateur radio band.
Speaker A: Yeah, and that's what that K6UDA has. He has a couple of videos on that, right? That mic, handheld mic, it's Bluetooth.
Speaker B: I don't know if it has anything to do with Bluetooth.
Speaker A: I think it's a speaker, and so yeah, anyway, might check out K6UDA. That's Bob, right? Kilo 6 Uniform Delta Alpha.
Speaker B: Incidentally, is this into Meshtastic or the other one?
Speaker A: I didn't hear you, something about Meshtastic.
Speaker B: Is your sister into that like you?
Speaker A: Not as far as I know. Yeah, I know I haven't introduced it to her or anything, so, um, and I don't think it'd be right for her. Just, that's my own opinion, of course, because she doesn't like finicky things.
Speaker C: Um. Hey, I've got an opinion on that, uh, M1KE Shark RF gadget.
Speaker B: That's it, Shark.
Speaker C: It's— I would have to say it's basically a node that looks like a microphone, small microphone, but it's actually a node.
Speaker B: They're expensive. I think they're around $400. No kidding.
Speaker C: All I see is a whole bunch of videos on it, and I haven't seen anything trying to sell it because there ain't any buyers.
Speaker B: I mean, he probably will think it's too expensive also.
Speaker A: Uh, my friend up here has one, I think, Jay, N6WIP, so I'll have to ask him.
Speaker C: Well, I see why it just gave me videos. The phone was set to videos. So that's all it was showing me.
Speaker B: Now, you were on an HT this morning talking to somebody. I can't remember who.
Speaker C: Yeah, I was probably on the radtel. I think I— it was QFO, uh, who lives over in the Sierra foothills past Yuba City, I think. Steve could correct me if I'm wrong, but yeah, he was on and, uh I was on the Radtel going into the 105 repeater, which, uh, everybody tells me is on Red Mountain.
Speaker B: And for both of you, if I know Steve can hit Orland— Orland is now linked to the Coffee Break, uh, W6UK, only during during the coffee break net, which is, uh, 0730 to 1000 hours.
Speaker C: Yeah, and it gets from Amazon $400 to $450 USD for that, so forget that ever for me. And, uh, uh, I, I believe I was on, uh, this repeater because Because somebody was very confused as to how the boop and the beep worked for our little audio things that tell us which— whether we're on local or link. And so I was trying to explain that.
Speaker B: He probably came from the wind system. When I went from the WIN system to CARL, I picked it up immediately, but some people don't.
Speaker C: No, it was K9KAD, uh, Mark, and I don't, I don't think he's— I don't know if he's ever been used to WIN system or not. I wouldn't say anybody's actually from the WIN system, but It's almost like saying they're from Europe or something like that. But yeah, he just seems like a little bit of a new ham, but he might not be with a call like that, K9KAD. I don't know, it would seem like he's been a ham for a while. What do you think, Steve?
Speaker A: Well, I've spoken to him a couple times. I think he was a ham before, and then he may have stopped for a while, and then he's come back. And, well, he seemed like a pretty neat guy, so he's in there in like Manton, I think it was. So, well, we'll see. But yeah, he's unknown to the CARLA system. He's fairly new to it anyway, so he was on local most of the time when we were talking, but before, so unless he's recently went on the link that I don't know, it could be, well, maybe he was trying to respond to somebody on link and he was on local, probably my guess. But I don't know, we've all kind of done that when we're new. Maybe not you, Mike, but anyway, I know I did.
Speaker C: Oh, I was new at one time on the Carla system before you were born. And, um, sure, you know, everybody has to get used to this dual PL thing. I mean, Carlos, I don't know of any other repeaters that use two different PLs for each repeater. So, and then they're different on every repeater and on and on, you know. There's— and, and then that, uh, I think where we go into local and it mutes link. And, and, and, you know, these guys were just at the beginning part where they were trying to figure out, well, what, uh what sort of sounds, how would you know whether you're on link or local and things like that. And that's what I was trying to get to, at least that first, very first lesson, if you will.
