Transcriptions for 2025-11-30

Heading link up.

And 6Kd dusting.

Gears holds a free Morse code class every Wednesday night, 6pM at the Golden Beaver Distillery still house at 2420 Park Avenue. All are welcome to come learn Morse Code W6R H C Repeater Check 1.

And 6. P&E. Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What is that? It's unit scanner down the house. Has a web interface to it. Piece of software called Trollscan that I bought. Very nice. Yeah, I think it's an expensive gadget, unfortunately. Las Vegas Metro.

So the amount of definition temperature is pretty low, so. Emergency. I've had a high patrol. It's not scrambled yet. A couple like EMS and paramedics and stuff like that, but a lot of it is blocked out. Anyway, I figured it'd be cool. Maybe see how you sound compounding the system at least down here in Vegas. Yeah, no, I. I like it. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me.

Me. Okay, very good. Back at you.

D.

The gears west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus PL 123. I repeat. 46.895 minus PL123W6RHC repeater check 2.

W e6axm receiver.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Testing, 1, 2, 3.

Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3.

W e6a x n receiver.

The Gears. Monthly general membership meetings are held on the third Monday night of the month at the Butte County Public Library, 1108 Sherman Avenue in Chico. Doors open at 6pm and the meeting starts at 7pm all are welcome. W6RHC repeater check 3.

It. The gear's west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus PL 123. I repeat. 46.895 minus PL123 W6R H C Repeater Check 1.

The Gears Net will be held Tuesday night starting at 7:30pm all amateur radio operators are welcome to join in on the net.

Reddit link up.

Be.

Sa. It.

W, e, z a x, n repeater.

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Gears holds a slow speed Morse code net on 40 meters every Thursday night starting at 7pm Frequency of 7.44 plus or minus if the frequency is in use. All licensed amateur radio operators are welcome to join in the next W6 RHC repeater check two.

A 17 pa.

W e6a x n repeater.

The gears west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus pl 123. I repeat. 46.895 minus pl123w fix rhc repeater check 3.

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W e6a x n repeater.

D.

Ding.

Ra.

D.

Be.

W e6a x n repeater.

D.

W e6a x n receiver.

W e6a x n repeater.

QST. QST, QST. This is KG6 KGO opening Sacramento Valley traffic pin. This natural part of the national traffic system. The department assistant out of the Sacramento Valley and provides a static emergency. This is a direction. Please leave. No transmission control. All stations are requested stay on frequency to each pass. W6 rhc repeater check. One. Very nut Roll call follows. KF6OPI, you're still out of the area. K60K goes caller roller for traffic K16.

Good evening, lester in the group. This is kg6tso, bessie with no traffic. Thank you, bessie. Kf6djy, K6rcs. Okay, 6pmt, kilo, echo six, papa, mike, tango, russ and Gerber. Good evening, Lester in the group, and I have no traffic. Good evening, Casey6UF, KC6UFE, Bill and Cape. No traffic. Good evening, Lester. Good evening, bill. Thank you, kn6pww.

Kn6tww, jamie and chico with no traffic. And good evening, lester and annette. Good evening, jamie. Thank you. All right. Dr. Rose, I have. Do we have any late members or visitors we should check in. Good evening, lester. Kf6djy. Bruce. Tigo. No traffic. Good evening, bruce. Thank you. Anyone else? There is no further traffic. Objection. This is KG6K.UO. Closing segments Valley traffic this net BE Stadium at 2100 hours local time through the W6 regime. 1146, 8, 5, 1. Reverse all spaces or excuse. And I'd like to thank your buddy who checked in to that. The goal is the Empire Armature radius.

This net is closed at 2104 local time. $73. This is KG6K.U clear frequency.

W e6axn repeater.

6 fg connected.

A6fp. Just doing quick emergency concept. Cth is santa rosa, ca sonoma county 6 sq.

Station contact looking.

Thanks for the sunbath. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Stay safe. I'm gonna jump off this and take my chatter elsewhere, but just been a while since I set the car network, so thanks for the response. 73ak6sg I'll be clear on your.

G disconnected.

Please. Id. Thank you.

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D.

Ready.

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System 7, link up k6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

Deep.

K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

One.

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W e6a x n repeater.

W e6a x n repeater.

System 9k6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

System 2, link up k6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

System dies.

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K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

System 9 lit up.

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There.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Well, you sound okie dokie to me. And six. Kennedy. Well, I was hoping no one was on frequency this morning for.

I did testing myself with a monitor here, but thanks for getting back. So this is KJ 70. TX, do you copy? Yeah, I hear you just fine. It's a pretty big system. Okay, I'm in Mosquito data. How about for you? Sorry, we doubled there for a little bit. I'm down here in Mesquite, Nevada. And where are you, sir? Sorry, we're doubling. I am down here in Pusa Cashica, Colombia. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead one of these ready?

All right, I'll be listening. N6 keane. Okay, I copy that, n6k. Once again, this is kj76, and where are you? Well, maybe I'm hearing you better than you're hearing me. I am in Busa, Colombia. Pusa, Colombia. Okay, I'm trying to wrap my mind around that. How in the world did I reach you on a linked repeater in Nevada and.

Well, that's a good question. I am connected via All Star into the Carlos system there in California, and I'm connected up here pretty much all the time. Okay. If I'm mistaken, I'm assuming you're talking about Colombia in California, is that correct? As opposed to Colombia in South America? I am talking about Boosa Gasigat, Colombia, South America. An hour and a half drive out of Bogota. There's an old punchline. And so? And so? And so he just picked up a southeast of Cairo. But I won't bore you that this is.

