You, me, Mewe

 mewe.com/i/dwdrang

FCC Reminder

 

Amateur & Personal Radio Users Reminded Not to Use Radios in Crimes

• Full Title: Warning: Amateur and Personal Radio Services Licensees and Operators May Not Use Radio Equipment to Commit or Facilitate Criminal Acts
• Document Type(s): Public Notice
• Bureau(s): Enforcement

Description:
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued today an advisory to remind licensees and operators in the Amateur and Personal Radio Services that they may not use radio equipment to commit or facilitate crimes.

• DA/FCC #: DA-21-73

The ARRL has posted the full text here. 

To clarify: The Personal Radio Service includes the cheap blister-pack FRS radios you can buy on the end cap at Wally World, the slightly more expensive and maybe slightly higher quality GMRS radios you have to actually look for. FRS radios require no license, GMRS radios do, but its a blanket; you, as owner, buy a license and it covers all the units you own, and whoever you allow to use one.

The Amateur Radio Service is, well, amateur radio operators. You have to take a test to get the license. As such, any licensed ham KNOWS you can't use any of these devices in the commission of a crime. 

So why now? Well, one might suggest that this is too little to late.

For about 10 years now you have been able to buy extremely cheap, Chicom made, handheld radios on Amazon. And when I say "extremely cheap", I mean that they cost a little more than that blister-pack pair of FRS radios. 

Also, while they transmit on the frequency you program in, they signal is very "dirty", with what are technically referred to as "spurious transmissions" or "spatter." In fact, bench testing indicates that most of these Chicom units, sometimes called "Kaodungs"as a mocking form of the names of many of these. (They're Chinese. They come from the same factories, made by the same slave labor, sold with different brand names. Or aliases, take your pick)

They are also problematic because they come off the boat able to transmit on many bands which it is illegal to transmit on in the USA without the appropriate licensing. And I am not talking about amateur bands, either. No, I'm talking about bands that are reserved for commercial or government or public safety use. Bands that you can get severe fines or jail time for transmitting on. 

Now, for decades it has been generally accepted that amateur radio operators will acquire radios that operate on any mode or frequency range and modify them to operate where they have operating privileges. And it is not illegal to own a radio you don't have the license to transmit on, as long as... you don't transmit.

And it is legal to use any communications means at hand if life safety is at risk. (Although there's a story about a ham who called for help on a public safety frequency, and got the help and arrested for "interfering with public safety" or some-such, so use with caution.)

ARRL has tested these "Kaodung" units, and like I said above, they have very messy, very bad signals. In fact, they probably do not meet Federal standards for use. Uncle Sam has been trying to stop the influx, to no avail. 

Sometime in the last few months I heard that antifa was using these things to coordinate their mostly peaceful protests. 

I almost titled this post "Too little, too late."

(See also my post "Hammy Stuff" from October 2018.)

Isn't that interesting... -- An Update

 So, what with all the news about Hunter Biden and the while sleazy, corrupt Biden clan, and the CSPAN "journalist" confessing to lying about sending that tweet and all, it has been an interesting day or two in social media, especially if one is part of the leftist/progressive/media/DNC persuasion, and I mean "interesting" in the Chinese curse sense. 

Or, of you prefer, in the US Senate accusing you of interfering with an election, and the FEC  being out for blood sense.

So I go into Twitter and I see John "Oh No!" Ringo has tweeted as follows:

(I took a "snip" and copied it in, instead of embedding the tweet, because embedding the tweet these days is... messy. Stray code all over the place. Link to the tweet here.)

So I attempted to tweet as follows: "Their brain is full?" and got:

Note the pink bar at the top...

I can't even tweet "Testing". 

Have I finally reached the level of deplorableness where I am worthy of having Twitter shut me down?

Or is Twitter just so all upgefukt over the mess it has made the least few days that it is melting down?

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: apparently it was everybody, everywhere. They're "investigating." 

Just coincidence it hit right as they were discovering the Streisand Effect? 

Sure, let's go with that.