Speaker B: Now I think they have, listening to Tom months ago, like maybe last spring, they got different tones. But you know, who's going to know all the different tones to tell you whether local or link?
Speaker C: Well, throughout the whole system we have this sound right here for local, which I repeated 3 times by keying up 3 times. It only does one block bop per local, uh, and they call those those things, by definition, they're called a courtesy tone. And the link side, of course, is a little different. It depends on where you are and what type of— one type of system, how the system is linked. If it's linked via All-Star, it has a little bit different set of tones than if you're linked with a regular RF link. So that's where the differences are. And, and I believe it's still that way, you know, where All-Star has a different set of tones. But I don't know, they could have changed it.
Speaker B: That explains why Ken, N6KNE, has a different tone, because I think the only way he can get in is All-Star.
Speaker C: Yeah, and a lot of Vegas, it comes in only All-Star, all those repeaters over there. And then, um, uh, north, uh, eastern, uh, north, you know, north Nevada, our repeaters in north Nevada, like the one, uh, uh, for, for Reno, uh, all go through multiple All-Star links before they finally make it to System 18, which which goes directly to, well, they go through multiple RF links and then they make it to 18 and go into All-Star. So it doesn't even work. Well, the Las Vegas system is RF until it makes it to, I think, Peavey or something. No, that's Peavey up north. Wait, yeah, All-Star has a different sound. And Los Angeles is ballstar.
Speaker B: You thinking Pahrump in Nevada?
Speaker C: Uh, no, I'm thinking— what do we call that system over there? Uh, I always forget the name of it. Uh, what do we call it, Steve? I forget which one.
Speaker A: The Las Vegas system?
Speaker C: Yeah, um, I'm trying to remember the name of the organization.
Speaker B: I think it's Las Vegas Repeater Association.
Speaker C: Yeah, but then they have, uh, I don't think they go L— LV— are, uh A, maybe they do. Is that what they do, LBRA?
Speaker B: Oh, I think there's an X.
Speaker C: Oh, okay, well I'm gonna look. It's on the, it's on the, uh, carloradio.link, uh, page. So, uh, if I can get to that, uh, it'll show it.
Speaker B: So is, uh, SCARA, or, you know, up, uh Fort Jones, they got to get that removed. That's been obsolete for almost a year now, I think.
Speaker C: Yeah, you know, the guy that, uh, does the, the, uh, web stuff is so expensive that we can't afford to— we can't afford to pay him. That's a joke.
Speaker B: Uh, website?
Speaker C: Yeah, and that's a joke entirely, but he's just a busy guy. What can I say?
Speaker B: The club that I was in, I didn't renew, uh, Jupiter Sutter Amateur Radio Club. They have a guy that's kind of runs the website, and— but nobody really knows it. I think the guy that ran it is an SK.
Speaker C: Yeah, and they just call it the LVRA down there around Nevada, around Las Vegas and to the east. And then everything up north is, uh, actually car— owned by Carla.
Speaker B: A couple of years ago, I was talking to a guy in Williams, Arizona, and had to be going through Henderson, Nevada, because I think that was the closest repeater to Arizona.
Speaker C: See, then you're getting— when you're in Henderson, anything near Henderson, you're getting into the Las Vegas Repeater Association is the first jump.
Speaker B: I was going into— I think it was in the Bay Area. What the hell number was I going in? Maybe Pacifica.
Speaker C: If you're talking about a Carla— I mean, about an All-Star repeater, you're talking 7. Uh, 7 is the only All-Star repeater in the whole Bay Area.
Speaker B: Maybe, but no, I was RF. I don't have, uh, all-star capability.