Interesting a little bit about All Star. Hey, thanks for getting back to me. Obviously, if this reprogrammed radio is working, I was doing it for a friend of mine. Alrighty. Yeah, you have good audio and good signal. Okay, you take care. I'll be listening. N6 knees kilo, Juliet seven, echo tango x Ray, Mesquite, Nevada. And I am closing my station here now. Thanks again.

D.

The gears. Monthly informal breakfast is held on the second Saturday of the month at 9am at the Farmer's Skillet, located at 690 Rio Lindo Avenue, Chico. All are welcome to attend W6RHC Repeater Check 2.

W e6axm receiver.

K6lmk system 36 snow mountain range.

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The gear's west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus PL 123. I repeat, 46.895 minus PL 123 W6 RHC Repeater Check 3.

W e6a x n repeater.

Ki 6 ssi and 6 trg. Are you around there? N6 grt?

Kn, 6mck and 6grg. Must be. You must be doing the CW contest or whatever it is. N6grg, 36 local.

D.

The Gears Net will be held Tuesday night starting at 7:30pm all amateur radio operators are welcome to join in on the net.

Kn6sln monitoring. Well, hello there. Kn6sln n60rg back from thanksgiving. I think I told you that. Hey, how you doing, Mike? Do you get settled in? Did I get snowed in or settled in? I couldn't quite settles that. In other words, you get all your stuff put away? Well, I got a lot to do, but I'm sitting on radios and computer anyway. Yeah, I got a whole bunch of stuff to do. Yeah, we're starting to pick up accelerating a little bit there to pick up stuff to get ready to leave.

But it's pretty cold out there right now. It's about 35 degrees. Yeah, it's 40 here. And very murky. High humidity, fog. And are you above the fog? No, I haven't. No. Was it pretty foggy down there? Yeah. And you must be above the fog. Yeah, I guess. It normally comes in about 3,000ft. That's right above all the hill before you get the main street. Oh, yeah, okay. I know where that is. Yeah, it was foggy in Oregon.

Almost more foggy than it has been here. I mean, it was just absolutely incredible. We had some houses maybe 100ft down the hill. I couldn't even see them. Oh, yeah. Up there in Oregon, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. It gets pretty foggy that way, too. And, you know, like I said, it'll burn off here a little bit. It usually gets up about 55 degrees up here. And I think we're coming in for some cool weather here next week. From what I understand. I'm not sure, but I don't watch weather that much. But yeah, yeah, we're. We're just getting. Getting around, getting everything so we can load the pickup, haul down to the valley, get ready to split. Yeah. Hold the RV down there, right? Or is RV already down there? No, we have.

It down there in storage right now. We just take, you know, like. Well, my radios would be the last thing to go. But pretty much all our records and everything like that, you know, that we can't afford to lose. We hold down there. Do you have a way to run HF on your trip? Yeah, absolutely. That's what I've been working on. Yeah. 1020 right now. And then I'll have an 80 meter up once I get down there. Are you gonna use that Hustler system? Well, I am, and if it doesn't work, then I'll probably get me a long wire. Because I'm gonna get me one anyway for up here. So I may just go ahead and get one down there.

Well, I like, I like, of course, that I actually run mobile, you know, driving down the road on HF with that Hustler system. Some of the. When you put it up all the way, you got to have a really stiff spring at the bottom. A really one like they used to, they used to always be stiff or cv. And I, I used CB springs back in the day, but I didn't have my original one, or I guess it got wrecked. I had it and it was wrecked, so I, I bought two or three before I found one that was actually stiff enough to do the job. Yeah, well, I'm.

Not going to run down the road with it because for one I have the fifth wheel on the back of the truck and I rarely run even a cb. I run a CB right up next to the cab, not for distance, for say within 200ft, maybe 300ft of me in case something's falling off, somebody can get a hold of me. Then I don't see if you understand what I'm saying. If somebody pulls up aside, you know, truck driver say hey, you know, your wheels are falling off back here, you know, that kind of thing. I don't go down the road talking and, and that's, that's the reason I didn't install it there. But yeah, I'm going to get some, get it out, play with it, see if it works. And if it doesn't work, like I said, I gave me a long wire. Yeah, long wires always work better.

On all the bands. But it's nice to be able to do something for. Mobile. And I don't recommend 80 meters per se. Although what I would do, like, what I would do here is like, if I had to be gone someplace right during that Sunday net, I was asked, I would. Or the Monday net, I would try to get into it if I didn't have as much going as I did this time. This time I wasn't even in my own car. My daughter drove me up there to or southern Oregon, you know, and Steve was going, well, why don't you have a Jeff? And I was right on the edge of being able to do that. I was really close to.

Being able to do that. Yeah, well, from what I understand, you probably, of course, I don't know, get something like a fire stick or something stick up there. Well, what, what I have for like operating in Oregon, what I would be able to do is the big deal would be the radio. The radio needs to be small and be nice if it was like at least 20 watts. And you know, they almost always have to have a 12 volt power supply. So it'd be more like a POTA setup. When I, when I'm at my brother's house or wherever I was, I would operate it mowed with an antenna on my daughter's car. She wouldn't let me have a mag mount on that in a million years.

So it would have to be not mobile, but actually stationary at my brother's house, which is where we stayed the whole time. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that, that works out pretty good. I got, oh, I got a 25 foot pole, telescopic pole, and then I have, you know, that fits on the back bumper, the fifth wheel. This is all when you get stationary. So I mean, and then I got my little batteries and solar panels and generators and you name it, I got, I'm fixed up this time to see what happens. And then 8 91, I got this and I'll. Like I said, if I need to, I'm going to go to the Ham fest there at Courtshell.

Big one down there in Yuma while I'm there. Well, a lot of people use that 891 just like I use my 7100. You know, it's kind of like the one piece mobile radio. Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. It's a mobile radio. But all my stuff is mobile, so I can use it either way. Then when I grow up to be a big kid, I'll get me a DX10 or 101. But that's down the road. A long way down the road. But this 891, I'm getting used to it. Well, see what I could do about my brothers where I stayed. He's my youngest brother. He's got lots of dogs and he's got this doggy door in the back. And if I ran like a 50 foot piece of.

