Transcriptions for 2026-01-24

D.

This is case six. Qf. Onward. Testing.

This is k6qfr testing. Hello. 1, 2, 3.

System32 link up.

D.

System12 link up and I won't have to carry around an HT to listen for you all weekend long. Not that I would have, but it was a thought. System 19 link up.

Here. Pull the free Morse code clock every Wednesday night, 6pM at the Golden Beaver Distillery still house at 2420 Park Avenue. All are welcome to come. Learn morph code W6R, H, C. Repeater checked one.

Kk6vzd mobile and homeward bound. Sorta wp6a x n repeater.

K6, gqp mobile and folsom.

D.

W e6a x n repeater.

Wind.

Secures. 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 2.

W e6a x n repeater.

12 link up.

W6 rhc repeater check 3.

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 W6RHC repeater check 1.

Speaker A: Well, I hear it was kind of foggy and cold in the valley. We'll see here in about 10 minutes. Headed that direction. But it was nice in paradise. 52 degrees and sunny all day, so hope everybody's doing well. Winterfield Day is tomorrow. Get out and about, throw out some equipment, listen to the radio and make some contacts. This is KN6NCK mobile.
Speaker B: Oh, it's definitely a bit foggy down here today. KN6ODG mobile.
Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, headed down that way, so we'll see. Uh huh. I got a nice red hue in the sky, so that's always nice anyway. Yep. So I imagine you're out delivering the city with all their fine evening.
Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. I sure don't see any right here in the sky. It is dark as dark can be down here. I left home and had to wear my sunglasses. And as soon as I hit Chico, those had to come off.
Speaker A: So. Did you ever get back into HF radio?
Speaker B: I get on there, here and there, usually, you know, a couple times a day. I'll kind of scan around and listen a little bit.
Speaker A: Yeah, Kind of not doing as much as I should be lately, but been trying to do more of the CW thing. Trying to learn that I probably need another year, you know, I can do the POTA kind of stuff. You know, just call sign, signal report stuff. But anything much beyond that and it gets more difficult.
Speaker B: Yeah, I was just gonna ask how your adventures in CW land have been going. Well, with anything, the more practice, the better you get.
Speaker A: Yeah, I've got over a thousand QSOs. But those are all, you know, basically signal reports, you know, to get a location, like a state, you know, type of thing and call sign. So I think they count, but you know, it's not like a rag chew.
Speaker B: Oh yeah. Heck, for cw, you should probably kind of step outside of your comfort zone with PODA and try and reach out and have some rake shoes maybe. That would probably help you vastly improve your skills there.
Speaker A: Yep, some people are doing some of those classes, I forget the name of them, but there's the Straight Century Club. Straight Key Century Club. There's. Anyway, there's a couple of these classes that people do to help improve their ragchu capabilities needed developed like head copy, you know, where you can just hear what the person's saying. You know, we learn the whole words and that becomes more difficult. I can get some of the words like the and good and the easy ones. But much beyond a four letter word, it's much more difficult.
Speaker B: Well, four letters I mean, that's the majority of my vocabulary is four letter words, so yeah, I'd be good. All right, well, I've got to go drop this burger off at the front door real quick and then I shall be back. KN6ODG okay.
Speaker A: All right, that'll catch up with you later. KN6MGK is just monitoring. It's going to get in the fog here in a minute. Coming down the skyway. KN6MGK.
Speaker C: Ki6ujx is he doing uber eat or doordash?
Speaker A: I think it's doordash, actually.
Speaker C: I don't know if Uber Eats is up here in this area where I have it. Nobody seems to use Uber Eats. It's called Doordash.
Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know much about it. So, did you decide to go to so Winifield Day somewhere?
Speaker C: I'm thinking Rio Linda. I know where that park is because
Speaker B: I used to live in Rio Linda.
Speaker C: I don't know where Thor Bolito is and I don't know the guys up there. I might know somebody down in Rio Linda because it's the River City Arts Club.
Speaker A: Alright. Yeah. Cool. Well, I'm have to go back to monitoring. Just got into the deeper fog, so I have a feeling it might be this way for a few minutes. So got to pay attention. I'm not the best in the world and fog doesn't make it much better, so. So I'll say 7:3 right now, but I'll just be monitoring and maybe I'll come back in a few minutes if I get out of this fog.
Speaker C: KN6M ZKKI6UJX73 also.

D.

W e6a x n repeater.

Gears Holds a slow speed Morse Cognat 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 net W6RHC repeater check.

W e6a x n repeater.

D.

Let's w2la.

W e6a x n repeater.

Speaker A: W
Speaker B: e6axm repeater.

Speaker A: Kilo7 Oscar Foxtrot Oscars mobile on the side. 95
Speaker B: north. 95 north. North of what,
Speaker A: the curious. Wbjkv, pacifica system 32 link up. Sk7. Yeah, a little ambiguous on my part. Just leaving sin city head. Oh, that's right. I 95. Oh, I had a. Momentarily. Just a momentary brain fart. All right, very good. But I say, hello, name is Mike, and we're on the coast in Pacifica, just south of San Francisco, and it's roughly 7/10 of a mile from the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, it doesn't sound too bad. Just a good view. Just cold water. Yeah, it tastes a little salty, though, you know, That's worse things than it could taste like. Oh, yeah, when the sewage plant hiccups and it throws raw sewage out there. Oh, yeah, that's. That's not a good thing.

Speaker A: I've got a call on a local, so I'm going to get off the link here and switch over to local. Have a good one out there in Vegas. 73 WP 68 KV, QSY to local
Speaker B: man. 73 K7 LFO is going to be on the side.

System series link. Las vegas.

Speaker A: Well hello to the Santa Rosa station. A little bit scratchy but I did copy November 6th echo. My God. November Romeo 7, name is John and the QTH is northwest Las Vegas.
Speaker B: Yeah, I'm a little down the hill behind a hill from the repeater. How are things in Las Vegas? You guys aren't under that weather pattern.
Speaker A: Most of the country east of the rotten. Yeah, no, we're not at all. Nothing. No way. Yeah, nothing at all? No, nothing unusual.
Speaker B: That's good to know. We've been foggy and overcast in this area all day long so I'm headed back in the evening. I'm pretty tired. I had a rough week. I'm hoping next week is better but it was good meetings and making a contact and aiming place. Say again, your name is call sign.
Speaker A: Hi, Clayton. Clayton, my name is John Juliet upstart till November and November. Romeo 7nr 7g.
Speaker B: I see
Speaker A: south of south of town rose on 101 on the west side of 101 looks like up in Booneville. Booneville, very good. So you had it home from work or what?
Speaker B: Yeah, I'm here to Boonville. Is that what you're talking about? The town of Boonville and Mendocino behind it which is north of Santa Rosa ways.
Speaker A: Yeah, it looks like this might be your home. I just looked up on a map so must be headed home from work or something like that, huh?
Speaker B: Yeah, Roger my. I guess home base is home sick as it is. I'm actually kind of homeless at this point so in a manner of. But I do have an address there that I keep and that's where I have my license information. Yeah, I'm headed back there tonight. Grab a shower, do some laundry. Tomorrow I got some things to do. I got. I got a broken down truck that I'm trying to figure out see if I can fix it or if it's gonna just play stop. Too much.
Speaker A: Vehicle repairs are out of control these days. So are you over the road driver, a long haul driver or something?
Speaker B: Negative, I'm an auto mechanic mostly I do emission stuff but I'm having an issue on the truck which is the four wheel drive system. Something happened and it wouldn't go into four wheel drive so I drove it down to workman playing around with it. I don't know what I did but now Wombo had a four wheel drive and I had to take the front propeller shock off so I could drive it home and I had to get into it some more. It's been a long week because I usually do 10 hour days and then I've been working on the truck after that and I'm really really tired now.
Speaker A: Wow. Well go take a shower and take a nap. Sounds good to me man. Hard work deserve some decent rest so go take that out. Nice catching up with you and talking to you Clayton and I hope you get it figured out. If in doubt just cap off that get rid of propeller shaft, just weld the whole shot. Just make it a two wheel drive vehicle. Just kidding anyway. All right man Take care 73 Good luck. Hope you guys are taking care of KN6 emo from NR7G Las Vegas. 73.
Speaker B: Okay nr17 can't take the mo yeah I need 4 wheel drive. My so called home is in the middle of a horse pasture so yeah I kind of need it. 73 Good to meet you and I hope your things going well for you.

W e6a x n repeater.

D.

System12 link up.

D.

D.

Qst, qst, qst. This is KT6 Kuo, open SAC. Electronic purpose of this NIP is to relay formal traffic into another Sacramento Valley and to provide a standard version. Please make no transmissions without completion. Control, W6RHC. Repeater check 3. Station traffic. Station. Kf6 obi, mike and willows. No traffic. Good evening, mike. Thank you. Are you going to be at the field day tomorrow? Yes, that's affirmative. All right, thank you. Kg 60k, you roll in 60. Good evening. Lester in the group. This is kt6tso, bessie with no traffic. Thank you, missy, kf6dj. Good evening, lester. Kf6djy, roost and chico. No traffic. Good evening, bruce. Thank you. 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, bruce. Thank you. Kc6ufe, kc6ufe. Bill, income traffic. Good evening, Mr. Good evening, bill. Thank you. Kn6pww. Kn6tww. This is jamie and chico. No traffic. And good evening to western net. Good evening, jamie. Thank you. All right, professor rolls, I have. Do we have any late members or visitors wish to check in? This is K6KUO closing sacrament about traffic. This NB standing at 2100 hours local time. RC repair on 146, not 8.5 volt megahertz. All species are rescue. I'd like to thank everybody who checked in tonight and the golden embarker Amateur Radio Society for the youth to repair this. That's closed at 2103. This is K6K U clear.

System2 link up.

Please. Id. Thank you.

Los Angeles link up.