Speaker C: No, you don't have to have all-star capability. It's the link that's all-star. Uh, so it goes into 7 via regular RF just like a regular repeater, but then it's fed into an all-star node and then picked up at the hub, uh, at VACA on an all-star node and then fed back into the system. And, uh, Los Angeles

Speaker A: does that. Everything in Nevada, everything in Nevada does that eventually. And System 7. And they, at one time we had System 20 set up that way and they're, oh, they're planning on making that happen again, but somebody's going to have to drive up here, and I don't think I— if I could install it, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I could install it and do it correctly because you got to set the levels, and you can't— you can't hear any other repeater there when you're in that building. In fact, you can barely hear, um, anybody talking to you in the same room. You can't hear anything. It's so loud in there, and there's RF like you wouldn't believe in there.
Speaker B: Why would they pick that location? It's like out nowhere. That's the one that's isolated, or did they have PGE?
Speaker A: Well, there's a guy with the call letters LNK, and he owns buildings all over the place, and he says, you know, well, he's the Carla guy. He's the He's the hidden guy with Carla. Uh, he's the reason we do a lot of different things.
Speaker B: And the visible guy is Tom?
Speaker A: Yes, Tom is the most visible and kind of like the leader of the pack, although the other two guys have very separated jobs and pretty much, you know, they don't have to be told to do anything. And I used to, I used to work with the system, but I don't. I, I'm considering myself retired just because my vehicle is, uh, 26 years old, and I'm just I was not wanting to chance getting stuck on Folly and having to call some sort of rescue outfit that rescue me. I don't know that any of the tow trucks could handle it.
Speaker B: Is Folly as steep as, uh, what's the other one? Not Willow, but, uh, Stony Fork?
Speaker A: Dhoniford is a piece of cake, and 20 is even easier, and 13 is a piece of cake. But Bali is the hard one. It's, it's just— well, in the winter they have a caterpillar, has to have a tracked caterpillar go up and down that road and just destroy it. So yeah, it's a mess.
Speaker B: Is it high enough to get snow?
Speaker A: Haha. Uh, it has snow probably right now because it has places that never get in the sun. So, and in the winter it has 6 or 7 feet of snow.
Speaker B: Can we get into the system from San Diego?
Speaker A: San Diego is going to be the new, uh, All-Star linked repeater. It's not a new repeater, it's just not had a decent linking system, and now it does, and it's System 31. You said something, I missed it.
Speaker B: Oh, but I'm curious, where is exactly Santiago? Is it in Orange County or LA County?
Speaker A: It's LA County, you know, when you're going over the Well, what do they call that thing? That's like kind of a path that goes over, has a little elevation, goes down onto 5 and eventually through Bakersfield area. And that, when you go over that, uh, whatever they call that, and I've forgotten again, uh, if you were able to look south, you might see it, but I don't think you can actually see it, but it's south of that part of Highway 5.
Speaker B: Grapevine?
Speaker A: Exactly, yeah, the Grapevine. And then it's away, it's farther south than, you know, it, I would say it's a, a third of the way, or maybe if you look at on a map, it's about a, I'm just like remembering, it's about a third of the way between the border and the grapevine. It's a third at least south from the grapevine of that distance, whatever that distance is. And I've had people get into it from, uh, from San Diego. In fact, uh, I was mentioning that San Diego folks can get it, and then a guy from San Diego got on it right then.
Speaker B: Well, is that where Bear Mountain is, or where the LA people go skiing? Is it in that area?
Speaker A: Well, that's a big area, definitely east of LA. I can't tell you exactly where it is. but I don't think, uh, the Grapevine or Santiago are anywhere near Bear Mountain. But I, you know, I don't know that area.
Speaker B: Me neither, but if you go up hills to get into Lancaster, Palmdale, so, uh, that general area.
Speaker A: Yeah, there was this guy, uh, there's this style that, uh, people have used for a long time for people from out of the area, and they draw these really picturesque maps that show, you know, the Bear Mountain Ski Area is going to have a— show people skiing over there, and the Grapevine might even have some grapes growing, and, you know, San Diego's got the big fleet, and in the bay, you know, that's all on the map. So that would be the kind of thing— a really— it's a really basic map, and that's the kind of thing that we both, I think, need.
Speaker B: For repeaters? I mean, who would do it?