Coax and then I, I have one antenna that sticks in the ground and I got the whole thing together ready to go. I've never used it, but I've got it. And with that 50ft foot piece of coax, I'd be set. But what I should have is the little 30amp hour battery. Right now the only portable battery I've got, and Steve's right, you need something a little more portable, is this thing called a leafiti that has a hundred amp hour battery in it. Although I do have 100amp hour battery that is exceptionally small. I could get away with taking that someplace. I probably should have a little box for it or something so it doesn't flip over and short on something. But yeah, that thing, you shove it in the ground.

W6r h c repeater check 1.

It's a, it's a vertical and it would require radials to do it. Right. They do have one system where it's super short radials, you know, like 18 wavelength or something like that. They're not very long, but you use a bunch of them and they, they claim that works really well. I've never used it, I've just used quarterware radials. But yeah, you know, it can be done. And it's a real quick to set up thing, you know, shove it in the ground and then it, it's an extended thing. It's like a whip that used to be on shortwave radios. This one is 17ft long.

Yeah, yeah, I hear that. K and 6. That's all I'm. Yeah. You want to go over to 58 there? I have to change radios, but yeah. Oh, that's okay. I was just thinking about the repeater. I. I hear you. You know, shoot, your really clear this morning, but no, I was just thinking about the repeater there. I guess it was a couple days ago. There was a young man, which I. I talked to him. He was getting contact. I don't know where he was, but he was getting contact. He was excited. He just got his license and he was getting one after another. I guess it warmed up the repeater or something. Was he on link or local? No, he was on link. He was on.

Link. He didn't know. I mean, I'm not bad mouthing him. By no means. He was just excited. I, you know, I gave him my call sign. He gave everybody else was given. You know, I make contacts with him. Then the warning on the repeater went off. Well, see, that warning is not automatic. And the guy that does it gets excited if he thinks people are on too long. And I don't know how careful he is about measuring the amount of time. It just depends on who's talking and stuff. But, you know, it right now, for our repeater with the solar power thing, that'd be the one that would be hurting the most if especially if somebody was transmitting on 36 on link, because then it actuates the Motorola main.

Repeater. But then the highest power part is the link radio is like 40 or 50 watts to make it south to Vacca. So that's where the power would get used is if somebody transmitted on 36 during a long transmission. Ah, that's okay. Well, anyway, no, I was just trying to be courteous there, but no. Anyway, we're sitting around actually, we're. We got our 20 meter wire up and we're sitting here listening to these guys. I'm not sure where they're at, but they're one's in LA and the other one's in the back east somewhere. Well, what I'm noticing, and I haven't, I don't know anything about it, but there's a CW contest on the lower parts of almost every band, even 10 meters.

Yeah. As far as cw, I, I would understand if I. If I heard it, but. Yeah, you know, we got some context on that, you know, being a hunter on the parts on the air on 10 meters and 20 meters. Yeah. And I haven't looked at my phone to see if Steve's doing anything. See, when he does the parts on the area, a lot of times you won't hear him on 36 local because he's pretty busy on CW when he does parts on the air, it's the only way you're going to get him a CW nowadays on parts on the air, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. I learned that. I sit there and listen to oh, somebod.

These people on YouTube and stuff like that, you know, I have to sit down and really try to study it, see how that works out. I just realized that I haven't even looked at my phone this morning, and I don't even know where it is. Hopefully I didn't leave it in my daughter's car or something. Yeah, I know the feeding there. I'm still looking for that one I lost. It's been two years. My wife tells me I need to take seats out of the pickup because it's probably filling in downside somewhere. Yeah, I might pick up good stuff. I have a lot of stuff in it already. And then. So something could hide in there, but it isn't in my pickup because I wasn't driving my.

Car. I was driving her car. So I think she's still up here. So I better look into that. Find that phone. Yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, like I said, we're listening this. Well, there's nobody on right now, this 20 meter. And yeah, we. We do have some kind of noise. I think it's our meter, our electric meter, because we have all the smart meters where they can transmit. I'm sure everybody's got. Now they swapped them all out. Do you have a little shortwave radio or a little AM broadcast? Transistor radio? Yeah, yeah, I do. What we did is. Okay. I was getting.

I 10 meter. I hooked it up, my radio in the same spot. Well, not in the same spot, but anyway, I put a 10 meter up. I was getting about maybe a one noise level. A one, I mean one or less. And then I hook this 20 meter up and then I get like a three or four. And yes, I have my wife turn all the electricity off, hooked it up to a battery and checked it that way and I went down to one noise level. Well, that's interesting. That means the noise is coming from something that your power supply, your power supply is either generating it or. Or something. That's interesting.

Yeah. Well, we have a security. We got Bluetooth running along through here. We got security cameras and smoke detectors and motion detectors. So I'm sure that all stuff goes to battery backup when we shut the power off. We shut the power off and it goes the battery back up so it's still actually working. But when we turn the main breaker off, the main jose that shuts everything off in the cabin is the noise level goes down to one when we don't turn anything else on except the main breaker to energize the panel. Then we get minus three.

Three or four. Well, one of the ways to find out what's generating the noise is a lower band, lower frequency radio. The lower you can get, the better quite often because these things almost always start out with their noise, which is a switching kind of a problem. Switching noise problem, you know, it almost always comes from some kind of a power supply that's in a piece of gear, but not always. I have one piece of gear that is, I, I got this, this amplifier from China, cheap one, because my big one blew up and I just haven't bothered. It didn't blow up, it just got started getting noisy, so I turned off.