A New Definition for "Chutzpah"

It used to be the guy that murdered his parents begging for leniency in sentencing, due to being an orphan.

Now it's the Director General of the World Health Organization saying we should have been listening to him all along...

#BREAKING 'World should have listened to WHO' on #coronavirus: Director General Tedros pic.twitter.com/N7eua2j0JA

— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 27, 2020

 

Oh, dear

Warning: Science and math, presented with a rather heavy Ukrainian accent. Mind you, she does a good job of making some pretty esoteric science understandable to the layperson, but some might be intimidated by the very concepts. (One might be tempted to turn on closed captioning, due to her accent. It might help, but I think they used a speech-to-text app, and it gets thrown off by homophones which aren't valid, due to... her accent.)

So that's an hour and a half of in-depth discussion of solar activity, including helioseismicity, sun spots, the corona, poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields...

... the gist of which is that Dr. Zharkova says that not only is the current (imminent, actually) sun spot cycle (25) going to be even lighter than the previous one (24, just ended), but she says that we are headed into a 30+ year Grand Minimum. (A sun spot cycle is usually about 11 years long, by the way.)

Can you say "Maunder"?

No solar activity means amateur radio continues to have poor propagation on the High Frequency bands, but, like the old George Carlin routine, it also means a mini-ice age, so I wouldn't sweat the propagation. As KB6NU points out in the blog post where I learned of this presentation, satellites are a workable alternative. (Yes, hams can and do use satellites. Yes they have their own issues.)

But, hey, at least that rig will be generating some heat...

...assuming there's power.


1. Solar minimum - Wikipedia. Political correctness leads Wikipedia to deny any correlation between solar minima and terrestrial climate.
2. I took a look at the effects of the Maunder Minimum in Quickie Book Review, The Global Crisis.
3. Homepage | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

“I Am An Adverb!”

So, there I was. 1980. Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey, California. Basic Korean Course. (For “listeners”, AKA "geeks"; they had a separate course at the time for interrogators, AKA “rubber hosers.”)

Now, the recruiters had taken one look at my test scores and decided I should take the Defense Language Aptitude Battery, or DLAB. I had not done so well in Spanish classes in school, but they insisted, so I went ahead.

When I walked out of the room I felt like my brains were running out of my ears.

There were multiple portions to the test. One checked for general knowledge of foreign languages; I recall one where the sentence said “le poisson est sur la table”, and you had to select the correct drawing, which variously featured a fish and a bottle of poison on, under, and beside a table.

Another section used English vocabulary, but made-up grammar. As I recall, it actually was similar to what I would be learning in Korean: “The boy went to the store” might be rendered “’Boy-ga’ ‘store-ay’ ‘go-ed’”; The “ga” suffix attached to “boy” indicates the subject of the sentence, and the “ay” suffix on “store” indicates his destination. The verb comes at the end of the sentence, and instead of using “went” you use “go” with a past tense indicator. Both the test and the Korean language were/are a lot more complicated than that. As I recall, by the end of that section of the test we were reading paragraphs and answering (trying to answer) questions about who did what to whom.

I did not know that

Last weekend I took the Oregon ACES class, a somewhat intensive course for amateur radio operators in emergency response. Unlike most such training, this one has a fairly rigorous hands-on component. More about that later.

Of the things that I learned that stand out, an odd one is this:

Everyone knows the "Mayday" for emergencies. Fewer are aware that it is from the French m'aidez, "help me."

What I did not know was that there are two other "levels" of emergency calls:

In order of priority, mayday is the internationally recognized distress call that is used as preface in VHF radio transmissions only in situations in which there is an immediate danger of loss of life or the vessel itself. This includes when a boat is sinking, there’s a fire in the engine room, or someone on board is unconscious or experiencing a serious injury or illness.

Pan-pan is the international urgency signal that is used as a preface to a VHF transmission when the safety of a person or the boat is in serious jeopardy but no immediate danger exists, but it could escalate into a mayday situation. For example, pan-pan is used in situations in which the boat has a slow leak or the engines are disabled and the boat is drifting toward a rocky shore.

