Hi Tess,

I do believe that while musical ability and language ability are not required, that it can be a plus. The ability to learn tempo & etc. make a strong case. I once taught a young lady friend of mine half the Morse code during about a 1  1/2 hour drive.  Now, that WAS exceptional, and though she could not hold a tune , even with a VERY large bucket, she was a professional ballroom dancer, so rythm and format made sense to her.  I'd give her the DAAH DI DAAH DI    and she'd call out "C". Eventually I was spelling words (nice ones...) and she'd tell me the word. She thought that it was 'fun', having never been told that it would be difficult. Come to think of it, she also had reading difficulties, but learned the code easily and retained it.

So - if she was all that keen on radio and on me and learned Morse so well - why are we not together now?  Well, the last contact with her, she stole over $400 out of my bank account, leaving $5 to keep it open. . .  My lawyer said that it would be more trouble than it was worth to go after her and the police were not interested. However, she was extremely pretty   :-*  , so I guess that make it all OK.   :o  Come to think it it, she also told her boss that I was some kind of a terrorist, because I had radios and used 'secret code' (Q-signals.) Fortunately, this was well before 9/11.

Some lessons in Morse are best forgotten .  ha ha

de Ray

Peer-2-peer  goes directly between hams.

a WINLINK message goes into the WINLINK system for auto-forwarding. Via internet, it will route to the stations where the ham usually picks-up his radio e-mail, or to the 'normal e-mail address of a non-ham.

It is very common for hams to have a couple of WINMOR (or winlink) stations between them where they can send/receive messages for each other, not requiring internet, by using those intermediary stations as a BBS/Mail Box. There is also provision for BULLETINS which is quite handy during disasters.


de RadioRay ..._ ._

In the movie "Independence Day" those were no-code aliens.




de RadioRay ..._ ._

WINMOR can be used ham2-ham for error FREE transfer of anything that you can send over internet.  More useful is that it also allows you to send/receive 'normal' e-mail through about three dozen e-mail/radio servers located around the US and Canada.  This means that if you lose internet at your location or are on the move and have none at the present time, you CAN send/receive e-mail with those who still have it.  These e-mail/radio ground stations or ANY WINMOR ham station can also be used as an on-the-air mail box - very similar to the old dial-up BBSs during the pre-internet days to hand-off messages directly from one ham to the other when they log into that intermediary station.

In short - yes - e-mail over radio is and has been around for a couple of decades and it's esier , more effective and less expensive than it's ever been. When you are busy 'survivin' you might not be able to make your skeds that require same freq/same time, but e-mail over radio is as handy as 'normal' e-mail.



>de RadioRay ..._ ._

Those who are familiar with the Peltier effect, know that you can use power into it to produce a temperature difference betweentwo sides ofa single device OR induce a temperature differene to produce electricity, at fairly hefty current.  Well, here is a mini-ducted fan camp stove that is VERY efficient on fuel AND recharges USB devices.  I have never used this unit, but have worked with Peltier devices before for heating/cooling of metalic plates.

http://shop.biolitestove.com/BioLite-CampStove_p_15.html


I can imagine a coffee shop on Stattan Island using Hurricane debris & these for hot java/soup while recharging phones without infrastructure.


>de RadioRay ..._ ._

Now I'm hungry for . . . CAKE !      Mooooo-ha-ha-ha!

I've spent most of my life prepped and on the edge of one wilderness or other - unless I was working overseas, and even then, I had at least three plans in place.  Now that things are actually closing in, I'm no longer young & strong and am in fact injured. While I do live in a great location in my immediate county or two, I am far from where I used to live - in the mountains of Idaho.  My preps are probably at the worst point in thirty years, but slowly crawling forward again.  An advantage is the land that we live on is very good, and location - brilliant! surrounded by farm land and forest on a semi-isolated peninsula. The weather is generally mild with 40's considered to be cold and only rarely below freezing. Being 70 air miles from Washington D.C. is somewhat prejudicial . . .    :P

As for the almost 'humming' numbness - I do sense that here and on other boards.  I think that many are reconsidering their preps , the much more obvious need for them and wondering how little time we have before the talking heads on the TV begin to use phrases like 'dollar devaluation' , 'civil unrest in major cities',  (read: unrestricted rioting, raping and murder by the usual suspects) 'gun-collection' for food, and lock-down  of sub-urban & rural areas by law enforcement and military (foreign?) where 'right wing racists' are taking the law into their own hands (Translated: normal people are defending themselves.) .  I think that if anything, this latest propaganda exercise is making Prepper's transition from a theoretical 'some-day' exercise to an actual time-line, and beginning to wonder just how far we are behind the time-curve.

Who knows - maybe in ten years this will all prove to be nothing, but I think that many of us are now living on the edge of dread, understanding like we never have before and THEY are in control - not us.  Whether 'blue or red', I think that many people understand that this was a political farce.  An exercise in controlled opposition and that we're increasingly being pointed toward the slaughter house door with fewer options and at ever increasing speed. A few 'handy' 9/11 type events and we can be whipped into a full gallop, carried along by the herd into the chute to the slaughter house door.  We have the power to shut this down, but we do not have the direction to resist effectively - yet.  // Personally - I believe that direction is going to be from God. //


Now back to Yahoo! to see what those Khardasian sisters are wearing . . . and why that sweaty football player has his arms around those pretty college co-eds, Lindsay LowBrow in her new movie & other "IMPORTANT" stuff designed to distract and numb me . If only I owned a TV - then everything would be OK!   ::)



73 de RadioRay ..._ ._

Guilty & guilty-er . . .