Speaker A: Oh, not for repeaters, just for showing where all these places you're asking about are. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, and then there's, uh, what goes on on this repeater, which is, uh, you know, kindergarten. And 6GRT, I've got to, I've got to get out of here for a little bit.
Speaker B: KI6UJX monitoring. Uh, you 73, Mike.
Speaker A: Talking about the tier upper, kindergarten tier upper. All right, talk to you later. Really good talking to you, N6GRT.
Speaker C: KM6MGK on the HT.
Speaker A: I'll be clear to Yeah, I've been using that. It's funny, uh, the system, the GRC system on Stonyford, I can't get into it with my, uh, what's the name of that really long antenna, uh, Valerie or whatever it is antenna that, you know, the one that bends all over. I can't get into it with the radtel and that antenna where I can reach this repeater with that part perfectly. Now I can reach 105, and 105 is almost the same level as this repeater with that, that combination antenna and portable.
Speaker C: Well, you'd have to inform me what the GRC repeater is. Thinking, or what I'm thinking, the W6TRC is the 105 on Red Mountain. So I'm getting confused, and I said some confusing things maybe on text last time because I guess I was not aware of what we were talking about. So anyways, as far as I know, the W6TRC repeater, ham repeater anyway, is located on Red Mountain. Red Mountain, and I have not been there, so I don't know exactly where that is. I think I know it, I think I know it, in other words, being north of Stoneyhurst, but quite a bit north anyway. Because I've been to Richard Field Day where we had a place where we could see Red Mountain, but I haven't been there.
Speaker A: Well, he's got repeaters in a lot of places. Now whether he has an analog repeater on, uh, on, uh, Stonyford, uh, you know, I don't know. Um, but, um, but he was the first visitor to get into our building but that was with the DMR repeater. Uh, it is a little confusing now because he's added so many different things now. Uh, and then if you look at the Glenn Amateur Communications, uh, page, uh, there's a whole bunch of repeaters there and they don't say who they belong to. To all— don't always say who they belong to. Uh, well, they do say the, uh, they do say the GRC is, is at Red Mountain, but he's got stuff down at Stonyford. I guess it doesn't have analog down there, maybe. I don't know.
Speaker C: Yeah, you have to be kind of careful too now on the Glen Amateur Radio Society website. Hasn't been maintained in a while, so kind of lost the webmaster. So, so, uh, that information is starting to wane. There's some information on there I noticed that is incorrect today, but that's not going to be in change.
Speaker A: Yeah, I kind of picked up on that, that it seemed like it wasn't exactly, exactly accurate. But, um, and then depending on where you go for listings, you'll hear— see Elk Creek listed as both Red Mountain sometimes and, and, uh, St. John sometimes. And then you'll see Stonyford listens for Saint John, and it's just all over the map. Actually, to tell you the truth, I think the GARS, uh, the Glenn Amateur Radio Repeater list might be one of the more accurate, but I don't know. They're just listing our repeater as one of their repeaters that they recommend with the K6LNK call sign. Doesn't say anything about, about Carlo Radio.
Speaker C: Well, lately I would think that would be like a third choice, but yeah, the Glen Amateur Radio Society didn't really— doesn't really have their own home, so utilizing Jerry's repeater for part of the month, and they're using Ian's repeater, AF6OA, the other part of the month, and then Carl at 36 be a backup for just in case. But like I say, I don't think that website's really been updated for a while.
Speaker A: Oh, uh, I'll have to take a look and see what Gears does. Um, they actually spell it G-E-A-R-S.
Speaker B: Uh, I'll try it.
Speaker C: Yeah, they do. It stands for Golden Empire Amateur Radio Society. And yeah, they've recently changed the frequency to Gears West on St. John's. And yep, they use the same PL. So you'll love that.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, uh, oh, somebody says I'm gonna get a new car and they go out and they buy the— because I hate my old car. And they go out and they buy the same model car and they take the engine out of the old car and put it in the other car they bought and wonder why nothing's any better.