And got that other Chinese one. The Chinese one, gee, works way better than I expected. But it has the Bluetooth, like you said, and a lot of other digital stuff in it. And plus one thing that I didn't think was the case gonna be the case on certain bands, it is the case. And that is that when it's actually making noise, making audio, you know, music or whatever, it can make noise just from that alone. But the thing about it, see, is it's 12 volts. It's running on my big 12 volt system, and it's the same 12 volt system that the ham radios on. So, you know, they're probably intercoupling the noise together, you know. But yeah, stuff with some of these new fangled things with Bluetooth in them and everything. They do make racket, that's for sure.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's not bothering me or anything. I mean, you know, it's just. I don't know, I get like, got this HF radio and so I. I know I get down to either below one with just the battery. So now I want to get perfect or try to get perfect. As far as the three noise level. Hey. On the, on the computer, on the sdr, on the same exact channel. Sdr. The guy over the hill, he has the same noise level. So, I mean, yeah, You know, that's not bad, but you'll find that once you.

You start using 80, I don't know that you'll ever use 160. I don't even know what's going on on 160. But if you ever use 80, which is where a lot of the local emergency nets, like if we have a big flood or a local earthquake that's big enough to affect all the way over to the valley, because then most of the time they start out in Humboldt. I have had them where they. You could tell that you could tell there was an earthquake on the coast here, but not enough to do any damage. But, you know, anything's possible. And if you have that kind of thing going on, then 80 is the frequency you want to have working. Well, that's where the most noise almost always is. Devices like you're talking about this Bluetooth one only makes serious noise on 80.

That amplifier. So it's interesting. I don't even have it on right now. Yeah, well, you know, like I said there we had that 80 fire stick or that hustler hooked up in the pickup and it had a little noise, but not much. And it's really not enough to. Enough to bother you, I guess, unless you really try to fine tune something way off in the distance. And I hadn't got that far yet. Well, back earlier, before I developed what I have now, I had. And before I got an astron linear power supply for the. The equipment that.

That was in a different building that the 8900 was hooked to. It powered. The 8900 originally was not an Astron. It was a switching power supply. And that thing would make noise on 80. And it was quite a ways away, you know, and it wasn't hooked. It was hooked to the AC main. And this radio back then, the radio might have been hooked to a different Astron power supply right here in the shack, see. Yeah, I think it was. So, yeah, those switching power supplies can. Can surprise you. But the new devices with all the Bluetooth in them, they're the ones that are the. I'm. What I'm noticing are surprising how bad they can get. They're the ones that you have to watch out for. Yeah. Well, I like.

Said this is a fairly new power supply, and I hadn't had any trouble with that, but. But anyway. No, what I honestly think it is if I. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna stress that, you know. You know, three db. Come on. I'm not gonna stress out on it, but if I ever lose, if I ever want to find out where it'. I think it's the meter. The meter is actually Bluetooth or it's WI fi. Yeah, they got. They have some sort of WI fi, similar to WI fi type thing in there, that's for sure. And a lot of digital equipment inside the meters, so. Yes, but the only way you'll know and.

Is a very, very solid good way to test for this stuff is a shortwave radio with really low bands. Like, if you can get it to go even below the AM broadcasting band and walk around with that antenna on that little shortwave radio and wave it around by each one of these pieces of equipment and you'll find them one by one. And if I've never tried that with my PG and E meter, but I probably should. Yeah, Well, I found out they swapped them all out, you know, because they swapped them out. They done this, what, five years ago, six years ago, I don't know, quite a while ago, where they don't have to come out and read your meeting. What they do is they somehow in the signal to the meter, and the meter.

Meter registers in their office. And the reason I figured that out was when I owned a house down there in Red Bluff, they came, they sent us a note saying they were going to be in our yard to change out our meters, our gas meters, so that they could put this WI fi stuff in on the meter. And I thought, well, what I could do is just put cellophane over it and see what happens. Yeah, well, just how that system works got me. I mean, there are things that they do that don't even. Don't use WI fi at all. They actually put a signal onto the AC power line that makes it all the way to the off.

So. And we used to have a PG truck that would drive around and pick it up on his local computer. And that's another thing. That's what the water company has these little white there. I got a message on JFA call. No, but the local power supply has WI fi and type of WI fi thing in it. Water meters. And so they've got a lot of just everybody's doing this kind of thing. I don't think there's any noise from the water meter one, but it's practically under the ground. Yeah, well, you know, like I said, that's I mean, believe me, I'm no, no angel on this part. We have computers, we have cell phone chargers, we have.

Have Roku chargers, we have, you name it. And they're all those transistors and transformers and stuff like that. So, I mean, it could be those. But it was just real interesting to turn everything off. All the rooms, all the kitchen, everything, absolutely everything off, and then flip the main breaker on, and then you're only charging the meter and then the noise come back. Yeah, it's interesting. But like I say, you know, things can fool you. All it takes is one stupid little cell phone charger plugged into the AC line and you're. You're in trouble. But you flip the breaker off from the AC line to your house. So everything in the house was off. So, yeah, that's a great test.

To find out if there's stuff in your house. And, you know, it might not even be your. Your PG and E meter. It could be coming from a neighbor with who knows what. You know, I've heard starlinks make noise. Does that shut your starlink off when you do that? Oh, it shuts everything off. I got a, you know. Well, you do, too. Every house has a. What they call a main breaker. And if you flip that off, you shut the electricity off from the pole basically into the meter, into the house. Okay. You have a main breaker there, and then you have another main breaker that turns your power on to your little 15amp breakers that you go room by room. Yeah. And the thing is, nowadays, so many things.