Sécurité is a safety signal used as a preface to announce a navigation safety message. This may be an approaching storm, a navigation light failure, a submerged log in a harbor entrance or military gunnery practice in the area.

Source.  Which has further information that is supposed to be included in a proper SOS message.

Hopefully, news you can't, and never can, use...

Ignorance, arrogance, and "gunsplaining"

Seen on Twitter:

If I have this right, only climate scientists can have an opinion on climate change, but any jackass can opine on guns even if they don’t know a .22 from a 12 gauge.

— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) March 9, 2018

In all modesty, I believe I have an improvement:

"...don't know an ear plug from a rubber bullet."

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 9, 2018

It is my understanding that this sort of attempt by those of us who are knowledgeable about firearms technology and terminology to correct those who are clueless about same is now derided as "Gunsplaining". Note that the link goes to what might be called a "friendly" site, as opposed to the ones that criticize "gunsplaining" as using "jargon" in "bad faith" to "bully" the gun grabbers...

Because terminological inexactitude is unimportant when The Feelz are at stake.

So, remember, next time you feel the need to correct someone on "Standard Capacity" versus "High Capacity" magazines, or to explain the difference between the independent and dependent clauses in certain articles in The Bill of Rights, or why cosmetic features make little or no difference to the actual functioning of a firearm, or why  certain firearm features are actually safety features...

...Remember, I say, that you are engaging in jargon-based, bad-faith, bullying behavior.

Make sure you capture any progressive tears that ensue, as I am assured that they make excellent firearms lubricant.

Read The Label

So, did you hear the one about the two women who set sail from Hawaii on a three hour week trip to Tahiti, and got rescued of Japan five months later?

Two women rescued after 5 months adrift in the Pacific - CNN

This being the 21st Century, the story started unraveling rather quickly.
Questions raised about sailors' story after months stranded at sea

The best analysis is found here: 19 REASONS THIS “SURVIVAL” STORY SMELLS FISHY – UNREASONABLY DANGEROUS ONION RINGS (h/t Insty.)

Aside from the fact that I may have to start reading the Unreasonable Dangerous Onion Rings blog just for the name, this is essentially a detailed fisking of the entire story. In this case, go ahead and read the comments. (Note: If you're going to click through to the Daily Mail's coverage, you might want to warn your spouse lest she look over your shoulder when you reach the part about how one of the principles in this story led a "Shades of Grey" lifestyle. AMHIK.)

Anyway.

What brought me here was that, out of curiosity, I looked up de-salinators on Amazon, because, 5 months at sea you'd obviously have to have one.

The search returned 29 hits, most of which are filters or purifiers, not de-salinators.

Removing bugs and contaminants from salt water doesn't do you much good if you still can't drink the water...

Anyway, two rules:

1. Always read the product description. 
2. Never read the comments. 

Exception to 2. above:

• Unless you still have questions about the product description.

Note to Everybody

Inspired by Tam's post Copypasta from my Bookface wall...

Go ahead and unfriend me.

The only way I am going back to Facebook is if they change their rules to let one post using a pseudonym with your "legal ID" not publicly available, and not searchable, without a warrant.

I'd even be willing to pay a double sawbuck (that's a Jackson for you kids, AKA an Irony Note, until Harriet replaces Andy, at which time it will be a Freedom Note, I guess) per annum for the service.

Facebook can be a useful way to stay in touch with family and friends; people evacuating from Hurricane Harvey only need a couple of minutes to post to their wall "Safe in Dallas, more later" and everyone will know they made it out OK.

Google+ could do that much, too, and anyone who has an Android phone has a Google+ account by virtue of having an Android, AKA GMail, AKA Google, account. And Google+ does not demand you post your legal ID anywhere. (Ask me how I know...)

But Zuckerberg et. al. are more interested in making piles of money and in manipulating society than in providing a simple service that people would actually like.

So feel no guilt at all about trimming your friends list by one there.