I once had a brand-new, shiney engineer challenge me, whether I knew Pi off the top of my head;  I said "Sure!  3.579".  He looked at me oddly - thinking   :o  Then I realized that as a HAM RADIO GUY, I had rattled-off the frequency of the T.V. color burst crystal I had scrounged for my 80 meter QRP rig, not Pi.  The funny thing is that I said it so confidently, that he never challenged me as to whether it was correct or not!


Yes - Ham radio is mildly contageous but once it is in your system, a cure is unlikely.


>de RadioRay ..._ ._

It never ceases to amaze me, the reactions of people to the idea of prepping.  I was wading through a media-hyped Prepper story on Yahoo (I know - whyyyy bother???) and the number of dolts who criticise having basic preps like water, food and firearms, in light of the ongoing tragedy in Nj/Ny is simply amazing.   It broke down into a few catagories:

How stupid - what if a giant meteor came down on your house, how would this help?

How stupid - what are the odds of your ever needing water and food?

How stupid - I'll come there with my "gun" and kill you and take your food.

How stupid - the government will come there with black helicopers and take your food.

How smart - I need to do more of that.


New Jersey and New York are still in the news, with all that entails and this is the general response?  It simply amazes me how ignorant people can be.  A disaster might just be a 'correction' in the gene pool.



Your Thoughts?



de RadioRay ..._ ._

Ps. Somewhere, there's a cow looking at the pasture gate -vs- the door to the slaughter house and wondering . . .

The More People Change, the more they stay the same. We do the same silly things that were in style 2 millenia ago.

I was reading through a bit about the life of Cicero in ancient Rome. At the time, there was a list of the enemies of the Emperor. Here's the deal:

#2.  Put that 'somebody's' name on the list.  (Evidence not required)
#3.  Receive YOUR reward which is taken from part of their property, or get it ALL for an amazingly low price.

You ask 'Where is #1?" .  Oh, that's the easy part:

#1. Find somebody with 'stuff' nicer than yours. It's helpful but not essential to not like them and sometimes better for YOU if you DO like them, because it's all the more convincing.

Now, Cicero was brilliant, well liked by the people, upwardly mobile and feared by many in the political elite. He ALSO had a great family farm in an upscale neighborhood and lot's of other 'cool stuff'. Wonder what Cicero was concerned about happening to him?  Yes - The List - - -

Politicians have not changed one iota - except maybe that they don't need to be nearly as intelligent or careful. At least in Cicero's day, even an Emporer could find himself torn apart by a mob, or stabbed to death on the way to work by a bunch of other politicians during the ides of March.  Today - politicians have it WAY too easy!


Et Tu Brute?


>de RadioRay ..._ ._

The reason that be have a million obscure "laws" is so that everyone is guilty of something.  It makes tyrany so much easier.

Until 2007 when I moved aboard my little sailboat, these were my ride in the garage area at work. Oh - and these models are automonous >>> Not a Standard Stryker. 



I remember reading on one survival board the question of how to get home from work in an SHTF situation.  With what we had at work - everyone was going home with no troubles at all. Nothing outside of military anti-armor weapons inventory as going to stop these.

These days - I'm an ageing ex-engineer who pretty-much either drives a little Toyota or trys to walk . . .


It was fun while it lasted.
de RadioRay ..._ ._

 ... begins when we realize that we have so much to learn and that we cannot learn it all in this phase of our existance.


I look forward to eternity.



>Ray

Yes!  That's some good schtuph!

Many years ago (shortly after the Earth's crust cooled) I took a fancy to the Danner Ft. Lewis boot. In it's day, that was hot stuff and many of the Army Ranger types liked them as well (probably where the name came from). 

You're absolutely on the right track.  My reff against the flexi-runner type 'trail walkers' for wilderness work, is more for those who might read here for general ideas about gear. Those shoes are advertised so heavily as being for backpacker's, but my experience iwth those types has been "OK-feels nice" upfront, but barely adequate protection & very poor retention of structual integrity/support over time . As I am certain that you know, there is a world of difference between trail walking -v- humping a ruck when your life depends upon it and you have NO logistics chain to keep you in footgear.

de RadioRay ..._ ._

Wilderness tip (from an ex-mountainman)

I know that you know this, but I'll mention it anyway. Get the BEST boots that you can afford.  If your feet fail - you are in a world of trouble! For bounding down a well packed, yuppie-friendly trail while munching a Cliff bar or slurping an energy goo; low, lite flexi-shoes are fine.  However, for the real world off trail, heavy, tough and supportive are more important.  Match the boot to the environment.  Form me in the mountains of the west I exclusively work Meindl boots from Germany.  They cost a fortune, but in harsh, rocky, up/down carrying heavy loads - excellent.  Down in the Florida ticky-boonies, you may have some other boot type that works best, perhaps with features like Panama soles for shedding mud & etc. Nobody likes to do ten miles with 20 pounds of mud on each foot !  ha ha

Forget jungle boots, unless you're living IN the water.  If you step in one or two puddles a day, those water exit valves in the arch only make for unnecessarily wet socks. If you're wading through swamps, then consider them water shoes on steroids and make certain that you've had a ton of vaccinations for all the microscopic crap in swampy water.    :o
  I happen to LOVE jungle boots, for wearing in light duty, temperate environments,  so I RTV the vent holes.


Sheath knife - Hood Punk.  or similar.


As for the secondary useage of the head net - we weren't even near any mosquitoes, but it gave me a smile when later I was.   ;)



73 de RadioRay ..._ ._