Speaker A: Nr 70.
Speaker B: Yes, I did there, john. Good evening.
Speaker A: So what are you doing down there? Like happiest place on earth or just can't get away from it or what?
Speaker B: Well, I did a bunch of work on 31 and then while I was here I decided to. Go to a convention as well. So got the two for one deal, so to speak.
Speaker A: Yeah, I heard the idea on Santiago. Right. I heard the idea on it and it sounded like totally clear.
Speaker B: We pumped it up to 500 watts. Now we put a all Star node in. So now we have a good, nice, clean, solid connection. We have to also replace the link antenna on the RF link. But we still have an issue further up, I think at the next site. So you know, it never ends, right?
Speaker A: Yeah, I wondered if you've done all solid because it was just too suspiciously clean or just, you know, the usual RF stuff always, you know, sounds kind of corny and everything. But it's now a solid. So very nice this. You do the same get up like RALPH does?
Speaker B: Well, I'm not exactly sure what RALPH does, so I'm going to say probably not. But you know, it's the same get up that we have at the other. Some of the other sites been slowly putting Humpty Dumpty back together again and. But we have moved off of our own physical hub that we had up there at the back of site and just made that a node down went to a virtual hub. What you guys are doing. So now we're just. Yeah, we're talking basically All Star. All Star to you. You shouldn't be hearing any RF in between or anything.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's fantastic. It sounds better than ever, so very nice. Good work. So I'm sure you guys still got a bunch of. Bunch of. Ultimately, is your plan to have all part of most of the site or just a few hubs?
Speaker B: No, just this is the only new one that we added and we just need to replace that went down. So we still have, I think after this. Now we've got. Let's see, there's one at 18, 18, 20 and 14. Let me shoot off fireworks. I heard a couple of kabooms pass in Disneyland. I had parked near the convention center because that's where the convention has been. But you know, they're right next to each other. So anyway, yeah, we got three more to do to get things back to where they were. And this one, 31 for Santiago, is the newest addition to the network. But I think, you know, it's pretty much it unless we decide we want to add something we'll just keep things mostly RF.
Speaker A: Well, very nice, very nice. So when are you headed back up to the home queue tomorrow or are you driving overnight or what?
Speaker B: No, I'm going to go back up tomorrow, try and get out here at a decent time and go straight on up. So drove down on what day was it? Monday? Yeah, it was Monday. I drove down here and then we hit the mountaintop on Tuesday. Didn't get out of there until sometime before midnight and then got lost. Took the wrong trail coming down because there's several. That fork off and. Oh, man, that was over an hour wasted, you know, going back and forth and zigzagging all through the mountain range. Up there in the dark, unfamiliar, didn't recognize things. Kept double guessing where we had gone and whether we'd gone there before. And even on the way back, trying to find our way back, double guessing that crowd. I mean, it was pretty bad.
Speaker A: Yeah. Back in the day, some 40 years ago, I used to do some work up at some of the peaks in Southern California. I mapped a deployment, San Olina Ridge, called Santa Anita Ridge and a couple of others. And I never made it to Santiago. I was invited once, but I didn't make it. So I don't know if I'd be able to find my way. Some of those fire roads I used to have, in fact, I probably still have something back in there. Was called a forestry junior and a forestry senior. So they were like jail regular keys. I might still have them somewhere or I'm sure by now, 40 years later, they probably not it was. But anyway, I used to go up there all the time like it was nothing and I could find my way in the dark. One time I had a flat tire. I was. It was late at night. I was coming back down. Must have run over a sharp rock or something like that. A bad flat tire in the rear. It was cold. Had to jack up the car in a little hill or check it or. My pickup. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was fine. Anyway, yeah, those were the days. That's back when I was like early 20s, you know, it's about to be 61 in a month and a half, you know, times have changed.
Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know about fun. Getting a flat tire on a mountaintop, which I've done a few times in the dark, on a decline, you know, with the truck loaded. Had to unload the truck to get to the tire type of thing. Yeah, I said never have experiences like that. And yeah, constantly dodging, you know, there's rocks that you swear somebody just put out there in the middle of the road, pointed up on purpose just to see if something happens or maybe one of the bears does it. You know, they're all standing by waiting to have a good laugh. But some of these sites, man, it's just brutal and nasty rocks. I think that one of the worst is where is that one, oh, 24th site, which is McClellan Peak. Yeah, the last. The last part of that, man, is just brutal.
Speaker A: You just.
Speaker B: You're crawling and just, you know, sharp cut shell and big boulders and rocks and you're just straddling all kinds of stuff. Stuff and having to go real slow that you don't shred your tires and everything. So always an adventure, you know.
Speaker A: Yeah. Kind of like the last 50ft from high potency. Not potashi, but the last 50 or 75ft. There's like a bald rock, like super speed. It's not, it's not, you know, in a vehicle with decent ground clearance. You know, my truck can make it. Those think of. You can't even.
Speaker B: You can't even see you.
Speaker A: You're pointed up so you can't. You can't see where you are. Like you can't see if you're going to drive off the Clifford, you know, just because I don't know, there's the last few feet of like the sharpest incline. So I always just put like a spotter out there that I. I put them low and crawl up there and then make a right and I'm there. You know, it's only just the last few feet before. Before that. Like the last mile is a seasoning climb with a lot of like broken rocks and stuff like that. But it's not too scary. The road's wide enough. No guard rails or nothing like that. Just a single lane width. You know, it's wide enough that just out you. Holy cow. You know, it's just a. It's an uneasy feeling that you can't see anything except the sky.
Speaker B: Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean. We've got a few sites like that that you know where you're gonna crest to the top and you know, you can't see over the hood and you don't know what's in front of you and it's just a very unnerving feeling. Yeah. Either I'll get out and walk it and see what there is or, you know, have somebody do it like you said or, you know, if you've been there enough times, then you already know what to expect. Yeah, I can't I can't remember how many tires I have punctured over the years and they're never cheap. But anyhow, let's see here. Ah, this is nice street to be turned on to go back to the hotel.
Speaker A: So.
Speaker B: Yeah, so back tomorrow and you know, on to bigger and better things, I guess.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, I'll let you navigate. Man. Sounds like you're almost there. Nice chat. It's been quite a while and thanks for all your hard work on the system. I'll be headed up to my property this coming week up in Spring Creek, northern Nevada, just south of Alco, Tennessee. Days up there, my wife and I developing the property. Finally, I'm meeting the Wells Rural Electric Power Corporation, the customer owned nonprofit utility. Small, you know, geographically they cover a large area, but they don't have a ton of customers. So they work, they work cheap and college cheap and everything. So going to put me in seven poles and a transformer and a bunch of wires crossing and also wires to my 400amp panel and run me about, I don't know, 80ft of conduit to a well that I had put in a couple months ago. I've got all the supplies, the panel and a bunch of ground rods, seven strand number two, bare copper and all this stuff. Unit strut and clamp, all kinds of fun stuff. And my truck or my garage right below my truck. I'll be headed up there Tuesday through Friday. So eventually, you know, 38 acres, I'll have a big remote base or here the whole time, you know, a little bit down the road. But getting power first and get some grading done and fun times.
Speaker B: Wow, 400 after service, huh? You're, you're getting, you're getting serious. That must be why I think I heard you talking about a bunch of electrical equipment or something in the garage or something. I think I heard you talking to somebody one day and didn't quite catch all of it or you know, put the, connect the dots. But now that makes sense. So. Huh. That's cool. I mean it can't be, it can't be that cheap to get poles put in and wire strung. I mean that's a lot of work and equipment to do it, right?
Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not doing it, but they are. It cost me about $18,500 to get the,
Speaker B: I don't know,
Speaker A: 2400ft of poles and mines and engineering and transformer and they gotta go across the road. So it's about. And then another maybe 900 to a thousand dollars to put in the 400amp panel including boring, some splitting, some holes and everything including 2 inch rigid galvanized conduit and some uninstruction. There's like a H frame up a four four and an down to an underground map. From there out of the bottom through a hub and some pipe down underground through this hole where the transfer. So I'll have the line coming overhead and then from the 400amp panel go a couple different three different directions to go to my little two space RV park that I'm building and then over to the future side of the house and then the other direction, 70ft to a well that's already in the well a couple months ago. So not meeting the wells really drop the pump in next week 22. I got a bunch of stuff going. Eventually I'll put up a tower like some cameras and stuff and put a T mobile hotspot or something. Got to figure out some way to make sure I can remotely. We included power fails and all that so I can, you know, watch cameras and live video and all that kind of stuff. I don't know how much you know about that kind of stuff but T mobile services out there. Southport Reservoir up there on the west side, just over the hill, north side of Ruby Mountain and our seven feet off base.
Speaker B: Okay, well, cool. Yeah, we almost. Well, we had an opportunity to fit a repeater up there at Elko on top of Elko Mountain. There's a. I forget what it's called the site was called. And then also Battle Mountain and another one that's you know, further along on Haiti. But it just was going to be way too much work and time and effort and I don't even think we had paths, line of sight paths and you know, there's just nobody out there and so it's like. Yeah, I think we'll pass. Also one out at Lyons, Nebraska. I had an opportunity for that one, but same deal, but anyhow. All right, well good luck with everything. Hope it goes well and I'm sure it will. And it sounds like a fun big project to work on and keep going at. I am pulling into a gas station. I gotta jump out and fill up. So I think, you know. But good talking to you and we'll catch up with you later at some point.
Speaker A: Okay Tom, take care and we'll talk to you down the road. Yeah, I'll just put up a repeater and hook it up on All Stars. All right, take care and good night. Dry space. Hopefully gas is not to expense the banana nr7.
Speaker B: All right. Try not to show off. Well, it's a. It's under $4 here, so that's better than up in the Bay Area, so. All right. Talk to you later. N6M VT and.

W e6a x n repeater.

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

Sa. Los angeles link up.

Speaker A: Sa. This is the esn8 pvh.
Speaker B: Okay, system two links.

D.

Los angeles link up. K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

K6lnk system 36, snow mountain range.

Fresno. Link up. K6lnk system 36. No mountain range.

D.

W, e, z a X n receiver.

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

Hello, this is Pete.

W e6a x n repeater.

On. Battery at 3. System 26 link up.

Mod battery at free.

W fix r h c repeater check 1.

Deep.

Speaker A: Ks 6ovi. Hi, mike af608.
Speaker B: Good morning, Ian. I'm up here at the pit toilet right now. I'll be down there shortly.
Speaker A: Roger. We're coming up to the site here about five minutes.
Speaker B: Roger that.

Speaker A: 6ob 608. Yes.
Speaker B: Yeah, we're at the site, awaiting your arrival.
Speaker A: I got. You're at the site. Did you say something after that?
Speaker B: Yeah, we're awaiting your arrival. Copy that.

Odd battery at.

And 6 grg 36 local.

On battery at 3.

Odd battery act 3.

D.

Kilo 1. Bravo Whiskey Astro mobile, las vegas.

On battery at 3. Good morning. Kilo 1 Bravo with fiasco Mobile. Just going past the World Market Center.

W6 rhc repeater check 2.

Odd battery at 3.

Speaker A: On battery at 3. Los angeles link up n6 mvt. Wa6wiry on the link.
Speaker B: Good morning, Fred. So he's blowing out of there this morning, I guess, huh?
Speaker A: I have no idea. Just thought I'd give him a call this morning and see how things were going. Three is Vaquero, isn't it?
Speaker B: Is who What?
Speaker A: Okay, it keeps saying that site three is on battery. Is that Vaquero or do you know
Speaker B: the arena up on the coast?
Speaker A: Okay, have to check my phone for that. See if it's got a power fail on it. All right, that'll work. Headed down to pick up my work truck. And I've got a service call out in Hemet today, so get that taken care of.
Speaker B: Yeah, I got a side gig I gotta do for me TV for Weigel today. And they lost their backup link to the mountaintop from the data center. So yeah, they sent me a power supply and they said, oh, power supply probably crapped out. Well, guess what? That wasn't it. Checked it yesterday. So. Gotta go up on the roof and go play with that. What is it? Ubiquity or whatever the hell that thing is.
Speaker A: Yeah, I've got two of those up on. I got one on Mount Lucans and one on Mount or Santiago Peak where we were at the other day. It gives me Internet over to a couple of other buildings for some things that I'm doing and seemed to work pretty well.
Speaker B: Yeah, they've been rock solid. We had one failure up on the mountain on Allison, where the transmitter is. And the failure was actually the Cat 5 table. I guess another tenant has done some antenna work and they had somehow damaged the cat 5. Had to have that replaced. But that's the only time we've ever had a problem. You know, we'll figure out what's wrong with this one today.
Speaker A: Yeah, you know what I'm thinking that they used to use Ubiquiti. Now they're using the guys that help me with this stuff. It's called micro teeth. And that's what they're using for the point to point. But you know, you're going across the hill at Santiago or Lucan's. You're only going less than an eighth of a mile. You know, you're not going very far.
Speaker B: This is three and a half miles. So it's been rock solid.
Speaker A: Yeah, I've got to go to one site up there, Oak Hill, and they changed the road and everything. I went up there. Oh God. A month ago, right after it was raining and the place was like a swamp. So I put that off till later.
Speaker B: Good strategy there, sir. All right, let's see if Tom picks up and back to listening. Good morning, WB6 GTV. Just dropped my daughter off at SFO. Keeps flying down to LA for some convention or something. So. Anyway. All right, see you.
Speaker A: Okay, Mike. W86YRE Centipede Springs,
Speaker B: By the way.
Speaker A: But you knew that.
Speaker B: Yeah, the system sounds excellent. Sounds like you're right here.
Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds a lot better on the. On the All Star.
Speaker B: Talk to you later then.
Speaker A: I'm here at the office. I got A3 trucks. W86 Wiry.