Have DC backup battery systems in them. I don't know if Starlink ever does that. I, I have a huge DC backup system here. And my, my refrigerators that run off of the 12v have digital stuff in them too. So who knows? Who, who knows? I've never thought, never thought to take my shortwave radio and put it by my, my kind of pricey 12 volt refrigerator and see if it's putting out digital noise. Who knows? Because it's up to the 12 volt system. Yeah, yeah, I know, you're right there, you know. Oh, I guess it was probably two or three weeks ago they were putting in a poll down here. Not pgd, but pgd. Kind of wondered why they were.

Put poles right next to their poles. We were down in Red Bluff when we came back. You know how you tell electricity off about all your digital clocks? Go back to 12. So we figured, well, what's going on here? Then we turned our starlink off. We couldn't get maybe 11 meg per second. I mean, it was very low. It was crazy. So we had to shut it down, rebo it and go back through it. And then it worked. Okay, well, then it was about maybe two weeks later, three weeks later, the transformer I told you about blew up. Okay. And then the PGD guy was very interested about who was putting these poles up next to theirs. Kidding. He didn't even.

Know who was doing it? Huh? No, no, I, I told him that it was the people that bought Verizon. I mean, it wasn't the. The contractor was hired by Verizon, I'm sure. Or the people that bought. Or Verizon bought. Would you say, well, you come in Pioneer or something like that up here, and they went putting in these fiber optic poles. These poles, they don't have anything on them right now, but they were so close to the line. They hit a line. I'm sure they did. Yeah. That's Frontier. And the way that's all laid out. On a regular power pole, if they're going to jump onto that, which they.

I think they theoretically can do that with if they fill out the paperwork and everything. The way it's laid out, if you look at a typical PG and E pole, especially in in a city where they're not going to put up extra poles, probably they they run the fiber optics to the main power line pole. So the way they have a set of rules as to where all these can go. And typically, the fiber optics are put in by telephone companies like Frontier, which is, I think, the one you're talking about. So the fiber optics is just above the telephone line, and then above that might be cable, and then above that is PG and E. So, yeah, it's a. And it's tight tolerances, distances and everything. And.

Then the drops are supposed to stay at a certain distance of above the ground and blah, blah, blah. There's a whole lot of rules, but there's nobody really enforcing any of the rules. So these companies will pull off a bunch of crap, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm just going back when. Oh, I guess. Well, I'll tell you how long ago it's been. It's been when I was like 19, 19, 20 years old, I used to climb poles down in Arkansas for Electric Co. And the brand on a pole, if you look at a pole, the brand is supposed to be eye level. That's a normal person, six foot. That, that brand. If now this is our polls, I don't know why people, I'm sure they do it the same way. The brain.

Is six feet off the ground or so so you can see it. But from that brand to the bottom of the pole where you put your ground is that will six feet from the, from the ground up that will put the rest of that pole eight feet to ground. And it has supposed to have an eight feet the ground for stability. And then it goes like you said, it goes fiber optic or cell phone, whatever. But the very, the high voltage has to be at the very top. That's whoever owns the pol. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of practices that they're supposed to follow.

Probably the biggest addition to all these practices that they're supposed to follow has to do with fire. And it's mostly. They're mostly hitting against PG and E or any power company in California. So that's where the biggest bunch of differences and changes have happened. And they're even like, you know how they have a drop going to a pole? Some places on the property, there's a pole. And there's usually no transformer on private property. In some cases they could have one, but most of the time, no. The transformers up on the pole along the street, well, they'll have that lower voltage drop coming over to your house. And a guy from the power company was able to take his lift truck and take it.

Ko 6a k I am mobile. Martin w6rhc repeater check 2.

From the neighbor's property and reach over to the pole on my property. And all he did was put tape on the connections at the power pole that was on my property. That was low voltage. So yeah, they're getting really, really picky and very being very, very careful. And it's all fire related. Yeah, yeah. Well, see, and you're right, that's the way they have it up here. Most of the transformers, or I call them pots, are off the main line and then all your drop lines come off of it. I don't know how much voltage runs, but is it 220? Is that what comes off those pots? Yeah, I'm sure that's 220 coming off the transformer.

Going and it's. Yeah. Unless there's a few industrial. More like industrial or business applications where they might have three phase. But yeah, most of it's 220. Yeah. And it's pretty interesting. I mean, you know, they PTD watches are back now. I guarantee you they. They do everything by the book. They have logs, they have pictures, they have. You name it, they got it. That. That company's ran by lawyers today. Oh, yeah? Yeah. There's so many things that are changing that all have to do with legal stuff. Stuff. It's crazy and.

Like I say, pretty much California is the one where the biggest stuff is going to happen with respect to liabilities, because they have the biggest fires that are caused by power companies, you know, and attorneys pretty much run everything anyway. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So I don't know. Anyway, get back to that HS there. They're talking up a storm right now on 20 meters. I don't know. I've been, like I said, I've been on that parts on the air and doing that krz, you know, and trying to have fun with doing that kind of stuff. Yeah, Parts on the air is cool. I really like it. But.

I'm way behind on the activation part of it. I barely know what I'm doing because I've never messed with logs much. I do have the QRZ log, but I'm doing it by hand. So, yeah, I had one situation recently on 20 meters where I There's a station. The guy left. There's a crew group of people that I communicate with in Fairbanks. And this guy was in that part of that group. Well, then all of a sudden one day he says, well, every summer, by that, I mean Antarctic summer, he goes winter up here. He goes down to Antarctica. There's a antarctic station called McCordo or something. And his call is KL5 Sierra Echo. But he's using kind of a KC4, KL5 separate.

And he does cw. But one of the things he does that I do is called JSA call, which is like a really long distance DX digital mode. It was originally designed to bounce off the moon, and I use that. And so we had a great conversation on 20 meters. I haven't seen him since. But, yeah, we were we had many, many messages that back and forth on JSA call to Antarctica, which. This is the first station. This is the only station I've ever talked to for 50 years in Antarctica. Yeah, that's. I heard. Steve was telling me about that, and I think you were telling me, but that's great. Now, I did hear. I didn't talk to him, but I did hear.

