GEARS E RX (146.250 MHz) recordings for 2026-03-18

Good evening, this is Dennis K in 6BJU and I'm checking in and I think tonight I may stick around.

Hi, Jim, and the rest of the net. This is Dennis, KN6BJU, and I did some antenna work the other day, put a different mast up and new connection, and I'm really just primarily curious as to how I sound tonight. Well, perfect. I guess I'll leave the antenna alone and try and figure out a way to keep cool and keep the grass shorter. So thank you very much, Jim. Thank you for Doing the net. This is Dennis, KN6BJU, over.

K6MGK. Uh, doing good. Been taking a little bit of break from a lot of ham radio stuff. Uh, just checked in kind of late, came inside from gardening and stuff, and I was about 15 minutes late or so on the net here, just listening in. Thank you for doing the net out there, and hello everybody on the net. One thing I'd like to mention is the 28th, March 28th, at the Elk's Lodge in Paradise, in case anyone's interested, there's going to be a homesteading fair and a lot of stuff having to do with being more self-reliant. But the PARS group, Paradise Amateur Radio Society group, is going to have a little, probably a little booth or a little location there inside where they might talk about like emergency communications, GMRS, and one of the latest things, MeshTastic. Let me reach And that is a good subject out here in case anyone is interested. I know a few others, Greg K6GAP and Chris JHD, I know they have nodes for Meshtastic and it's becoming more and more popular in the Chico area. Paradise Group put up over about 20 nodes up there, covered that area pretty good, pretty saturated, pretty good coverage. The Search and Rescue group down in the Forest The Search Ranch and— excuse me— and over by the Search and Rescue building have some really good strong nodes. And many of us around here in Chico have these solar nodes up on our roofs. There's over 20, I'd probably say closer to 25 or so nodes now located in and amongst Chico, but probably could use some more. So maybe there would be interested people out there that would like to have some sort of mesh system going. Of nodes where they can talk. You don't have to be a ham by any stretch. The one area of town where I think it needs better coverage is actually over by where Tom lives and stuff over there. The middle of town, downtown area could use some more nodes in that area. But that would just help extend the coverage. Today I was sitting over there in Chico Panera with a friend of mine from Idaho who had come down and showing him Meshtastic and I was getting from that building into Antioch in Fremont over that way this morning with half a dozen messages and conversations back and forth. So it's a pretty neat little system. It is like texting. It doesn't use the internet in such as, you know, you personally, but like the search and rescue building does have a tie-in. There's a few tie-ins. The Sutter Buttes probably has some sort of a tie-in. But it's been pretty regular to get into my friend Jeremy, W6LND, in Orland. So We do have an active mesh system for at least Meshtastic 'til about Chico. Not a whole lot going north right now. So just something to think about if you're interested. You know, check into meshtastic.org or perhaps talk to me at some point or email. I'm good on QRZ. Anyway, thank you for doing the net, Jim, and I appreciate you out there. It's been a pretty busy season so far for me. KN6MGK.