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 Ave. Chico. All are welcome to attend.

Odd battery at 3.

Wb6 ktv testing. Sa.

Amateur Radio News line report number 2517 with the release date of Friday, January 23, 2026 to follow in five 4, 3, 2, 1. The following is a QST A Severe Solar Radiation Storm Disrupts HF Communication US Lawmakers Propose Restoring funds to Voice of America and in New Zealand, Q codes are on the move. All this and more as Amateur Radio Newsline Report number 2517 comes your way right now from around the world. This is Newsline, Amateur Radio's first independent on the air News and Bulletin service. Now reporting from Wadsworth, Ohio, here's Stefan Kenford in awp. Our top story this week is the most severe solar radiation storm in more than 20 years. It began on Monday, January 19th and lasted through much of the week. The National Weather Service declared the storm to be at an S4 level, a degree of severity not seen since October of 2023. S4 is the second highest level of this type of storm. The storm severity, which exceeded that of the one in October of 2023 disrupted the HF ban, challenging ham radio operators while creating spectacular auroral displays. A bipartisan agreement among the US Lawmakers could restore the government's financial support of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other federally funded news services. Kent Peterson, KC0DGY has that story. U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C. have reached a deal that would fund the Voice of America giving its parent organization, the U.S. agency for Global Media, an estimated $653 million. That figure is considerably lower than the annual $860 million provided previously to the agency as described on the Radio World website. The funds would also pay for restoration of operations for Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. A minimum of $30 million is earmarked for medium and shortwave programming by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The deal is part of a larger spending bill, the National Security Department of State and Related Programs Appropriations Act. It has the support of both parties in Congress and its funding plan goes against the White House's executive order from last year which shut the international news services. Even if the measure receives final approval from the House and Senate, it will still require the President's signature. This is Kent Peterson, KCzero PTY. The NASA's Artemis 2 mission began its long awaited journey to the moon and back on Saturday 17 January with the Rockets rollout onto the launch pad at the Kennedy Space center in Florida. Three of the four astronauts who will be aboard have their amateur radio licenses. Travis Lick N3ILS tells us what's up next.

Kilo1 Bravo whiskey Oscar, north las vegas.

Odd battery at.

Rac power at three.

Speaker A: Kn 6 mgk mobile.
Speaker B: Yeah. Particularly interesting chabasco net today. N6TRG.
Speaker A: Oh yeah. Okay, well, winter field day. Probably bring out a few. A few people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, shoot, it's opening up to be a beautiful day here. A little cold here at the beginning, but yeah, no fog, which is. Which is definitely a positive.
Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we had. It was interesting. I started at like 7. I turned the radio on and I heard a guy way, way south of Puerto Vallarta, way south on the Pacific coast of Mexico, way down there almost to the Guatemalan border, calling another boat to the north. And I couldn't reach that guy. I have talked to him before while he's been down there though. And then I just was hanging out on that, the main frequency on early birds, they call it. And between 7 and 7:30 and then the station that that boat was calling came on and so we were trying to let him know, well, you know, Neil Alpha, Alpha 6, Mike Yankee was way down there calling you, but he was gone. So. And then it just went on and on and just a really good net.
Speaker A: So they never did get any communications across whenever they needed from one boat to the other down there.
Speaker B: Oh, not the two boats, but I was able to get his weather and everything. He had rain all night long and then he had a rainbow in the morning. So not too bad of a day start for him. And then I checked when the weather came on, I checked and man, there was a huge storm south of Baja and over to the coast. So that shows you that you need to look at the weather radar if you're giving putting out the weather. Because he didn't say a word about the actual storm that was happening. And that was a heck of a storm, I'm telling you.
Speaker A: Okay, so then that net, did that net go long this morning?
Speaker B: They're still on right now. They're talking about lithium iron oxide batteries with the guy that lives down in the desert on the inner side of the Sea of Cortez, Echo X Ray Tango. And you know, they're all kind of new on these new batteries, so I probably should be throwing my two cent in, but I don't realize that they're good for 8,000 cycles. That's a lot of cycles.
Speaker A: I think they're probably still good past that, aren't they? Just may not be as efficient as they were new.
Speaker B: Obviously 8,000 is the guaranteed and then, you know. Yeah, who knows how long they'll really go?
Speaker A: Yeah, the only problem is they'd have to add some more weight to their boat once they replace their lead acid or ATMs with lithium iron phosphate.
Speaker B: Yeah, it'd be nice if you could put them way down below and they act kind of like ballast. But. But you really shouldn't do that. You should not put lithium iron oxide battery in an area where that could get water in it. And one guy did do something like that, he should have known better. And he had built his batteries and, man, he was in serious trouble. He. Everything got ruined.
Speaker A: Yeah. You'd think that folks on boats would consider the fact they could get some water in their boat at some point.
Speaker B: Yeah. And this was not a. This was a home built battery. So it definitely was not water ready for water. And most of the batteries aren't able to handle water. They're not set up for that. But they do make some that are.

Speaker A: Well, some of the prices I still see out there, 300amp hour type batteries for $319 all complete made up. You know, ship your just a few days, maybe a week. Must be getting cheaper to mine lithium.
Speaker B: Oh, it's just competition. How many amp hours were.
Speaker A: Like 314? You know that's what they're labeled, the dumb foom batteries that Will Prowse has said were a good value for what they are. Yeah. So yeah, buy one complete for. Well, you got to add tax to it but I think it was $319. I've seen them as low as 299 but not right now.
Speaker B: Yeah, and a lot of the. Ally Express batteries are being stocked in the, in the States so that makes a big difference too. They're there. They arrived in like three days. But did Will actually tear that one down and find out what it had in it?
Speaker A: Yes, that was several months ago. Yeah, so yeah, for a value Saturday anyway. Yeah. And then he has other picks for, you know, better, better batteries of course.
Speaker B: Well, you know there's a big huge. See if you're talking about better from the brand name viewpoint, you got to remember brand names are turned into brand names with advertising. A lot of times that's all that you're getting with, with the brand name battery is the advertising. And there was one brand name that Will started checking, looking into really closely and it just fell apart. It had serious problems. So now everybody that has them is going, oh my God, what have we gotten into here?
Speaker A: Yeah, it's called Battleborn. I've seen all of his videos on it. It's interesting. Like Pat has a couple of those in his van and I've sent him those videos a few times. No comments. So I guess he's not concerned.
Speaker B: Well, a lot of the problems that Will found had to do with high currents and most people aren't going to, you know, try to take 2 or 300amps out of a battery at 1 any one moment. So but I think the people who need to worry are the people who are buying these little starter. They actually use lithium iron oxide starting batteries on like motorcycles now and stuff. They need to be set up for kind of high current because you know, know they're, they're taking current from a motor. They need to be waterproof. Not talking about E bikes, I'm talking about starter motor for a regular motorcycle. Yeah.
Speaker A: How is your E bike doing?
Speaker B: Really, really good. I drove it up to the water company that is extracting more money than ever, ever before. I don't know what I'm going to do. But, but. And when I got there, they were closed for lunch. And the guy that locks the door actually ran out and open. Unlocked the door for me. And part of that was because I was on an E bike and he has an E bike. And we were discussing what he had. He's. He got a more recent E bike than mine and his E bike is set up to only go 20 miles an hour on the road. And. And then he said. And that was all you can legally do. And I said, no, no, no, that's not California. California is 28. So yeah, that's the biggest problem with E bikes is the laws are so mixed up and messed up.
Speaker A: Yeah. You might even have to have a special license in order to operate one.
Speaker B: No, that was a very unused thing, was that there is not only do you not have to have a special license, you don't have to have any license. They are legally considered to be a bicycle. So if you. And the only, only rule that differs with a bicycle is that they legally can only go 28 miles an hour in the U.S. i mean, in California. Now I'd like to find out more about this 20 mile max that he's talking about because that's got to be some other state someplace. And he said that if you went into the programming and you could Change it to 28 like we have here in California and many other states. So, yeah, no license required for anybody.
Speaker A: How about pathways that say no, no motorized vehicles, you know, and they generally show pictures like of a motorcycle anyway. But having one of those. I've seen people ride those electric bikes, which is no motorized vehicles.
Speaker B: Well, that goes back and forth. It all depends on who maintains the trail and who's in charge. And
Speaker A: the
Speaker B: folks in Shasta county decided, oh, well, we're going to take control of this mess. So what they did was they started this committee that's made up of people from a whole bunch of different agencies and different things like that. I just threw my hat over on the bed. My dog was laying right through it.
Speaker A: I'm sorry, puppy.
Speaker B: I'm sorry. Okay. So anyway, so they got this committee with three people from each of the other agencies that are trying to decide where you can ride and where you can't ride. And it just, you know, has a tendency to say, know the place is that are totally legal to ride on when they say no. Because we got the special Canadian wheelie thing. We can say no if we want.
Speaker A: Just running out here, getting closer to Orland. And anyway, just got a message notification. You know, I'm running out this way and you would think there isn't very many nodes out here. So it looks like it was one that was routed from the Sutter Buttes. So reach me out here to not quite Orland.
Speaker B: Well, that's the next thing they'll do is make mesh tastics illegal in cars. You know, I mean, people who like to control things just. That's the kind of thing they do.
Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't read the message or nothing on driving, but yeah, that's what could happen for sure. Just like texting because it's on your phone. So a police officer would think that you're looking at your phone.
Speaker B: Well, apparently if you have your phone mounted on the dash, they can't tell you anything. It's when you have it in your hand. It's a strange law.
Speaker A: Yeah. I think they could do something about. Well, several things actually come to mind. But like, you know, people take these mounts to your windshield. And I work for a guy who loves them things and every time I go in his truck, I have to try to remove it. Sometimes he literally glues them to the windshield, I think because you can't seem to get them off. So anyway, so I'm driving. I got this big old honking thing right. In my view. And I hate that kind of stuff. I don't like anything, you know, impeding my view of my windshield. But then you've got those, what do you call them, HUDs or whatever, the heads up displays. Whatever. I see them in Teslas and all kinds of stuff, and they come up real high and that would impede your view as well. So now I guess on some of those, at least they have cameras all around, you can see your back and things like that. But just seems to me like I don't want things to impede my view of my windshield.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's one law I would think would be smart would be to have that any of these viewing streams below the dash, not impeding the windshield. I'm surprised.
Speaker A: Yep. And some people put. Put those, what do you call it, radar detectors and stuff up there too. I know a guy who. Oh, there's a cop coming ahead. So I know he's coming. So you can hear his radar detector going off. And you think that those things wouldn't be so legal as well. But lots of people have them.
Speaker B: Yeah. Now this committee, they call it a committee, not a. Whatever else I called it.
Speaker A: And
Speaker B: mixed in with the McConnell foundation, which that's a bad sign right there. And. And they have the. Oh, Mount JA has one too. They call it Mount Shasta Mobility Plan. Oh my God. And I would, you know, I would think that they would try to make ebikes more legal to use, not less legal to use. But that's the direction they went in Chastisetown was to make them less legal to use.
Speaker A: Well, I have seen people ride them pretty interesting, you know, downtown areas and things like that sometimes. And they'll be potentially hitting other folks and things in the streets, riding them on the sidewalks. I've seen and all kind of things. So probably needs to be some rules. Even though now they're bigger than a regular bike. So I've been hit by a regular bike before and yeah, it hurt but you know, you're hitting by an e bike, you know, going at a faster speed and they're a lot bigger, you know, be a lot more painful, I would think.
Speaker B: Well, I ride mine on a lot of special pavilion. I think they were originally set up as bike paths in southern south of the. South of the city limit in Reading. There's an area along the 273 where the bike path is on the western side. And it happens to be a hangout for a time long lot of homeless people. So they'll, they'll find a place and they'll have like 10 or 15 homeless men and women all stand there on the road, you know, blocking the path. But you come up to them and they're fine, you know, they're no problem. You can get through and everything. I've been a little bit worried that somebody some days, one of these guys, because some of them are absolute nuts, you might have some kind of weapon on him and hit me, try to hit me in the back of the head. But I wear a helmet, so that might not work. But anyway, yeah, you know, there's all. All sorts of different things going on with bikes. One of the big problems I've had is, and this would include regular bicycles is construction companies throwing out trash or losing trash somehow. And some of them I ran actually over a sign that had a nail on it in it by mistake. Now I'm just really careful. And that was right in a. In a kind of a crowded spot where people were getting onto five and it was just right on the side of the road and I was busy watching traffic and didn't this piece of wood. So yeah, stuff happens. You have to be. Try to be as ready for it as you can.