Some stations out of Fairbanks the other day on 20 meters there. Like I said, I didn't talk to them. And where was it they were out of Fairbanks. There's one station without Fairbanks there. Do you remember the call letters? No, I don't, Mike. I sure don't. All I know is he. He was talking to somebody else. And, you know, I want to say that they were talking From Houston on 20 meters and this guy checked in. He said he was from Fairbanks, Alaska, and that they were doing what. What that woman call was a woman that was down there. Houston or Tucson.

Excuse me. It was Tucson and she was doing something like march on there. But it was their private contest. Well, there's a, there's just 50 billion contests out there. Of all those contests, Kale, the of all those contests, the parks on the air is the least strenuous. It's the shortest. You know, they'll be on it, done and off in half an hour. Sometimes the whole, their whole so called activation is done in a half an hour. So, you know, and then some of them just run on and on and on. Take. You don't have to quit in a half an hour, but you could, after 10, 10 conversations, you could just shut it down if you wanted to. But that parks on the air, which is technically, it's not a contest, but some people think of it as a contest.

The gears west. Repeated frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 146.895 minus TL123. I received 46.895 minus PL123.

Like more like a contest, you know, because it has all the logging stuff and all that other stuff. But as far as contests on ham radio, there's almost one going someplace almost every day of the week, but especially on the weekends. The weekends are when it gets really crazy. And right now there's a CW contest on CW. And I know that because JS8 is kind of down in that area frequency area. And then there's typically there's going to be side band contests every weekend someplace. Yeah. Let me identify. KN6SLA. Yeah. But you know, and that's what it was. I actually, I checked in with her down in Tucson and just gave her my call sign, told her where I was at. You know, she was like a five by seven. I'm an ID up here. Okay. See you later. Bye.

And then there was, like, one rider to another was checking in with her. And I did hear I'd like I said, I heard somebody from Fairbanks, Alaska, check in, whether it stayed on the air for two or three minutes, maybe a minute that might be kind of long. And then check out. Well, see, there's a lot of things that sound like a contest, but they're really not. They're actually net nets or networks. And one of them that could pull you, which is on 20 meters every day, and it's a net. And technically, it's a marine net. It's supposed to cater to boats. But this one's kind of lost its way because. Well, actually, what's happened is the that the boats decided to start using Starlink. So they're not using HF much anymore. So this net.

Kind of became something that might, you might think is a contest kind of a thing, but it really isn't. It's just a net that's always there and it's 14.3. 14.3 and it's well known and it's always there and there's a lot of powerful stations on it and some people kind of get mad. Oh, you're taking over 14 3. Well, they're not really taking over. They have the right to have a network. It's just that they're on so much. Some of the, some of the guys get angry. Oh, you're just always there. That's not right. Well, it is right. That's, that's what networks are all about. They could be there. Yeah, that gets in there kind of like politics. But, but I did hear that I didn't know it was 14.3 until you just said it. But I have heard on the Marine net.

What will happen. I mean, this is the opposite side or the negative side of it, which I never get up there anyway. So it doesn't make any difference if it's negative or positive. But this is what they said on the negative side is that those marine nets, what they do is they get on there and then somebody has their net for say, 30 minutes and then before anybody else, you know, another guy takes over, another guy takes over. So basically like what you just said, where it is is they have the net control and they and they just switch net controls. And each one of these net controls, typically you have to have a pretty decent station. A lot of them have antennas that they can direct towards you. So they'll say, well, just where are you? Well, just a second, I'll move my antenna. And what they do is they aim it at you.

And, yeah, you know, they're always there. And it's kind of like, if there's somebody that's gonna get picked on, it's somebody that's always there, because there's people that just like to pick on people. And it's been going on with ham radio for forever. We've had these nets, and they. They stay on one frequency, and. And when they're first starting up in the early morning, they have to say, well, is there anybody on this frequency? But there's almost never anybody on in the early mornings there, so there's nothing to worry about. Now, at 80 meters, though, or actually on 7192, the other marine net on 40 meters, we have had station talking even from Mexico that are on 7192, or on maybe 71, 91.

Technically, you can get on there and say, hey, could you guys please move up or down? Because we're supposed to be on 7192 at such and such time. You're just asking them politely if they would do that. But that's the, that's the only thing you can get away with legally. Yeah, well, I don't have enough, I'm gonna put this way, I don't have enough stripes to ask anybody to move off of a frequency or anything like that. So, so I'm more of a follower. And I just kind of like, you know, if they're having a net, I let them, let them have a net, Move over to another frequency, you know what I'm saying? And, you know, I, I just heard that, heard that on the Internet or something like that about the, the brain net taking over frequencies and people go into FCC.

And say they can't do that. I just think cattle life politics is something to argue about. Yep, that's exactly what it is for those people because these nets have been around forever and they've always been doing that. And it's totally legal what they're doing, especially if when they first start the net up in the very early morning, they say is this frequency in your and if nobody comes back that they can hear, they have every right to start the net up. And once it starts up, they can switch net controls from one to another and everything and keep it going on that frequency. And they have every right to do that. The thing that's different is that that net is so long it runs like five or six hours. And that's what kind of bugs people. But it shouldn't, because if you listen to 20 meters, there's like 4,000 different acres of free space there around.