BTW, I'm still on Twitter, as of this week. Not real active, compared to some, but posting a link to the blog posts will (or used to) cross-post to Facebook, and occasionally some SJW does or says something stupid...

Further on Men's Depression

As a follow-up to my previous post (Don't do it), which was inspired by Charlie Martin's article Bob Owens' Suicide, Dr. Helen Smith ("The InstaWife") has a related piece up, Men's Depression is Different | Dr. Helen.

When I heard about Bob Owens, I was heartbroken. Because as a psychologist, I know how much pain this man must have felt to have killed himself when he had two beautiful daughters. I have listened to men talk about these painful feelings for years, and I know that there is a good chance that some men will decide to do something differently than take their own life in the end. Some will not. What makes the difference? Someone who notices, cares and combats the distorted thoughts with the right words, therapy or both. Sometimes a difference can be made by changing an aspect of a person's life in one area or helping others to understand what a depressed boy or man looks like, or feels like.

One client I had was a young man who was extremely depressed. His tests showed his depression at over the 90th percentile but the teachers at his school had no idea. They thought that depressed people sat home and ate chocolate or seemed sad, not irritable and ill-natured like this kid. I explained to them the symptoms of male depression and it helped them understand that irritability, anger and defensiveness were part of this kids's depression. Once they understood what to watch for in this teen, we were able to work as a team with the school, his family and peers to help him to decrease his depression which in turn led to less anger and irritability and more success in school and at home.

Middle-aged and older men have a different set of problems but the solution is still the same: we must understand that men in our society get depressed, that the symptoms are often different than women's and that these men are deserving of our compassion, care, and medical intervention that needs to be tailored to men's issues and concerns and provided in ways that they can accept.

(Emphasis added.)

Look, just because you haven't won fame and fortune or medals doesn't mean you're a failure.

But in a society that hands out trophies for simply showing up, it can seem like it.

Worse, the values that we used to accept without hardly thinking are increasingly under attack. A man's word is his bond, a mans home is his castle...

Speak your mind, say your piece in disagreement with the Progressive narrative and riots break out.

Hell, the mere presence of a man, especially a middle aged white man, is enough to cause social justice warriors to start shrieking like air raid sirens. (Is "air raid sirens" a triggering phrase?)

 I'll close with this break down of suicide stats in Dr. Helen's article:

We say that there is a suicide crisis in our country but what we really need to address more in depth is male suicide. Men are 4-5 times more likely to take their lives. At the time I wrote my book, Men on Strike, the latest suicide statistics showed that of the 38,364 people who killed themselves in 2010, 30,277 were men. This is unacceptable. Bob Owens death is unacceptable. And face it, our biased, sexist society overlooks men's suicides because it is mainly white men who kill themselves. Some barbaric people even celebrate this fact.

Don't do it

So, at one time one of my favorite songs was the theme song to M*A*SH,  which, of course, is entitled "Suicide is painless." Nice song.

Evil sentiment.

You might end your own pain, but you just transfer it to those who care about you.

Instapundit » Blog Archive » PAY ATTENTION: Men’s Depression Is Subtle. But It Can Kill….

Link goes here: Bob Owens' Suicide

I never met Bob Owens.  I dropped comments at one or the other of his blogs over the years, but so far as I know he never knew who I am.

Nevertheless, we in the gun blogging and gun rights' communities have lost one of our own.

The sad thing is, I was discussing this matter the other day with a peer and colleague and friend at work, who was concerned about one of her crew. I suppose she expected me to pull some magic solution out of my ass, since he is also a retired NCO. I'm sure she was disappointed when I came up blank.

Bob Owens' Suicide

This is a man's depression.

It starts subtly, covertly. It creeps in on little cat feet.

It isn't a feeling of sadness. You're irritable, irascible, short-tempered. Often, you feel unusually tired, often achy -- it feels like you have a bit of a cold, or maybe the flu. You're not hungry, or you're hungry but nothing tastes good, nothing is appealing.

You start having trouble sleeping. Either you can't get to sleep, or you get to sleep but wake up at 3 a.m., and can't get back to sleep. Either way, you lie awake, and your thoughts start going to dark places -- replaying humiliations from your past, or fantasizing trouble in your future.