Speaker A: Well, KN6MGK. On my way to the field Day location anyway. Tossed up whether I should get some gas or not. I'm thinking no. Says I got 175 miles to empty,
Speaker B: so
Speaker A: I'll risk it.
Speaker B: Well, there's this big statewide, you might call it a lobby group, four bikes called cow bikes. And you're supposed to join it and so forth, donate money and on and on and. But they're more into making e bikes, you know, more usable than. Less usable. So there's. They're the people I like to talk to and. Because some of the reasons that they made some of these trails illegal to ride on were just ridiculous. And one, well, that. That guy. That. What he is, is the head. He's the guy at the water company that takes your money at the window. It's good to be a friend of mine because, man, that water company is always doing something. And he likes to ride on this river trail that's run by a combination of McConnell foundation and so forth. Well, they've got that sign up there, no motorized thing. And they show the motorcycle thing. And he says, well, no, that doesn't. He's had people get in his face and he says, well, that doesn't cover this bike. This is considered to be a bicycle. And it's got pedals. It's a bike. And they argue with him and he says, no, you're wrong. Blah, blah, blah.

We6axm repeater.

Yeah. They're starting these committees all over. All over the place. They've got them up in Siskiyou county, too.

Speaker A: All right, well I pulled over real quick just to put some directions in my GPS so I don't make any mistakes. Anyway, yeah, committees, yeah, it's terrible that we have to do this, but more regulations, more regulations.
Speaker B: Well, the sad thing is that when the real government takes it on, then they, they have lobbyists and those lobbyists sometimes like to pay money to people, give them extra money so they vote their way and oh man, it just goes on and on. You know, set them up for big meals at expensive restaurants and hotels and so forth. It just goes on and on.
Speaker A: Yeah, well, the villain paradise for the average person, average home, let's say on the Paradise Irrigation district is about
Speaker B: 70
Speaker A: bucks a month right in there. I'm still paying like 50 because there's no home.
Speaker B: But.
Speaker A: And I think a lot of folks are paying right around 60 bucks because they're not using a ton of water. But anyway, so I still think you're probably paying less than 60 bucks.
Speaker B: I pay 60 bucks not using any water period. No water at all.
Speaker A: So if you use some water they charge, you should be only like less than 2 bucks for 750 gallons. Right. So if you use some water, it wouldn't really increase that much, would it?
Speaker B: It's actually 50 cents what they call a unit, which I think might be that 750 gallon thing. It's one 1000 cubic feet or something is the way it actually is called a unit.
Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Whatever. Yeah, I know, I know that it's the same on the water companies but, but anyway they, I think paradise charges like a dollar something $60 maybe I'd have to look it up again, but pretty unit but plus their base fee and then they have another fee for a backflow preventer device maintenance. That's like another five bucks. So anyway, but yeah, so the reality is if you, if you use, you know, some water, it's not going to cost you a lot more.
Speaker B: Company was $10,000 to put a new installation in.
Speaker A: What was 10,000? I think up in paradise they want about that amount too now
Speaker B: and some of it I can see it because like what I have in front of my house is the original water system put in by the BLRM or whatever the big guys, the federal guys that took water out of all the way from. It goes all the way from Whiskeytown Lake into. And it's a big concrete reinforced pipe. It's about 3ft, 4ft and diameter, goes all the way from Wichita Lake down to the end of the street that I'm on. Well, it's hard to add an output from that, from that one that's leak free. It's very hard to do. And so you know, that's why they came up with all this extra money. If you're talking about the typical parts of, of the system, they're, they're all using PVC pipe and granted it's big PVC pipe but it's far, far easier to hook up to. They literally cut the, cut the pipe and then they put a key in it and there you.
Speaker A: So any on getting JS8 running?
Speaker B: Yeah, I might work on that some more today now that I know about that new. That other setting that was in the radio that I didn't know about.
Speaker A: You would. Because I'm gonna be on there in a little bit maybe, but I don't know, I might only have 15 meters to work with today as a possible band. So be a little different. If anyone's on JS8 there, I don't know, you know, for winter field day, you think maybe if you would try.
Speaker B: Why so why are you so limited?
Speaker A: Because I'll be with this group over here unless they free up 20 meters for a while, you know, it'd be tough for me to get you anyway, I guess. But anyway, that was just a thought. Yep. Make you try 40 meters too at some point. I don't know but I would think that they're going to close it up probably 5 o' clock or something. So usually 40 meters really isn't in that good by then.
Speaker B: Oh, so you're talking about joining another group. No wonder.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is for the same group, Glenn. Amateur radio, you know. So yeah, when you're gonna work, you know, three different transceivers or whatever, everyone has to stick to their band.
Speaker B: Oh yeah. And, and you know those filters are like 60 bucks a band.
Speaker A: Like 140 actually.
Speaker B: I find them for 60.
Speaker A: Not the Morgans that they bought. So they're 140 a piece. It's right on their website. Considered buying one myself, but yeah, you can buy other brands. Of course
Speaker B: they're probably all the same manufacturer. Wouldn't be surprised one bit.
Speaker A: Well, I guess you'd be supporting an American company. I don't know. That's that one Michael Martens has recommended. So KB9's VBR.
Speaker B: Yep.
Speaker A: So I don't know. And they, they bought the high performance one.
Speaker B: Yeah, I remember when this big push to go with American manufacturers started. One guy gone on and says yeah, you got to buy an American made radio. And he was serious. Like ICOM or YAES sa. We have one group that I've worked with for years called Shasta Living Streets. And they're exactly the opposite of this community. They want the bikes to be able to go anywhere, anywhere that a bicycle can go. Because they are bicycles.
Speaker A: Well, if I got on one, it would be limited to 10.
Speaker B: I was checking out this tree company to try to. I'm trying to get chips from them, you know, on this tree company, their local guys and they're pain in the butt. The owner is. He's like gave me a one. One tree was gonna cost fifteen hundred dollars to just cut it down, not clean it up. And I'm going, oh man, this guy is something else. But anyway, He. Well, his customer over there, the kid came up, had a. An E bike. The kid claimed, and the kid was like maybe 12, claimed that the bike could go 40 miles an hour. But he was looking at some sort of. I don't think he was just making it up. He was looking at some sort of readings and stuff. Well then that made the bike illegal for street use. And. And he says, oh well, these streets over here are totally legal from sitting sun on. It's a special subdivision. And I'm going, yeah, okay, yeah, right. You know, because the sheriff is actually a sheriff area. It's not a city of Reading area. And that was another thing a kid was trying to say, but his dad was kind of eating up everything to get said. So I don't know. But his bike was unusual in that the motor was not on the hub of the bike. It was actually running the chain and actually was in a. From what I thought I saw, it was in a block that was more near the crankshaft of the bike.
Speaker A: I have been seeing some wind out here, so hopefully it doesn't get crazy like it was last year.
Speaker B: Oh, the wind was horrible all night long here. It was really high. Blew some stuff around, knocked something down. I haven't figured out what yet.
Speaker A: Maybe it took down. Took down one of your panels.
Speaker B: Nope, nothing bothers those. In fact, I did see one slight change with my panels. One of the more most recent panels I put up slid down a little bit and I've got to go up. Readjust it.
Speaker A: What would you do if there was a big hailstorm that came in? Is there any way that you had to protect any of your panels or they just get hit with softball sized hail?
Speaker B: I've been through that. It doesn't seem to bother anything. But it did make holes in my polyurethane greenhouse. So it did get to those. But no, no problem with the panels. Come to weather. I've had it all here. 3ft of snow, huge half inch circumference, hailstones, everything 75 mile an hour gust
Speaker A: place is about an inch. And yeah, it did some damage to all the cars. It may have been slight bit bigger than that. But all of a sudden I was outside too and started getting fumbled in the head. But some of that stuff started to come down and go, whoa. Lasted about, I don't know, seems like about five minutes. But it was five minutes of what the heck was that?
Speaker B: You look around at all the arrays in your area and you'll notice very. I haven't seen one damaged yet from one of those storms.
Speaker A: I haven't really looked around, but I agree, I haven't heard anything like that.
Speaker B: So I guess this is something that solar panel people are watching out for. Make sure they got bomb proof glass, you know. But the. I'm looking at one thing that was put out by Shasta county people on Facebook and they're saying there's new laws for bikes with powerful motors. Well, they're not new. They've been there for years. And basically what they say is they can't be over 750 watts.
Speaker A: Thought I wanted to get a thousand watt one. You're saying that there's actually laws that limit the power of the motor. I'm doubting anyone's gonna check that. Right.
Speaker B: Well, I remember this one situation where I wasn't. I was pulled over by a sheriff because he was. They were looking for a bike and they had like three or four fire department law enforcement people and a couple of sheriffs at least. And I remember the sheriff lady was looking over at the, at the fire guys because apparently she thought they were more up on things and talking about motors and so forth and she threw it out. She kind of had it memorized. 750 watts, 28 miles an hour. Right. And the guy says yes. Well, she still didn't look at my bike so. Because she had got the wrong guy. Anyway, She knew what the rules were and she's a sheriff, not a city person.
Speaker A: Yeah. So hey, what do you think? Should I go with a. Oops, road sucks. Should I go with a vertical in this kind of wind or toss up some sort of end fed half wave or some sort of a horizontal? What do you think?
Speaker B: Definitely nfed half wave can handle the wind better than vertical because vertical's stuck in the ground. Or maybe on a tripod. Yeah, when is going to be a problem with these verticals like you and I are talking about?
Speaker A: It's moving these oak trees around but it's moving the branches, you know, not of course the tree itself but the branches are moving around pretty good.
Speaker B: Yeah. And I don't know if it's going to come back or not. Let me look at Wendy here and see if it's going to come back. But it was pretty heavy all night long.
Speaker A: Well, them guys may have. May have pulled. Pulled down to a little bit more. Better area for wind. I don't know. That's the first pull out. They're not here so figured that though. I figured they'd be at the next pull out but I'm getting close.
Speaker B: Yeah. Ofg, by the way was at Quartzsite and he said he looked right out of his RV window and they were putting up a big balloon and what they are is aprs. So he was kind of excited with that and that was part of why the net's been more interesting as having courtside happening. I put in a good word for John but you know, John is pretty quiet guy. He and his wife are like shy people I think.
Speaker A: Hey Steve, they're further back in.
Speaker B: Oh on link.
Speaker A: Oh yeah, I got the message though he probably didn't have it programmed in yet. I figured they'd be further, you know. He said further back in. So. Yep, anyway I got it but I figured that's going to be the case. But anyway, yeah, John is something else. I wonder if I'll ever meet him. I don't know. I'm starting to doubt it I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I'm passing the oak tree right now that I went to last year. Yeah, last year. It's a nice little oak tree. I bet you my string's still up in the tree because I had to cut it off. I couldn't get it back down anyway
Speaker B: so.
Speaker A: Yeah, Michael probably hasn't let you go here as I'm getting in. I know I'm going to get pretty close here in a minute so I'll say 73kn6mgk.
Speaker B: Yeah, I'm looking at wind forecast
Speaker A: just
Speaker B: about on the stream.
Speaker A: That's a beautiful day out here. So I won't care if it's, you know, not too bad. Last year it was nuts. It was like gosh, seemed like 45 mile an hour winds or something crazy that you couldn't get nothing done. So anyway. But yeah, there's definitely some wind at least 10 mile an hour out here at least. So all right. We'll catch up with you later. Probably be pulling out around dark, so. Say seven three kilo, November 6th. Mike, golf kilo. I'm in route.
Speaker B: I gotta go by my dad's house
Speaker A: and get a Starlink.
Speaker B: Steve and I'll be out.
Speaker A: I gotta get gas W6L in this. All right, well, bring me a nice donut.