Speaker C: As part of the reason, uh, the decisions they've made, uh, lately, and I wasn't interested in being a part of.
Speaker A: Yeah, and I've always been, you know, I've mentioned I've been very puzzled as to why, for instance, the main thing is just choosing 123. I don't care what frequency you're on. Well, it all matters, but, uh, using 123. That's, uh, just asking for it, problems, you know. I wonder if they still have problems with that new frequency, and I don't see where it— where it's listed. They've got a Facebook page, so they have a web page.
Speaker C: It's not much of one, but they have one. That's supposed to— that I looked at a couple days ago. Anyway, um, yeah, they chose a new frequency, and that frequency just so happens to be another repeater located in Chico. So they went from being interfered with from— I forget where— somewhere down by the Bay Area, you know, they were interfered with by that, that group, to now they interfere with with the Chico repeater, and it's not, uh, not listed as coordinated either. So anyway, as far as I— unless it's been changed recently, I didn't see that it was coordinated before.
Speaker A: Who, uh, had the repeater in Chico?
Speaker C: My APRS beacon, he says, Houston frequency.
Speaker A: Uh, who had the repeater in Chico?
Speaker C: I had to look up their call sign. It didn't say frequency, but, uh, something— I forget the call sign of it, but it's just a low-level repeater, and they say it was turned off. And then when they selected the frequency and put it all installed, it all of a sudden the Chico ones came back, but I don't know. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't pay any attention to the, to the other Chico feeders, so I couldn't say one way or the other.
Speaker A: Well, I can tell you from experience that one of the excuses I think they were using was that they went to NARC or NARCC, whatever it And, um, that's just another wasted, uh, wasted, um, bunch of maybe some money and time using, trying to use that organization and say it's helping you. It's not.
Speaker C: I don't think they went anywhere. I just think they picked some frequencies. I'm not sure how. I wasn't involved, so I have no idea. What I know is that it was an incorrect decision, and I told them about it, and they looked at me and said, "Well, maybe the other repeater should shut down." I'm thinking to myself, "Well, they're the ones who coordinated, and you're not." Yeah, yeah, it's just such an odd thing.
Speaker A: I mean, I remember when I saw the, uh, I saw, um, Mike, uh, I think his name is Mike, uh, he showed up up there while we were there working on 36 and was telling us he was going to put a repeater in, and then once it was all said and done and came on on one with a 123 PL, I'm going, wait a minute, something's wrong with this picture. Because, you know, I would always have to really fight hard to have repeaters not have the interference that was plaguing them. I imagine it still is. And the funny thing though is that it doesn't seem to bother 36, but 36 has a very, very good, uh, and well-aligned, uh, set of, uh, duplexers. So the only thing I can see— but we did have a problem. You remember that problem we had?
Speaker C: Yeah, it's probably still there because they never corrected it. They never corrected the problem. They only put a Band-Aid solution on it, and that's what they're doing still, as far as I know anyway. However, yeah, what I've heard from the folks in charge with the

Speaker A: Gears anyway, they think that the PL should have nothing to do with interference because both transceivers are, um, listening for a frequency and a PL at the same time. So, so obviously, uh, you know, this one should hear the, uh, 146.715 and, and the PL, the correct PL, then it would open up and it shouldn't open They haven't offered anything. I don't know. I just think it's, uh, it's very easy to change it. I changed one on the other computer, so it ain't that hard. A bunch of a couple of buttons and maybe change the website and we're done. That wouldn't be a big deal, but they don't want to listen to me.
Speaker B: Yeah, I know, I know you've tried, um, and it is so simple nowadays. With all of the, um, you know, with all the digitalization of the repeaters, it's just, it's a simple thing to change a PL, just like it is to change the PL in a portable, in your house, or anything, you know. It's all super simple stuff. Uh, so I've always been really puzzled, but anyway, Uh, it's not— what they're doing is not bothering us. They are probably having the same problems they always have had, and not just because of that Chico repeater. Um, it's called intermod. By the professionals, it's called intermod. And what happens is various carriers mix and And then they make an— out of the mixing, they make up another frequency. It's very, very famous for repeater top mountain interference. Just very, very common. Intermod.