Sideband where there's nobody. So there's. There's really no reason to buck people on 14.3 if you're not part of it. Yeah, well, I understand what you're saying there. Like, right now, this guy's building 240, you know, 14. 14.24, for quite a while, and, you know, they're having a good time. And if you don't. The way I always look at it is, if I don't want to listen to him, I'll just turn. That's what that little knob is for. Just turn the channel. Yeah. Like I say, there's tons of space on 20, even quite a bit more than 40. Usually. The one time it gets kind of crazy and people. And. And these people actually do things that are legal, is the contesters. The contesters will get just.

Start taking over the whole band and not just one frequency, but the entire band. And they've got these huge contests with thousands of people involved, and they just need it, need, need the space. I mean, there's, it's crowded. So that's when they start taking over net frequencies. They, sometimes they'll go right on like 14.3 or, or on some of the other marine frequencies. There's one on, on 40 that only on there for an hour. But yeah, the contesters are the biggest problem that they. And it's because those contests are just huge. There's so many people. And even, you know, even when you are careful and say, is anybody on this frequency?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, Mike is. It's kind of like. I mean, I'm. I'm just trying to be. To be honest with you, I guess it was yesterday, day before yesterday. I was on there, you know, and. And I was just throwing out my call sign and whatnot, and all I was hearing was pretty much static. That's why I call it air, you know, war noise or whatever. Was hardly anybody on it. I was calling out my qualified location stuff, see if I could come back to me. Well, this guy comes, comes back on, he goes, well, you have to wait until a qrz. Qrz. Okay, I understand. All right. And then I waited a bit. Something's on there. I hollered at it again. He got back on. I finally just told him, you know, hey,

I can't hear it, so relax. Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. Especially during a contest, what you'll have is a bunch of guys running 100 watts and somebody, some contestor who doesn't understand and doesn't look around very carefully and stuff. One way to find out where the nets are is to go to the SDRs. And it lists all the nets, but it doesn't say what time they're on, see? So that's. You don't get all the information. But if it's a frequency, you want to start contesting with a 1500 watts on, and you go to the SDR and it says, well, there's a net here, it's kind of smart to try to figure out what time they're on.

Or to ask around and say, well, there's somebody on this frequency. But you. If you're, like, in Oklahoma and the nets in California, you may not know that somebody's. Somebody's on. So. Yeah, it's tricky. That's for sure. Yeah. I just turned my cell phone on. I didn't even have. I have to run WI FI to do almost anything on it out here, and I just turned it on so I could have a bunch of messages waiting for me. Yeah. Well, you know, make long story short, since I've had this radio up and running and, you know, pretty much, you know, I have not met somebody that hasn't been courteous or nice or however you want to put it yet.

Now, I've made a lot of mistakes, and people, you know, say. I say, okay, it won't happen again. I'm sorry, you know, whatnot. Because, you know, like I said, I. I'll be honest with you. I'm just learning. And. But the ones that don't want to teach you now, I'm not saying take it by the hand, teacher. I'm saying tell you what you're doing wrong. If, you know, don't do it again or whatever those are, okay? It's the ones that get upset about it. And if you research them, they're probably only been a ham for a year or two. Oh, yeah. You know, a lot of new hams bring things from other, other areas that they were familiar with and think that maybe hands do the same thing the same way.

And. But like I say, you know, the one area where people do things that actually are not legal and yet they get away from with them because there's so many people doing that particular thing, you know, what are you gonna do? Yeah, the whole band is full of people doing this exact same thing. And that is the contest. And it's especially nasty for some nets because like I say, you know, somebody who can't hear 100 watt station because it's too far away from it, will be running 1500 watts. And he can't hear the hundred watt station. He can only from that distance. He can only hear the 1500 watt stations we have on this one marine, that we have one 15, 1500 watt station. And we, when we can, we try to get him to get, to let people know that our.

Contesters that there, there's an end going on, guys. But if, you know. But sideband, you know. But anyway, I don't contest. And when there's contests on, I usually just turn it off. But POTA stuff, that's not technically a contest thing. And so I kind of like what they're doing. Yeah, well, I mean, I. I'm not. I don't judge anybody as far as demoing comments or whatever. I set this radio here for 2550. It was when they came from the factory, it was set up to 100. And I, I figured, well, I can't talk to them with 55,000. Need to talk to them. But, yeah, for the most part, I've run into some really pretty neat people on HF and nice people.

And, you know, that's the, you know, I'm having. I've still got a lot to learn about it, I guess. Well, like this one net that I take part of in the morning. It's on every day, seven days a week, especially on the weekends. You'll hear some contest or site or just people having a conversation on one KC away from that frequency. Well, what I'll do is I'll just go over there and say, hey, guys, how's this going? And they'll tell you, and then they say, well, I kind of favor to ask you. We've got a net at 71.92 that's on every day at the same time. Is there any way you could move down a couple cases, you know, and if they can be three cases away with a.

Modern radio. That's plenty far enough. That's the thing about modern sideband radio. If you're 3kcs away from a frequency, you're not going to inter. Probably not going to interfere very much, if at all. So a lot, most of the time they'll say, oh sure, no problem. They'll move down or up, and that's it, it's gone. I need to have the net. And then after the net, you just say, well, the frequencies used for the frequencies released for anything in any type of ham radio communication. Sayonarda. They have a way of saying it. But anyway, yeah, people are pretty nice. Yeah. I think it's just like everybody being neighbors. You can either neighbor from where.

Or you have the best neighbor in the world, and it all depends on how you approach it. But anyway, Mike, I'm gonna have to run and we'll have to see what's going on around here and get some stuff done. So anyway, we'll talk to you like this. K N6 as all I'm gonna be good. Yep. N6 GRT and I'm gonna switch over to 20 and see if that Airbanks group got anything going. And I did find my cell phone, so talk to you later. NCGR.

W6 rhc repeater check. 3. K7gnd mobile.

N6gr g kn6 so I.

D.

Here's holds a free Morse code class every Wednesday night, 6pm at the Golden Beaver Distillery still house at 2420 Park Avenue. All are welcome to come learn Morse code.