The Gears Net will be held Tuesday night starting at 7:30pm all amateur radio operators are welcome to join in on the net W6 RHC repeater check three.

Speaker A: I was considering stopping for gas, but I didn't. So nobody has Internet out here, I suppose. Okay, sounds good. Catch up with you in a bit. And Mike, say 7:3 again to you. I know I'm going to be getting close and I want to find a setup spot. There's a vehicle coming now. KN6MGK.
Speaker B: Yeah, they're showing the wind is increasing N60 Archic and have fun, Jeremy. N60 Archic. But the big increase is off the coast. Oh my God. That's really taken off. Wind is 23 knots.
Speaker A: Yeah. Might have to try out some JS8. I might have to try that. Time it by decode. Although my computer should be, I don't know, it should be timed. Okay. From my house. I just unplugged it. But you never know. You can lose time just by that. Who knows? The other day I could see I was off by. By 2.1 seconds. Even though it was plugged in. I mean nothing changed. So I thought that was interesting. So I had to rethink it. I mean I. It was, it was interesting, but that happens. But hopefully you work on that today, Mike, and then we'll chat with you down the road.
Speaker B: So easy to time out there. You just go to WWV and you've got that timing thing on the right hand side of the waterfall and go down to where it says minute start, Minute start, that's the special one. And then you wait for the beep on WWV and tap on your, your mouse or whatever and you're set.
Speaker A: Yeah, you could do that on JS8 but not on FT8. But it doesn't matter. FT8 is not a winter field day mode anyway. But other modes are and they would still require timing and they don't have like, as far as I know, FLDIGI doesn't do that. And when you time JS8, it doesn't time your computer. So you have to use alternative methods and I've never developed those skills so far. Something to work on. That should be something I work on this year maybe instead of doing some of the other things. Yeah. Okay. Well they're further back in here for sure. I'll say. Final 7 3kn6mgk.
Speaker B: Yeah. The problem with FT8 is that uses the equivalent of what they call the automatic timing that JSA uses. Got automatic routine. And the automatic routine depends on the timing of the other station. So if the other stations are not timed correctly, you pick up their timing, which is not going to be right because it's not. They're not right. So you're. You're. You're not going to be right. Yeah, FTA does have a few problems, that's for sure. Talk to you later. Have fun. N60RG.

Testing.we6iwh. Ko6bgy.ko6bgy.n6iwh. Column standing by.

W e6a x n repeater.

And 6 mbt.

Go back to local Yellow. Disappear quickly. I thought you were on local. I switched. What's up, Frank? Good morning. I've got dead spots here in my downstairs bedroom, strangely enough.

System 7.

W6lnd. Ki6smn.

And 16.

Speaker A: And six kne testing again. Six kne.
Speaker B: Greetings, Ken.
Speaker A: Send me an email in just a moment or log in whenever you want it.
Speaker B: All right. Just making some adjustments
Speaker A: to the. To the Carla admin hub.
Speaker B: Well, that didn't seem to be working.

Los Angeles link up.

System9 link.

And six candy.

Okay, one more time. N6k detestable.

Window.

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. W6RHC Repeater Check 1.

60.

6 vmc km 6 bhp.

Please. Id. Thank you.

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.

D.

Vzd mobile wp6axm repeater.

Speaker A: Kf6lbi. Ki6smm. Kf6 Obi, ki6 smn. Good afternoon, Phil. How's everything going out there?
Speaker B: It is going spectacular. We got
Speaker A: four
Speaker B: operators online right now. 10, 20, 40, and let's see, 15.
Speaker A: Yeah, sounds good. Any indication how long people plan to stick around out there? Well, we're going to go for
Speaker B: several more hours probably.
Speaker A: Your transmission dropped off. I couldn't copy. Day is going fine. I did not get your previous transmission. It broke 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 W fix. RHC repeater checked three.

Speaker A: Kf6ovi, ki6smn, do you
Speaker B: copy?
Speaker A: Go ahead. Phil? Yeah, Something happened. I just sent you a text that explains what happened on this end. Do you still hear me?
Speaker B: Yes. Sending you a text. So anyway, everybody's going to be here around 4 or 5 o' clock at least.
Speaker A: Okay, copy that. Probably about the earliest I would get there be about 2:30. So that's what I'll plan at the moment. Yeah, that fault transmission didn't come through, but I think you said that you would be looking forward to it. So with that, this is KI Successor man. I'll be clear.
Speaker B: Roger that. Phil, I got your text. Kf6obi is monitoring.

W e6a x n repeater.

Speaker A: We6a x m receiver.
Speaker B: K06bgy monitoring. Nice sunny day over here in caloosa. A bit cold, but sun's out at the ko6bgy,
Speaker A: See if david's out there. Wa1ner, are you out there? K06bty, Wa1ner.ko6bc1. Negative contact. Ko6bgy, back to monitoring.

Speaker A: Fresno link up
Speaker B: k6lnk system 36, no mountain range
Speaker A: and 6mzt on 15.

The Gears Net will be held Tuesday night starting at 7:30pm all amateur radio operators are welcome to join in on the net W6RHC repeater check 1.

Speaker A: We6a x n repeater.
Speaker B: Wa1ner k06bgy.wa1ner k06bgy.
Speaker A: K06 dty monitoring.

N6nbt wb6jkv system 32 link option standby. Okay.

Speaker A: There you are.
Speaker B: Rumor had it that you were on the air like my sidekick tells me, so guess what? She was right.
Speaker A: Oh, on the air and on the road. I passed Stinkyville and north on five out side of Coalinga I think. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker B: Once you get out of there, around like 9 o' clock or so.
Speaker A: I left the hotel at 8:30 in Anaheim and made one stop so far, so pretty smooth sailing.
Speaker B: Ah, good news. So how well did Trace Uno work going north? Would you lose it. All?
Speaker A: The usual stuff. Once you start getting north, you know, into Los Angeles and all the overpasses and stuff, you know, it starts getting choppy, get further out in the way, comes back in. But you know, it's not really an LA system per se. Even though it's you know, down there and what have you but. And then further north side forget, you know, comes in, goes in, in and out in places as you're going up and climbing and all that stuff. And I don't, I just can't remember exactly.
Speaker B: So.
Speaker A: But 30 is definitely dead. Already knew that. Confirmed it again, you know. So that'll be probably one of the next trips. I'd like to go on that one.
Speaker B: I know, go hold your breath. Right not.
Speaker A: But seriously. Yeah, I won't but you know, I know miracles can happen and he's got some GE stuff up there. So you know, it's been quite a while since I've played with them and I think their master froze or something. Can't quite remember. And I know batteries got to get replaced and probably some serious tweaking on stuff but yeah, whole another can of worms,
Speaker B: dude. If it was a Master Pro, that's what I had on Bruno and that, that had a couple of tubes in it. So it's probably Master 2 or the newer Master 3.
Speaker A: Definitely not a three, but I didn't think it was a master two. But I could be wrong because I we, you know, I've had a couple master twos. I don't think we have any more. I think the last one was on six or something but I thought it was more of a mobile type looking setup. But I, you know, I don't know again, I could be wrong. I have to see if I got some information buried somewhere about it or if I can extract some or what have you. I almost half thought of stopping by on my way out but it's like, you know, I don't want to add another four more hours to the trip just to you know, do a. Whatever triage. So anyhow Had a phone call. Be right back.

W6grc.

W e set a x N repeater.

