2m Simplex (146.520 MHz) recordings for 2026-01-30

Well, Evening, Jim. This is Tom, W6JS. I was just getting ready to give you a call. I'll be hanging around. I lowered it down to half power. Are you still receiving me strong? And my signal? Because I don't know, it's my. It seems like I'm getting FM over my radio and I don't know how to stop it. And I have an FM switch and it isn't taking it out. How is my signal? This is Tom, W6JS.

KC USD bill and cape and check me in, put me on a list. I have.

Well, good evening, everybody. Kn6mgk I'll be with you.

Speaker A: Well, thank you, Jim, and thank you for
Speaker B: the gentleman. All of them giving me a signal report because I was thinking my radio was going on the fritz and I don't need to buy another one right now. As far as ham radio stuff, I tried to solder. I can't solder because my shaking too much and I'm trying to fix a Christmas decoration still here almost in the February with Christmas decorations putting away and fixing them, but that's all I got. Oh, ham testing. This Sunday at 2 o' clock at Elk Lodge, there's going to be a new, I call it the hamsters. It's the technician test coming in July, so and it's going to be tougher. So anybody out there who knows anybody that needs to get a license, now's the time to do it. That's all I got. This is Tom W. 6js. Thank you,
Speaker C: Jim, for doing that.

Speaker A: Why are you skipping over me? I'm not. In and out. Kn6ngk. Well, you didn't miss me on the roll call, but you're missing me.
Speaker B: Yeah, Winterfield Day. That's what it was last weekend. Pretty nice, beautiful weather and I'll agree with Bob, definitely more fog than we're used to. I've lived in Chico since 1990, so yeah, we definitely have more fog than I'm used to having here. And I don't like it because I came from the Bay Area, so I agree with him. It's nice that sometimes I go up to paradise like I probably will be tomorrow and they'll be up out of the fog. But you know, honestly, today was not bad at all. Yep, a little bit of high level fog, but burned off pretty early and turned out to be a pretty beautiful day to be honest. So we can't complain this year about our weather so far. I actually think we need a little bit more rain if you. At least on the lower part of the watershed. Going over Lake Oroville today again, and I can see it's still down. So we could use another good storm in here for sure. Maybe we'll get one in February or perhaps March. Sometimes we get those late storms, but we could use a little bit more. But sure am ready for a little bit warmer temps too. Gardening stuff's coming up, so people might be getting ready to do some of that potatoes, that type of thing you can plant now. Anyway, back to him. Radio Winterfield Day. Went to Black Butte Lake and I sure wish Bob would have made it over there. I wanted to show him some stuff on mesh networks, but anyway, he didn't make it, so I missed him. Darn it. Me and Chris said over there we kind of teeved up. We're doing some CW on 15 meters and we made about 85 contacts. So that worked out pretty well. Got some DX into Puerto Rico, into Mexico and Canada. Tried to get this guy in Japan, but he just couldn't hear us back. So anyway, we tried to get a little bit of DX in there and we did have some fun times. So good time to test out equipment. We're in a field day, so I guess the next time we'll have a field day event we'll be in the heat. So enjoy everybody, have a good fun weekend and take care of yourselves. This is KM6NGK signing clear.

Well, it don't get much better than that. Have a nice cup of Peruvian coffee, little slice of homemade persimmon bread playing FT8 and listening to my buddies on the radio KN6MGK.

Good morning, kn6ngk. Hey, what's going on?

Speaker A: So. Yeah. So what's the prognosis? Oh, figured it'd be kind of like JS8.
Speaker B: Yeah. So something like that, you know, JS8, this is, they haven't
Speaker A: developed it ever since about 2002. Nope, no one did. Yeah, part of the hobby that's going
Speaker B: away. Just like Aries and all that kind of stuff. Part of the, that wing of ham radio.
Speaker A: It's see you later, bye, bye. Pretty much, Yeah. Which brings me to the point is that we need to,
Speaker B: this is personal opinion that people in this community, whether it's, you know, Butte county, but even specifically group up in Paradise Magalia people that are at wildfire risk need to come up with an emergency action plan. So, like how some of us could volunteer or something and put together some sort of communications around town and so forth in the case of an emergency.