Speaker A: They'll find out here soon, they're supposed to change their nets over to using that repeater effectively April 1st, but it'll get more activity on Tuesdays anyway at 7:30. Maybe you should tune into it and see what you think.
Speaker B: I'll be most interested in knowing how it affects, uh, 36, because, you know, 36— see, without— with 36, not having a full CTCSS system, that makes it— normally would make it worse, not better. Now, the fact that we shut off the one part of it and it made it better, that's very unusual. That's quite a bit more typical. That's why I got a little bit upset with what was going on on, uh, 25, because if they should— and it will happen again— if they should decide to try to make that generator— it's a brand new generator, but it's got some problems— if they should try to use it again, then we'll start having the problems we had before. And I was telling them, you know, hey, we can't have those problems because it goes out. When we had those problems, it would wipe out the system right in the beginning of winter, and it wouldn't be repaired in time for the big bike race that is coming up pretty quick here. I was supposed to call the guys down at, uh, I was supposed to call Bill down there in Redding and find out what's going on with that, but I guess I'll find out. Which bike race I'm talking about?
Speaker A: Um, I know there's a yearly thing, but I don't remember the name of it. I know this Saturday I'm doing a little J over here for N6WIP. He's from Magalia. We're going to have a space or a booth or whatever you want to call it over here at the Fairdise Ridge Homestead, the Homestead of Fair. So we're hoping to attract a few new members, maybe talk to them about emergency communications and stuff. But we're going to have all kinds of preparedness, self-reliance kind of stuff going on, activities for a few hours Saturday morning. So that's what I'm up to for this weekend. But no, the, uh, the Bike race, I remember it was years ago, I don't remember the name of it.
Speaker B: Yeah, the bike race is a mountain bike race, not just an ordinary bike race, but a mountain bike race. And it, it covers the— there's two ways of talking about where it is. One is the Swayze, I think they call it the Swayze Recreation Area, it's a BLM area. And then the other is Mule Mountain. Because it goes up and down over the top of Mule Mountain several times, and it's got this crazy map like you wouldn't believe. I've never been a part of it, but, um, when I found the more— when, well, when they wanted to use 25 Local, um, I was very glad that they did. I found out so much about that race, and, uh, and 25 Local back in those days worked great. And then all of a sudden it started failing every winter, and, uh, they had to come up with some other kind of communication. I don't know what they're doing now for communication. That's what I'd like to find out.
Speaker A: Pretty day here in Paradise, very calm, somewhere in the 70s, I think. Probably the highest that it is, but really nice in the shade. Anyway, nothing much going on here. I'm just— I finally got back to the property and backed up and thought I'd eat a bite to eat before I go back to work. And, you know, I wanted to do something with these blackberries. I just picked out so much blackberries from a friend of mine up in Perrant, Magalia.
Speaker B: Oh yeah, thornless are great. I even like the old-fashioned blackberries. Now over here, what we call the ones over here are Himalayas, and you know, I don't know that much about why we call them Himalayas. That's just what everybody's called them forever. And at home we have the original endemic blackberry. Blackberries that weren't brought in by the Hung To, like the Camaleas, and as children we would pick those blackberries. We knew which ones they were and we would pick them and sell them for big bucks, what we thought were big bucks, because my dad was a manager of the Twenki grocery store in the middle of Eureka and so he We, uh, he had access to all these wealthy people in Eureka and they all went into those blackberries.
Speaker A: I'm going to get to work here in about 5 minutes or so. So we'll have to— yeah, catch you later. I do have the radio in my truck, and maybe on my way down the hill I'll put a call out. I'll say 73 for now. This is KN6NGK.
Speaker B: Yeah, I was just going to ride over to check on a guy who's in his 80s, make sure everything's over— uh, okay over there. Talk to you later, KN6TRG.

Speaker A: System 7, link up.
Speaker B: System 32, link up.