Speaker A: All right, done with clone call there. N6 mvp. You know who.
Speaker B: Hey, katie. Yeah. All right. Everything bueno.
Speaker A: Just confirming what I thought over at the BTV data center for Hurricane electric in Fremont. I got to go up on the
Speaker B: roof and go do some microwave work.
Speaker A: So I already did the troubleshot shooting yesterday at lunchtime, and they thought it was the power supply, but nope, nope, not the power supply. It's going to be the radio. That's what it looks like. So I got to go yank it and then send it off to the chair.
Speaker B: Okay. No, no spares to swap out with.
Speaker A: No, nothing that's been, up until now been solid. So, yeah, they got them at the hop, obviously. And yeah, first one that failed.
Speaker B: There was a failure up in Allison some time ago.
Speaker A: It showed the same symptom, but it turned out it was. It was the Cat 5.
Speaker B: Oh, the Cat 5. Yeah, those don't ever get like, you know, watering up or insulation starts fraying or breaking from, you know, not being cinched down or whatever. Never seen anything like that before.
Speaker A: I guess I do need to charge batteries every now and then. There was nothing there, so I don't know. I don't know where I went away.
Speaker B: What happened?
Speaker A: The bothang died, man. Hasn't been on charge. I usually charge it at least once a week, but I forgot to put it on charge last night.
Speaker B: Okay, well, I was just saying. Yeah. You know. Yeah. I've never seen. Seen anything like that happen before with, you know, water getting in the jet pipe. Cat this cable, corrosion jacket, you know, splitting open, cable getting smacked and broken on the tower or any of those things, right?
Speaker A: Oh, never happened, man. No. No way.
Speaker B: Hey, how's the audio on this thing sound?
Speaker A: This is Chrissy's little tiny, skinny Olinko. Stuck is old man. It still works.
Speaker B: Yeah, it's missing the high end that the other one had, so it's not quite as crisp and clear, but I do copy you. Very good dirt unit.
Speaker A: Anyways, that. That's the only problem we've ever had with this system is the Cat 5 on the tower got damaged, had to swap that out. So of course, we had a contract to do that, but that's the only issue we've ever had.
Speaker B: Okay, so to do poe and radios up, you know, mounted to the back of the. The disc type of thing.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Kind of like the old, you know, suitcase kind of latch or, you know, the little spring loaded latch. You know, just release the latches and just pull the thing away and unplug the ethernet haul it off. Hey,
Speaker C: How is the audio from this Delinko N6 GRG
Speaker A: sounds fine to me.
Speaker B: Stuff you got to make sure you got the right one on each end. You know, I know a lot of the stuff we've got now is, you know, transit high or transit low and receive high, you know, the opposite type of thing. So you got to make sure you got the right one and at the right end and follow the license info and specs and you know, yada yada, yada yada. So I think, you know.
Speaker A: Yep, that's what we did when we installed it. So we had to make sure you got the right in at the right place. I don't. Over at nvc one time, way back when, one of the guys got the length backwards and it didn't work.
Speaker B: Well, that or the polarization, remember chasing that down for a while. In fact, at one of the last Super Bowls that was up here, they had some crews out and I was the on call guy and they had me go down there to, you know, add to the, to the fray. And finally somebody asked the guy at the other end, hey, send a, send a picture of the back of the antenna and where it, how it, you know, mounts and everything. And they did. And sure enough, you know, 90 degrees off. No. So anyhow, I've been doing a lot of crap getting ready for the next one. And we had a round of layoffs this week. I don't know if I told you about that or not.
Speaker A: So
Speaker B: once we got the. I think maybe you were on too or something. Once we got the link hooked up, I could hear KO on there and he's like, hey, you checked your email, your phone yet? And I went and looked and you know, it blown up like, oh great,
Speaker A: here we go again.
Speaker B: Spinning of the herd.
Speaker A: Oh great,
Speaker B: Yeah. Think I told you they got rid of Kevin.
Speaker A: Of all the people. So idiots.
Speaker B: Anyway. All right, well enjoy the rest of the day. Looks like the clouds are lifting here and actually getting some sunshine coming through. So see how long this lasts.
Speaker A: As a matter of fact, last year at my place, they did the exact same thing. They eliminated a couple of positions. One of them was like the supervisor over all the engineering and the IT people that was gone. Been there ages, 20 years. And they decided, well, you know how I can. Early retirement. Ah, wasn't ready for that. But he dealt with it. He landed on his feet, man. He sold his place over in Pleasant
Speaker B: Hill, paid cash for a brand new
Speaker A: house up in Rotten park. You know, the latest and greatest bells and whistles and no mortgage payments and even had money left over. So it's like. Yes. Sometimes.
Speaker B: I just switched over to 17 here.
Speaker A: Yep.
Speaker B: And you can't fix stupid, you know, And I point that out to him. That's why I figure I'm gonna. I'll be on the target. I'm surprised I haven't been yet.
Speaker A: But
Speaker B: I'm so tired of, you know, keeps me up at night.
Speaker A: I know.
Speaker B: They had one guy come up from Southern California to transfer to a position up here as a field ops manager. He bought a house, got married, and. See ya. That was pretty low. And this all came from, you know, higher up, so the managers weren't even involved in it. Didn't even know about it, apparently.
Speaker A: Or at least that's what they claim.
Speaker B: So that's interesting. Usually that means it's all about money or something like that and not performance. And so they're clueless as to who's good and who's not.
Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Sometimes they lose the best bang for their, you know, their. But they, they'll figure that out probably when it's too late.
Speaker B: And, you know, the other thing they do is they waste so much more time and money and resources to basically get caught up to where they left things in a mess, you know, because there's this drain of, you know, brain trust that has just left and projects that just kind of stopped mid. Whatever, and nobody knows about whatever, so it just, you know, the whole thing just blows anyhow. All right, well, I think I'll. I'll catch up on the political news front. Hey, that'll be even more exciting. All right, well, have a good day. We'll catch up with you later and. And should be home in, I don't know, maybe a couple hours, roughly two or two, two and a half, three hours or something. So I think, you know. All right, I'll show later. N6MCT.
Speaker A: I wasn't going to get political on you. I was just going to say it sounds like you're taking lessons from the administration at hand, right? Yeah. Look at all those agencies where they don't have anybody in there anymore that been around who knows what the F's going on. So anyway, all right, no politics.
Speaker B: On it.
Speaker A: Get out of here, man. I got to go head over to the data center over Fremont and go climb up on her roof and go swap out a radio, which I went to swap. Just got. Got to yank it, but yeah, I'm going to do the usual, you know, deoxythernet connector and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, MX, MDT, WP68, TV on.
Speaker B: Chrissy's a little, tiny, skinny Rinko.
Speaker A: Thinks about the size of a credit
Speaker B: card and maybe three.
Speaker A: Three of them. Sick, man. It's still working.
Speaker B: All right, see you.
Speaker C: Mine's an MD5. MD5 a little bit newer.
Speaker A: Hey, Mike. Yeah, Sounds pretty good.
Speaker C: Yeah, the guys over in Las Vegas keep saying it sounds Kenny or one of the guys. And nobody else says that, only him. But anyway, as far as politics, what
Speaker B: just happened
Speaker C: is gonna blow everything up. I mean, it's just. It's gonna. If this doesn't do it, I don't know what is. I mean, you'll. You'll see when you get a chance.
Speaker A: It's. It's crazy.
Speaker C: N6GRT talk to you later.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Hey, Mike, if you wanted me to be critical about your audio, it does lack load, and it kind of sounds like you're kind of talking through a. A little tin can. Not a big one, but a little one. But other than that, it's. It's nice and crisp and readable with a string attached.

K6RTs, K6KG, W6RHC repeater check two, this is K6RCs. Go ahead. Oh, you're coming in so loud and clear. We're just turning order ferry on our way to Willows, but I wanted to let you know everything went great at the hazardous waste place. Fantastic. I think I'm gonna leave the other batteries intact on the other one because they're not dangerous, so I'll just leave the spare. So I think we're good. Good. But the computer's drive has been removed, and. Yeah, we're ready to rock and roll. So. Awesome. Yeah. They were like, does this monitor go? I'm like, absolutely rad. The guy was like, can you ride this thing? And I was like, yep. My husband did. He's like, I kill myself on this. I'm like, I would, too. Yeah. But the first one, the one that started it all, is now retired, officially, underground hazardous waste. So that was awesome. They took everything and, yeah, we definitely need to go back with whatever else we got that has to go. So I'm down to get the garage organized. You know, I've got, like, SCSI boards in the garage. There's a whole pile of things that I'm PCI board boards, things that I'll never use again. Yeah, let's. Let's hit it. Yeah, totally. Next free day. I wonder whether you know what a SCSI board is. Little SCSI cable for your scanner, anyway. All right, well, cool. Vlad went well. Yeah. Working on some stuff here. So we will get some boards together. If I can pull some more out for you, I will. Okay. Sounds good, hon. We're almost to Willows. Gonna pick up pizza for lunch and then head up the hill. I hope to be back in time for 5 o', clock, but I guess we can always watch it after the fact, too. I'm sure Netflix is recording it, right? Yeah, but, you know, you're kind of gonna know the outcome, right? So one way or another, you're gonna know who won that game. Because if you made it, you won't hear much of anything. If you didn't make it, you'll absolutely hear it. I'm being funny. Of course Netflix is gonna replay it. I'm still gonna shoot for getting home around that time, so we can all watch it. And thinking, I don't know what we want to pull out from the freezer for dinner, but we can. I'll text you later about that. Maybe we just pull out some pfas and put it on a low simmer. Drinking tacos again. Or I can make a meatloaf. No, no. PFAS is way better. Have PFAS in the fridge freezer with pickled jalapenos or peppers. My face is sweating already. Put out your cold. No, no. And I got nothing. Barely a tickle. But I left that one here at home because I didn't think you'd want to eat it at the office. So, yeah, you got it if you were hungry. And then there's also those miso soup, ramen things in the cabinet. Or more chicken noodle soup. Word to your mother. Okay, Sounds good. Okay, back at you, bro. 7388 K6RCS. Clear on yours? K6KG, clear.

It. Sa.

Ki6smn kf6 Obi.