Okay. How do you look into something? We just do it, right? Like we're gonna be sitting there on later on today, I hope, and having a cup of coffee or whatever. We just come up with a plan. There's nobody else gonna do it, so, yeah, we just gotta say, okay, in case of an emergency, we do this, you know?

Yeah, well, just like a fast deploy, you know, I think that's great already. The location in Magalia is a great spot, you know, and then have an alternative spot, you know, that's all like that could be right there in the corner of Neil Road or whatever. But there might even need to be another one off the fence road, you know, come up with a plan when we quick deploy admitted early. I could tell you this right now. Last fire, I mean like at&t, they came up to Martine's property right next to town hall. They set down a trailer for communications and no ask, that was what they did. They just brought it there and dumped it off, set it up and started working. So in the case of emergency, that's what you do, right? But maybe with a 10 by 10 canopy or whatever, you just pop it out there, you start, you know, maybe we have a sign or whatever, you know, communications or something. So people, they needed, they needed, you know, help or something like that. You have two or three of those around paradise or something. I don't know. Just a thought. But yeah, yeah, you worry about the logistics later. And that's exactly what AT&T did. And so after, you know, six or eight weeks or so, he started contacting Bartin about his property because they found out who owned the property and so forth. And then we had about one year's worth of negotiations to get a lease done, so we finally got that done and then they had to give him all that back pay.

Well, you'd have to find someone who was resistant. I mean, just like people who were accepting PGE's offers right away. They would offer you, like, $1,000 for access to your property, to put in an easement for some of their equipment, for underground. Well, the whole town of paradise was going to do it no matter what. So they knew they had the ability to do that to. Some people just accepted it, but others didn't. Like we didn't and didn't accept it right away. And, you know, you fight for three, four months, whatever it takes, and then they go from 1,000 to 10,000 pretty quick.

Well, maybe someone else will come along with another version, you know, Never know. Anyway. Yeah, anyway. So you'll see that people like during these latest storms, going back to the Middle east, east coast, there, you know, the little small ham clubs are what people are listening to for information. So in some cases. So that's why it's important to have 70 centimeters, 2 meters running in communities. A lot of people have these little bofang radios, and in a time of need, they might want to access it or at least listen for these things. And of course, like the repeaters and stuff that the club has put together and everything are great resources in a time of need and emergency. Anyone can use them. Right. For FCC law, of course, KN6MGK.

Yeah, that's why I'm suggesting, like, an emergency action team or something. You know, you don't need much. Just like, a lot of us already carry stuff in our vehicles, so anyway. But, you know, in some cases, you know, I might not be able to get to, you know, get to paradise. You know, certain emergencies, just like campfire. I mean, traffic was going down, but nothing was allowed going up.