W e6a x n repeater.

The gear's west repeater frequency has been changed. It is now on 1.46.895 minus pl 123. I received 46.895 minus pl 1.23w fix r h c repeater check 1.

K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

W e6a x n repeater.

The Gear's monthly informal breakfast is held on the second Saturday of the month at 9am at the Farmer's Skillet, located at 690 Rio Lindo Avenue, Chico. All are welcome to attend.

Entertainment.

D.

W fix rhc repeater check 2.

Dmr 31325 connected.

Heading link up.

Gears holds a slow speed Morse code net on 40 meters every Thursday night starting at 7pm Frequency of 7.44 plus or minus if the frequency is in use. All licensed amateur radio operators are welcome to join in the next WFIC RHC Repeater Check 3.

W e6a x n receiver.

W6r h c west repeater.

W6 rhc repeater check 1.

D.

K6rts.

The gears west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 146.895 minus PL123. I repeat, 46.895 minus PL123.

Please. Id. Thank you.

Whiskey6 delta. November. November. W6dnn. Triangles radio. We get a sponsor of. Check, check. W6dnn. So. This is KA 70 MP north side, 93. A little bit of scratchy in there, but you're making it. Roger, Roger. Thanks for that. W16 and east of Sonora there. I'm not even sure where the speed is at. All right.

As far as I know this from Peterson, Not a mountain near Boulder City, near the nearest border. Roger. This must be a linked, linked up system. I'm in California. 444-3475. 443475. Yeah, let's be definitely.

Roger, roger. The 2 meter gap link sub system. All right. Maybe we'll hear something later. I'll monitor this one, see what's going on. All right. Hey, Banks. W6DN over here. California, near Yosemite. All right, sir. Ka70 mp in arizona approaching la.

System9 lick pop.

The Gears Net will be held Tuesday night starting at 7:30pm all amateur radio operators are welcome to join in on the net.

W6r h c west repeater. Thank you.

W e6a x n receiver.

D.

W e6a x n repeater.

The Gears. Monthly general membership meetings are held on the third Monday night of the month at the Butte County Public Library, 1108 Sherman Avenue in Chico. Doors open at 6pm and the meeting starts at 7pm all are welcome to attend. W6RHC repeater check 2.

70 link up.

Whiskey Romeo2 Delta listing on the saxon.

Yeah, you're a little scratchy there in Sacramento, but you're making it. Do you know which. Which number repeater you're. You're going into? You're in Sacramento. You may be on the wrong one or you have a. You have a sideways handy talking possibly. Oh, yeah, you're. You're making it, but barely. Although my granddaughter we just.

The gear's west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus PL 123. I repeat, 46.895 minus PL 123 W6 RHC Repeater Check 3.

With the river and see what's going on. Experiences in hawker and places we've always enjoyed only the units this weekend celebrating this great holiday. Anyway, coming back. Directly, you have a. Yeah. If you're on a hand cock, you maybe just make sure that that antenna is straight up and down. Okay, well, the Name here is Ken. I am N6KN E and I am currently down here in Fusa, Colombia, South America. Take care.

Wrtd back to you. Yeah, we did talk to you on Thursday, I think, while we were headed up here. Sounds like you're still having a great trip and operating your system remotely. WRC.

Link off.

D.

W6r h c west repeater.

W e6a x n receiver.

Gears holds a free Morse code class every Wednesday night, 6pM at the Golden Beaver Distillery still house at 2420 Park Avenue. All are welcome to come learn Morse code W6RHC repeater checked one.

D.

Dc connected and 6d.

The gear's west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus PL 123. I repeat, 46.895 minus PL 123 W6 RHC repeater check 2.

D.

W e6axm receiver.

Kj 70 tx. Radio check, please. Kj7, ETX, wa7kqf. Sounds good. Okay, let's go over to Simplex, if you don't mind, at 146580. Okay. 580-146580. Okay, I'll see what's way over there.

The gear's west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now on 1. 46.895 minus PL 123. I repeat, 46.895 minus PL 123 W6 RHC Repeater Check 3.

D.

We6axn repeater.

6w&nr, monitoring humidity.

K6w n r n6grt is this cody?

Well, either I wasn't quick enough, or it isn't Cody. I thought that was Cody.

W6 rhc repeater check 1.

Gears holds a slow speed Morse code net on 40 meters every Thursday night starting at 7pm frequency of 7.44 plus or minus if the frequency is in use. All licensed amateur radio operators are welcome to join in the next.

I don't hear sound through the VH upsider. W86EKS radio check. Does anyone copying me? I'm listening on 14685 and I'm not hearing my phone through there. Maybe there's a reason for it.

They're coming through loud and clear in Tanaka, Nevada. Coming through Highland Peak. Okay, thanks. I'm on a 440 repeater. I'm not sure where it is 16 or something. I don't get on here that frequently. I just decided to listen over on the 14685 and I hear the carrier pretty much full climbing. But I don't hear my audio coming through. I don't know why. And when I go on the VHS side, I don't hear myself on uhf, so. But I'm bringing up the carrier. Guy. You're loud and clear. Coming through here. Right in panaka, nevada. This kk7bvr, kk7d bbi. I think it is wa50.

Yeah, the same thing's happening to you. I'm not hearing any audio from you or me on the VHF side, which is 14685, so it must be something they're. They're doing. Or I'm not doing or you're not. Anyway, that's sort of cleared up the mystery. Thank you much. WA 50 Kiss Martinez conquered. Roger. Thanks for coming back. W.

Please. Id. Thank you.

Dmr 31325 connected.

The gears west. Repeater frequency has been changed. It is now. It is now on 146.895 minus PL 123. I repeat, 46.895 minus PL 123.