Speaker A: Kk6vzd mobile wp6axm repeater. Kk6vzd ko6vzy Good afternoon, Chris.
Speaker B: I was just about ready to say good morning. But it's a good thing you corrected
Speaker A: me so I had to. Look, technically I usually go off of the thing if I haven't had lunch. It's still morning, but that doesn't really work. But yeah. Beautiful day over here in Calusa. Temperature's all right and then the sun's out. That's perfect.
Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say no, no fog today.
Speaker A: I guess there will be a fog warning tomorrow morning. I got an alert on the weather app for Sunday, but yeah, didn't see.
Speaker B: Okay. So. Yeah. So what's up with you?
Speaker A: Just here at home relaxing. What about you?
Speaker B: Oh, I had to come out to grocery outlet and swap out some coffee. I mistakenly bought some decaf so I had to come out here and get some. Some regular cop, he had to swap it out. And then we're looking at Sportsman's warehouse for a while and picked up some 308 while I was there.
Speaker A: Sounds like a nice trip. Yeah, they haven't gone into the Fortunes warehouse yet. I just don't usually go that over there, so. But yeah, that's a pretty messed up thing. You accidentally getting decaf coffee. That's for people that need it, but those that want the unleaded version, that's definitely what you're expecting.
Speaker B: Yeah, no, I have enough decaf at home. I didn't need yet another package of it, so. Yeah, and I'm running out of the regular stuff. Actually. Last week I got online and ordered some premo coffee.
Speaker A: There's this
Speaker B: variety called Jamaica Blue Mountain and it's one of the more expensive coffees you can buy, but it's also one of the smoothest that you'll ever experience. So, you know, I buy some and have some here and there as a treat.
Speaker A: That sounds pretty good. Where do you. Where do you usually pick that stuff up at? Are they K cups or is it ground coffee for the coffee makers?
Speaker B: No, I pick it up. I pick it up through Amazon and it's. You can get beans or ground. I get the beans. So we can grind it ourselves. And it's bit on the pricey side. I forget whether I get a pound or a 12 ounce package. It's probably a 12 ounce package and it's one of the. It's moderately priced. You can get some a little cheaper. But it cost me $48 a package.
Speaker A: That is a bit steep but like you Said it's a tree. It is what it is. I went to a conference yesterday, Sacramento for work and good conference and whatnot. California mental health is going to be losing a lot of money. But besides the point, their coffee horrendous. It was like they took instant coffee and put it into those hotel style warmers. I'm like this is how I ended up having tea instead. But they ended up giving us a $10 gift card for 10 completing a survey at the end. So I ended up getting good coffee afterwards.
Speaker B: Oh, there you go. Well this is awesome. The first time I tried it, this is, this is the, the only coffee that I've ever had that I could drink black and enjoy it.
Speaker A: That's good to know. Yeah, I drink my coffee black easily and I'm actually having a cup right now and not the greatest. It's Green Mountain brand donut shop from Walmart. For the Keurig I got some Amazon coffee actually I think it was a year ago from the veterans stand down in Glenn county and got two cases of 80 each and I've been slowly going through them. The Amazon brand, they're not good at all. Too oily.
Speaker B: Yeah, I bought some of their stuff from time to time to take to work. I don't have a Keurig at home. I refuse to buy one. They're too darn expensive. But I'll buy it. I'll buy the, I buy the cheapest K cup coffee that I can find and you know, it was on Amazon and I take that to work and we have a Keurig at work and so you know. But yeah, I, I've got this other coffee that I, that I buy from time to time from a, from a company called Cameron and they had what they call their Jamaica Blue Mountain blend which is my. Much less expensive than the pure Jamaica Blue Mountain. And it's, it's pretty good
Speaker A: ko6bg wiper id. I'll have to look into that because I'm almost, almost out of the pods and mom uses this poppy 12 cup. I don't. She buys the Winco brand copy. She's more full quantity over quality. She doesn't really mind so. But I won't drink it. That's why I have the Keurig here and then that work. We have similar bump cup makers over there and we actually get a brand from Sam's Club. It kind of looks like Seattle's Best and Seattle's Best the red bag. And it's actually for the price. It's actually not that bad. Way better than stuff you get at the American engine halls or anything like that.
Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know what the difference would be. I know that quite often that the stuff that you get from Costco, the Kirkland brand, a lot of the times, you know, they will have their version, you know, their branded version of stuff and it's actually quite good. So I wouldn't, I would imagine the coffee is pretty good too. Yeah.
Speaker A: And actually Costco's brand of a lot of things is actually pretty good. I actually, a couple years ago, I think I still have the bottle, it was a 12 year old Scotch in their brand. Obviously they're not making it so they're sourcing it from somewhere reputable wool I would assume. And for the price it was like 40 bucks or this thing was two times the size. So usually I think they're like 1.75 and, but anyway took a while to get through but it was, it was worthy. So Costco's got some other stuff out there that's not name brand. That's actually pretty decent in my opinion.
Speaker B: Yeah. Now my only deal is that the Sam's Club over here is closer than the Costco. But you know, we're, we're reconsidering because we're a member of both. We're considering maybe just dropping Sam's Club just because of the reputation of Costco. And the only, only thing about that is I go to, I go to Sam's Club to buy my gasoline because it's more convenient than going across the river.
Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's, I drive by the Sam's Club and they definitely have a tempting price. No, we have a club card for there. I never have it on me so I never go there to get that personally. But are you saying that the Costco in Linda also has fuel as well?
Speaker B: They do, they do, they do. And actually when I'm at work, when I'm over in Marysville, I'm over that side of the river. Anyway, I will go down to Costco and fill up my truck when necessary.
Speaker A: Yeah, if you're already over there, that makes more sense. That is quite the drive if you're only going to get gas and you, I mean, I mean they do offer a decent price, but I don't think it would be worth it just to go over there. People even here in cl, they're like, if you drive over to Arbuckle, Poppy has gas. I'm like, yeah, but you're pointlessly driving all the way over there to get super gas and wings I digress. People, they do what they want. Your mileage may vary, but. Yeah, how is it over there in Yuba City? Yeah, you guys got blue skies and.
Speaker B: There's an Irving Berlin song that came to mind the other day. It's called Blue Skies. Yes, we do.
Speaker A: Well, if you have your car set up to play music in the car, you might want to play that on the way home.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so I guess I got financial stuff to take care of today. I have to go in and initiate, you know, my, my Social Security, and I have to initiate a couple of. I have to go submit my CalPERS retirement paperwork and stuff like that. So I think that's what I'm going to be spending my day on is just looking that stuff over and maybe not finalizing everything, but at least getting it close enough to where I can just go in and hit submit.
Speaker A: W E6A X N repeater. Yeah, the days are. The days are getting quite, quite. When they're almost done with this month and then you only have February and I don't know, I can't remember how much of March, but yeah, you're. You're definitely in on par for having to do that paperwork. At least they look it online, make it a little bit easier instead of having to submit a paper packet that we always lose.
Speaker B: Yeah, 47 work or 46 work days.
Speaker A: Hey, that's awesome. Congratulations. You've definitely earned that. And if I remember correctly, you're just gonna disappear on the last day, maybe have lunch with a couple, couple people that you actually care to have lunch with or whatever. And then otherwise, no party, no brill.
Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty much it. You know, the. Lately, the interesting is they're making a lot of changes. We've picked up, believe it or not, we've picked up four people within the past two weeks, and there's going to be another two within the next two weeks. And so they're rearranging all the furniture and all the cubes and stuff. And they had a plan and they were saying that, you know, we're going to put all the help desk people here, we're going to put the level two analysts here, we're going to put the level three analysts there. And they had chucked me over with a help desk analyst. And I went afterwards to talk to one of the managers, Jeff, do you realize that I'm an analyst 2? And he didn't know that time to
Speaker A: leave here before too long. Yeah, that goes along with what you were saying that they're Just giving you the bare minimum of the honeydew list. Not anything that's actually gamefully employed and mission critical to actually get someone back online. Oh, no, you just answer emails. It's like, yeah, well, that says a lot. And if you. Kind of funny. I'm sure they didn't hire that many people while you guys were knee deep in all the workload. So maybe as a sentiment, you can think of it as not only that they hire those people just to replace you in your job, but I'm sure they needed more people than what you were offering because get things done and move on. But that's their problem now.
Speaker B: You know, I went and talked. I went and talked to Jeff about it and I actually did say. I said, now I want it. I'm going to tell you this. This matters. It probably shouldn't matter to me, but it does. Mostly because of the way I've been treated for the past couple of years. So you have to understand, you know, my perspective on this. Said, all in all, it really, really doesn't matter where I sit. But, you know, just the fact that, you know, you guys have kind of forgotten about, you know, my value as an employee. Rankle.
Speaker A: I'm sure he didn't have too much of a productive response. I'm sure I don't hear everything under the rug. It's their loss. But you're gonna ride out of there with your head held high and let it all be behind you. So that's, That's a plus. People don't understand. I mean, they think, oh, people that work for the county government. You guys got it easy. It's no different than any other job. There's bureaucracy and backstabbing.
Speaker B: There's.
Speaker A: I mean, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good that comes out of it. I have a lot of good colleagues that I would definitely go talk to. But. Yeah, it's like high school.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I will give him this. That when I told him, he did not poo poo what I was telling him, he listened and he understood where I was coming from. Now, you know, that's probably not going to change anything and it really shouldn't at this point, you know, in the equation because I'm going to move into whatever new cube they have me and then I'm going to leave in two months, so who cares?
Speaker A: Agreed. That's awesome. Yeah. I don't know, but that conference yesterday, it was for peer support specialists, which I am certified peer support specialist through the state of California. And they were just talking about how the state could benefit from utilizing us as professionals in different scopes and whatnot. But it was disheartening to see the slides from the federal government side. Okay, well, you gotta get this. You're not getting that. Okay, it is what it is, but, oh man, I wish I was that closer. Tired. But I'm going to keep pushing through and I'm not going to get sour or anything, so.
Speaker B: Yes, yes. Well, I just pulled into my driveway, so I'm going to go inside and I'm going to take this coffee and I'm going to have a cup of this coffee, so. And then think about what I got
Speaker A: to do the rest of the day.
Speaker B: So I'll talk to you later. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the sun. 73Jk6VZD clear.
Speaker A: All right, Chris, have a good rest of your day and weekend ahead. 73 Enjoy the nice weather as well. KO6BGY I'll be clear.

Speaker A: Oh yeah.
Speaker B: Okay, hang on, let me try one more thing. That sounds like current limiting kicking in. You're popping on and off.
Speaker A: Okay. I guess the only one I can depend on is 36. And. Yeah, highs, lows missing, lows missing. That could make someone think it's tinny.
Speaker B: So, okay, we'll make, we'll blend yours and mine in a blender and then we'll split them with each other. That'll be perfect, right?
Speaker A: Yeah, you got, you've got the highest missing, I've got the lows missing. So you know, we need to search, search down the equalization circuit and, and blend them together in a blender.
Speaker B: On this one I could probably drill, you know where the little microphone hole is in the front. A tiny pinhole. Man, if I open that up a little, it might help, who knows. But then again, with my luck, my drill bit would go right through the microphone element.
Speaker A: Well, I had one radio that I had since 2004 and had upgraded the microphone since 2004 and I upgraded a microphone and it was amazing how much difference it made.
Speaker B: I believe it. Yeah, I replaced the mic element on my 8,900 and on Tom's also. I still got his to replace the driver transistor. I just gotta find the radio and the transistor. But yeah, I put a new mic on that and that in his microphone and a new cord. Remember there was a vintage of them where they just kind of crumbled and fell apart.
Speaker A: Well, I had already done that with the original 2004 microphone, replaced the cord which took about five seconds. And then one day I saw an original microphone for sale and I bought it and plugged it in and all. Oh my God, I couldn't believe the difference.
Speaker B: Yeah, I pushed the top scales on mine some time ago and I been using a TYT, you know, 8900 clone. I tried the mic out off of that just for the hell of it. That's what I've been using mobile for probably a year now. So. Except the depth down arrows don't do the right thing and you know the program ABCD for the functions. Those don't do anything. So anyway, details.
Speaker A: Well, mine is the 8900 that I bought in 2004 and it's been a terrific radio all these years. I've never opened it up to look and see what, what sort of,
Speaker B: I
Speaker A: want to say flexer of some kind. It's, you know, 10 meters, 6 meters, UHF and VHF die plex through the, through the ozone layer.
Speaker B: Oh yeah. And I have Cross banded those various bands back and forth, you know playing with it and works great. It's magic.
Speaker A: Yeah. I've measured the descents and unless you get really unlucky and find a frequency that's just not good, you're gonna do great. I mean the descent is just almost non existent where you know you get those tyts and different things and they've got, they use absolute garbage for your die flexor
Speaker B: mostly the receiver man. There's a tyt that I have. If I put in mobile and go over the hill I'm around, you know Bruno and even if I'm out there in the middle of the bay on San Miguel Bridge I cannot hear my receiver. I can't hear anything. I can't hear squat. It just gets hammered. It's rf. So yeah I look at the receiver too in that case. But yeah, you know when I cross band off this thing use a DPL on the, you know, link side and yeah folks at the other end don't even know I'm cross banded. No tail or anything. Yep.
Speaker A: That 8900 has been one of the best radios I have ever owned of any brand. I mean it's just been reliable and and it still is, it still works just great. And I bought it new in 2004 so. And you know when they ended the manufacturing of that radio Ally Express found the factory that was doing it and they started putting them out and I wondered well if they you know were able to get the same components and so forth and put out. But they want $500 for them.
Speaker B: My wifey hooked me up Tyt. I think she paid probably around 250 for it maybe and then she got me another one that was just under a hundred bucks. And that's just a piece of crap man. I just put it back in the box. You know they advertise, you know what they're supposed to put out. Right On UHF it did like 11 watts 2 meters. I think it did 18 and 10 and 6. I think it did maybe 20 watts instead of 50. Yeah so the receiver was worse.
Speaker A: Yeah and the, the very. I got one of the early ones then 8900 clone type thing and, and the modulation was absolutely horrible and I don't think think there's anything you can do about it.
Speaker B: There is. Throw it away. All right. I'm gonna get out of here and hey, nice chatting with you mike73 and see ya.
Speaker A: JTV going mobile73 with all the great weather. No fog. Knock on wood. Very lucky up here. Fog fog everywhere else in the valley. N6 GRG.
Speaker B: Severe clear here on the coast. I think on the bay earlier, there was fog, but nope, didn't have any on the coast at all. Just right. All right, see you.
Speaker A: N60rgq is y2 local, but I am listening.
Speaker B: Hey, tom, quick one. Yeah, this is carla. Web page. The repeater up therehere at the 29 is the mtr.
Speaker A: 29?
Speaker B: Yeah, that's correct, I think. But no, it's 30. 30 is the one in question. Oh, that one. Oh, that's all right. You knew that. All right, put the mic down. Get to work. And six, seven, V2, They're just putting out 50 bars. The equipment's blank, so it's like, okay, I guess, because everybody drew a blank when they put that together.