Well, I don't know. Yeah, sometimes. You know what? If you can't depend on repeaters for whatever reason, maybe you can for a short time. So practice your simplex. Vhf, uhf, that type of thing. Cross band repeat. Another good thing to learn. So lots of fun stuff. How about like winlinker sending emails, emails through HS and stuff like that too. Something I'd like to do this year. Practice, get, get into that a little bit. So. Yep. And you know, at Starlink Mini type of a thing, it's just another, another thing that's possible. You know, you get someone who's gonna fast deploy, you know, someplace to provide communications for our community. You know, figure that say just like a power outage and campfire. We've experienced that. Right. No Internet for a lot of people. So no power, no Internet. So it's just a resource where information can be gathered and disseminated. And having something like Starlink Mini is a good idea for somebody. May not be for me or whatever and not for a club essentially, but just somebody. So been trying to try to get Pat involved in it. I don't know. But the problem with borrowing someone that belongs to a club member or even a friend or whatever is that takes it away from them and that's not something that they're going to want to do in a time of emergency. They're going to want any information that they can get, Internet wise and so forth. It's the way a lot of people communicate these days. KN6MGK.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm still working on cw. I ordered another key the other day. Don't expect to get it until maybe first part of next week. Practicing with that some more. And try to just develop those skills a little bit better this year. That would be nice. And then a few of these other things, like I want to be able to do fl Digi and Windlink. So those two things are on my bucket list. And it really didn't attack those at all last year. So that would be good for this year. Other than that, the normal things. Working up in paradise at the property, working here around my house, finishing up my paint job, things like that. I've got quite a
Speaker B: bit of things on my plate already. No, I don't think so. Yeah,
Speaker A: I think I need a pad or something like that too. Yeah, Really? I get my. I lose my focus real easy. That's the problem. Huh? Like, hey, we've been messing around with this mesh stuff for about couple months now, and now I don't even have a note at home anymore. So here I
Speaker B: am going to work back on that again. I don't even have a.
Speaker A: Like, we've been working on the mesh stuff for a couple of months, right? Mesh, that's taking up a lot of my time, the extra time. And I don't even have a node at home anymore. So something else I need to work on at some point.

Speaker A: No, that's why I freely gave it up for the club there. But it was working to the extent of, you know, I could get over to a little bit shy of Highway 32 and a little bit shy of the Esplanade as far as I could get. You know, then when that guy comes in or like the BSR1 node, then I could start hearing stuff from around the bay Mesh system. But I could never seem to really get out too often. Maybe 10% of the time my message might get out to someone like Dan or something like that. The other day I think I made mention of it maybe just on the mesh network when I got over to Panera. But Dennis, Dennis, I was able to hear his transmission into the farther Butte Sar or whatever. Somehow it got diverted to where I could hear it here at home. But I sent a message back out and I don't think it went anywhere other than around here, you know, I
Speaker B: mean, the half
Speaker A: mile around here maybe, but that was it. So if that's. That part of the communication is broken
Speaker B: on the south, no, the north part of town, Like. Did you get any of my messages yesterday I sent to you? Yes,
Speaker A: I did. I sent a couple of direct messages and. Yeah, that's my point though. See, especially when you're running three or four channels, it's going to be hard to keep track of all that stuff. You know, you might be getting a little ping on your phone or whatever, but you might think that's just a regular, regular voice message or some other message, some social media platforms or whatever. Now people are using their phones for
Speaker B: so much things
Speaker A: these days.
Speaker B: So
Speaker A: many emails and all these applications. Like I hear about one called Signal. Now of course, X, you got Facebook. I mean, so many things people are using their phones for. It's getting kind of ridiculous.

Yeah. So if someone else creates a new name like I did, that doesn't have my call in it at all, you don't pay no attention to it. So now a friend can't talk to you?

Speaker A: Yeah,
Speaker B: that's something we should talk about. That's a good idea. Anyway, I mean, so a person knows that like yesterday I was sitting in Panera. I know. I know for a fact that you were already. I was just getting ready to leave, but you were already over at the place where you go on Thursdays. And you know, I'm sure I was able to reach you with a direct message or whatever, but for whatever reason it didn't go through or you didn't hear it or maybe I did send it on medium fast. I'll have to look to see. Can't remember. So anyway, and I was originally having problems getting anything through. I had to delete your node completely and then rediscovered it pretty quick. Then finally I got the check mark that it went through. So that's something else that happens quite often too. But other interesting little devices, but they're a little finicky still. And see how the communications aren't that consistent and repetitive. I think that my node that was on my roof is doing a way better job right now than it was sitting on my roof.
Speaker A: Can 6 MGK? Yeah. No, I don't think so. Not right now. Yep,
Speaker B: I'll need to redo all that. Yeah. On this computer I never. I don't think I ever put it on. So yeah, I'll have to redo all that stuff, but I'll double check. And before I had nothing but troubles trying to get it going. So all the special stupid drivers and that she had to put in and that you had to put in and all this goofy stuff with Windows you don't have to do that with Linux. And Fldigi came right up on Linux, no problem. So one thing I don't understand about Windows people, they like goofing around with all that stuff.