The Gears. Monthly general membership meetings are held on the third Monday night of the month at the Butte County Public Library, 1118 Sherman Ave. In Chico. Doors open at 6pM and the meeting starts at 7pM all are welcome.

76 grc testing.

W e6axn repeater.

System is linked up.

D.

Speaker A: W
Speaker B: e6a x n repeater.

K6k6rcs or k6k6k w6rhc repeater check 3. Who am I? Wait. Who are you? K6rcs. The eagle has landed. Dude, we're in el creek. Ruby. When you come out of there, I'll. I'll check some things out. Sounds good. We're gonna turn off the radio now and get in the house, okay? Yep. Talk to you later. K6 rcs cleared.

Group. When you come out, I'll check. To the.

Mvt.

Q by r.

Please. Id. Thank you.

Six jn radio check. We six axm receiver.

Deep.

W e6axm repeater.

Here 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 one.

Speaker A: Los angeles link up.
Speaker B: N6mbt.wa6wiry.
Speaker A: Go ahead, fred. And 6 mbt.
Speaker B: Well, how far along are you?
Speaker A: I just pulled over somewhere near, I don't know, Patterson or maybe New Men or one of those. Town's just getting back on now, so have to get some coffee and wake up and get some fresh air.
Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, that'll work. I'm down in Colton right now, just coming through Colden, and they're going to have a P25. They have a dinner every Saturday. You know, a few guys show up, you know, five or 10. And then once every quarter, we have a huge meeting of P25 guys. And I thought I'd go over there. Mikey's gonna be there today, and
Speaker A: he
Speaker B: was telling me about a. He got called out from the police department to run the drone the other night on thing for the LA County Sheriff. So that sounds like interesting work.
Speaker A: Okay. I haven't heard about him in a while. How's he doing? Or what's he up to?
Speaker B: Well, he got promoted. He's now a cso or. Yes, CSO officer. So he takes cold reports and stuff like that. And he's one of the top guys now, so, you know, young man making good money and he doesn't have a girlfriend, so he'll be able to keep a lot.
Speaker A: Yeah, really, he'll be dedicated to his work. It is the finds a significant other, that all goes right down the drain. Right. I can vouch for that.
Speaker B: Well, anyway, I asked him what he wants to do. I says, you need to go back to school. Yeah, I think he wants to be an officer. And they're kind of encouraging him to do it, so that would be good. Very sharp. Very sharp young man. But anyway. All right. Hey, I'll tell you one thing. The new linking coming down here, it sounds absolutely wonderful compared to the RF link.
Speaker A: Well, that's good. I don't have to hear you complain about it every time now. God. Holy. Been listening to that for the last 10 years, huh?
Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't realize it had been 10 years since we put that repeater up there. All right, well, listen, have a good day. As I said, coming through Colton right now. So, headed down to the dinner tonight, so we'll chat with you later. Just send me a text when you finally get home. Let me know you're safe. Wa6wiry.
Speaker A: Oh, don't worry. I got my better half keeping track of me. And then you got JKV there who won't let anything go by him, so. But thank you all right? Oh, look at this. Clear skies. Lovely. All right, I'll have a good. A good whatever. Get together and we'll talk to you later at 6mdt. Hey, Fred, Here I am on a real radio on a Yazoo 8900. That should be a little better than the Bow Bang. Hey, Tom, how come your audios are muffled on whatever you're going through? Just, you know, not being critical, but just saying. WB6JKV mobile in Pacific. Headed out finally. All right, well, I'm on 17 now. I think that's an MSF and shouldn't be all weird, but he. He seemed a little on the higher side to me. You and you seem on the lower side because of that. Wait, you said you're on the 8900 now? Yep, but it's a TYT microphone for whatever cred that's not worth. Okay. I think it's better than the Olinko that you were on earlier, so. But anyhow. All right, well, Roger Dodger. Maybe if I keep my hand off the microphone too, it might cover things up. The old carbon microphone, Motorola mic, Remember those things? Maybe a few pounds. And you used to have to close talking, really bark into them. And every now and then you'd have to smack them against something hard to unpack. The carbon. Oh, yeah, those are microphones. Oh, God. Yeah. Those old ones. Yeah. All right, very good. Well, I just got on the 580, so shouldn't be too long now. Oh, yeah. Boy, you wouldn't believe the Highway 1 traffic going southbound down here towards Halfburn Bay, man. It stops and I'm at Shark Park Road, so no bueno, man. Place is getting overpopulated. Time to leave. Yeah, right. Like that'll ever happen. One of the. The guys that I talked with who's friends with my former business partner, he's in a band called the California Cowboys. I think he said they're going to be playing it next. Coming up. Maybe a couple dates. I can't remember probably. I don't know if it was this month or next month or coming soon to a town near you or something like that. I've heard of them. Yeah. My daughter from. My ex is. She's a hay shaker and yeah, she likes them. Okay. Well, yeah, he's the baseball player. His name's Bill. Real nice guy. And he used to be in a band that my former business partner went on tour with. I think they came out from New Mexico and went all over the place in Nevada and California and blah, blah. And so they got a long history, so they got the cat drop and what have you. A lot of stories from the road, boy. Glad I didn't do a whole lot of that. Yeah, Chris just booked a gig for us in Pacifica. Yeah, her cousin is booking that junk old for. I guess, or I guess it would be her grandpa. He's a rock and roller. He's. His birthday's coming up, so. And they live about a mile from us, so that's going to work out just fine. Yeah. Getting too old for all this road stuff. Oh, yeah. I kept hearing one story after another after another about, you know, tours and. And then, you know, my partner had gone on a couple of. A couple of tours with BB King and the Blues Set, whatever it is festival they did two years in a row and just. God, the stories and all the crap and, you know, stuff out in the middle of BSE and whatever, you know, Funny now to listen to, but I'm sure it wasn't then, you know. Oh, my lad's full of stories, man. When he was with the kids, supposed to be traveling internationally over in Japan, he says the girls over there were off the hook and their cover came back with the clap. Jesus. Yeah, I mean, doing one thing, you know, doing locally and. Or, you know, in the US Is one thing, but then going to. And overseas, man, that's. That's. That's a whole nother set of nightmares, so. Would not want to do that unless somebody's, you know, taking care of all the logistics and you're just along for the right type of thing. There's more interesting stories are South America, they had arm contrast guarding them, you know, on the bus, on the plane. And because, yeah, you don't want to lose sight of us. It's like, holy crap, we should have rethought this. Yeah, that's pretty insane. All right, I'm gonna pay attention here. Traffic's starting to. This is the most I've seen in a while, which is a good thing. I'm not complaining, but I need to pay attention here, so I think, you know. All right, keep going to work. How's that? We'll catch up with you at 672. All right, dude. Yep. Well, it's gonna be word. I'll be taking the San Mateo bridge. I haven't been on that sucker and, man, I don't remember the last time. All right, be listening. WP6J Davies. Decided on check up for 32. It's gonna be the same thing that you advertised. It's on 19 it looks like it's the big fat station master where they run around 8dB again. Not. Not the big 10 footer or 10 footer, 10 decibels gain, that's what, 23ft. I think Carla ended up with my old one that Was cut for 439.75. Came off of Bruno. But anyway. Yeah, think you know, but yep, we're going to go for that. What do you think of a couple at the over. There you go. I don't think. I don't think Cell Wave makes them anymore. I forget who we have to get them from there, but there's some company that makes them and I just. I can't remember who it is. But I'm sure you can find out there. All right. Buo. Yeah, we put these in. I don't know. Jeez, when was it? 80? No, 285. 2005 ish. I think for 20 years roughly. And so far so good. So I think, you know, It's a tough choice between that and the exposed side voles. But I switched over to 19 by the way and he on the coast, man, you know, just. We'll keep the last. Will be the last one that we ever put up there. All right. After that you were getting a little noisy there. Okey doke. Tail, It just shows you 32 is sucking even on receive. I'm getting going in and out with the little mole hills here. So talk to you later in 6. 72. All right, very good. I think it was DB Products that acquired Stall Wave memory. Serves me right and I'll have to look into that. All right, so you're on board with three with a couple of degrees of down tilt then. Bueno. WB, 68, 80.

W e6a x n repeater.

D.

Speaker A: System12. Link up.
Speaker B: That bragging
Speaker C: or complaining? 32 working. Good. To hayward. Wb6jkb mobile.
Speaker B: All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Switch down the
Speaker C: low power so I don't blow my fuse. I guess I will have to hook this thing up to the battery one of these days.
Speaker B: I got work to do.

Looks like this is going to be, I suspect that was so good. 32 all of a sudden got scratchy on me. How rude. It.

Ki6sm and kf6 obi.

Hey, Jamie, this is Chris. Are you coming out to Lake Oroville?

W6 rhc repeater check. Two. Zero november, india golf. Anybody know if jamie's online?

Any of the gears online.

Ki6smn kf6ovi.

D.

System21 link.

Fresno link.

D.

We6axm receiver.

W e6axm receiver.

Los Angeles link up.

Gears hold the slow speed Morse Cognat 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 net W6 RHC repeater check 3.

Facebook.

D.

W e6a x n repeater.

Nyan A d g connected.

G disconnected.

Nine a v g connected.

G. Disconnect it.

Speaker A: Sa.
Speaker B: System29link check in. This is system 30, lake shaft.
Speaker A: Sa.
Speaker B: K9a d g disconnected.

21, lift up.