Yeah, well, the thing about it is it's something like kind of like a JS8, you know, where you can keyboard your keyboard, talk digital. That gets through when other things don't. So you don't really have to know all the modes just to know the generality and know that it works. But that's all like PSK 31, that's one of the modes people use.

Yeah. I don't know. Ham Radio Deluxe. I think maybe it's the top tier of ham radio. Operators use it worldwide, but it's a very low percentile, I bet you, compared to the whole world. I would think that many people in other countries don't spend the kind of money it takes for ham Radio Deluxe.

Well, it's just like for Field Day, you know, like if I were doing Field day with you guys for summer, you know, I'd want to run the software and anyone who's doing contacts would need to run the same software. Or, you know, like we have the N3 FJP, which is a template customized for Field day. And so if you network them together, everyone can see what everyone's doing. So now if you stay to separate bands, you don't have to be worried about duplicates and stuff too much. But if people move around or whatever, then that's when you have issues like that, like duplicates and such. And someone has to go through every contact to make sure it's not a duplicate, that type of thing. But yeah, it tracks, you know, that one tracks all the different regions and, and DX locations and all the provinces of Canada and all that so you can see exactly what you're doing as the day progresses.

What are you talking about? I don't think I had any issue with a mouse. Are you talking about computer mouse?

Okay. In terms of mice for computers. Yeah, I'm. I'm still using old antiquated things. I'm sitting here using, you know, here's an AST, you know, PS2 mouse, right? Hooks into a USB, you know, USBA. I got one of those for one computer. And what's this other one? It is an HP. Yeah, same thing. PS2 mouse with a little wire that goes to USDA. Yeah, that's how old school I am. So what do you think of that?

Maybe I'm saying it wrong, but yeah, I don't have that connector anymore. This is just going to a USB A. So that makes sense. But I don't have a wireless mouse is essentially what I'm saying.

Speaker A: Over last weekend, winter field day. I was with Chris and he brought like four or five keys with him and I was trying them and stuff. And he had some nice begolis and stuff like that. Anyway, for portable use I need something smaller. So anyway, I've been using that little cheap key. You said you lost yours, but I'm sure you have it around somewhere, that little silver looking key. Anyway, and yours actually works better than mine does because mine's getting wore out already. But anyway, this one is made by Larry. His name is Larry Bauman. I think it is. N0SA is his call sign. And anyway, he custom makes these keys. They're kind of like modern Morse. If you've seen those, they look a bit like that. But I think there's a lot more plastic fuse, you know, because they're more for lighter weight. Anyway, but I used one and I liked it. So I emailed the guy and he said he would ship one to me. So anyway, I had to send him some money, of course, but anyway, so should be done, should be on its way. He gave me tracking information. So it sent something about getting it
Speaker B: Monday, but we'll see, That's no joke. It was 150 bucks.

Well, there's lots of big ollies or whatever. I don't know. The one that Chris has I like is. Well, he has two or three actually, I think. But one of the HST is pretty interesting. Takes a little getting used to, but I've liked that one a couple times. When he's brought it, he has. He probably has a dozen keys or something like that, different ones. And he's really good, so he's really been practicing a lot, so I got a long ways to go to catch up to him.

Yeah, well, I still play. I like the apps on the phone, to be honest. You don't have to have a radio to mess with it. I play with the apps on the phone a lot, but I just keep practice up. Like Morse Mania is one of them. And Morsel, because that keeps you in the game a little bit. A little different than hearing stuff on the radio, but it can be challenging. You can set it at 30, 30 words a minute and practice with it. Hey, I got to go use the restroom, so I'll be back. KN6MGK.