Of course, now that you're missing sleep, you're even more tired, more cranky. People start to wonder what's wrong, but they don't ask because it's not the sort of thing one does; and you know something is wrong, but you don't talk about it because you've been taught since childhood that men just pull up their socks and get on with life. Besides, it's not like anyone can do anything -- you just need to gut it out. No one said you were going to be happy all the time.

Go read the whole thing. And look out for the signs, if your buddy, your brother, your husband father co-worker neighbor whoever is showing the signs.

He may not know what is wrong.  The problem is especially acute in "macho" fields like the military, law enforcement, construction, and so forth.

I'll close with a quote of the final paragraph of Charlie Martins' essay:

If this sounds familiar, if you see yourself in this description, you may be depressed, and yes, you can be depressed and not realize it. This is a depression screener; it doesn't take long. If you're thinking those dark thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is there, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, at 800-273-8255. They understand, it's completely anonymous, and you don't have to be suicidal to call them. And if you're of a mind to, there is a GoFundMe for Bob Owens' wife and kids.

PSA, Cybersecurity Edition

Generating a Bunch Of "Internet Noise" Isn't Going to Hide Your Browsing Habits

I thought that was obvious, but maybe that's because traffic analysis is what I do did.

Note that the guy who wrote the "Internet Noise" app actually says in his write up of the thing that it's "protest-ware", not an actual privacy/security app.

Which seems pointless, but what do I know? If it makes you happy to clog system resources in a gesture the people you're protesting at won't even notice, go for it.

Earworm, 12/23/2016

Sometimes I need to not share the events of the day by texting a peer who is off...

...Sorry.

If I had the buck$ to spend...

...on fellow bloggers, including those I haven't actually met...

I'd buy Bobbi one of these keyboards.

Of course, I don't know how good of a keyboard it would be, so she'll probably need a spare computer, too, so maybe it's just as well I don't have the buck$ to spend on fellow bloggers...

(Although for a mere $100+ they will sell you a set of keycaps that work with other keyboards if they use certain switches. I'm ignernt about that switchology, though, so I'll hold off...)

I think I also need to buy a cup of coffee for whoever at Blogger added an "Emoticon" drop down menu to the tool bar. It can easily get out of hand, but I've never been able to figure out how to use ASCII codes to make © or ¢ or ≠ symbols.  Plus, typing in an ampersand usually gets all jacked up, but this automagically fixes it.

#TrendingOnTwitter

#trudeaueulogy - Twitter Search

So, Canada had to elect their own SCOAMF, and now he's a world-wide laughing stock because he failed to realize that nil nisi bonum doesn't mean you should praise the evil dead.

We mourn the death of Vlad the Impaler, who spearheaded initiatives which touched the hearts of millions. #TrudeauEulogies #trudeaueulogy pic.twitter.com/z1pznoHj7P

— Conservosaurus (@conservosaurus) November 26, 2016

Check the date!

You know how all the Trumpites are losing their shit at this story?: Colorado Republicans cancel presidential vote at 2016 caucus - The Denver Post

Check the original publication date: Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015.

Nearly eight months ago.

Don't recall what the polling looked like back then, but not spending money on caucusing so late in the primary season that it normally wouldn't have an impact on results probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

(Washington's  caucuses are done, but our primary is in May.)

(Since they have not adjusted to the fact that I retired over 15 years ago, my "military ballot" is already in the mail arrived today.)

(Minor update to fix wording, to match actual meaning, and update per the daily mail...)

Cool! Also, "What the hell?!"

So, in my post "Odds and Ends from #NRAAM 2015:, I reported that, when queried Ruger reps about their SP101 and LCR models in .327 Federal Caliber, they seemed dismissive because "You'd need a three-inch barrel to make it work." Guy I was talking to never really made it clear why that was such a stumbling block, granted it might be less than ideal for a pocket carry revolver, but it's not like a three inch tube is that hard to make.

This showed up in my in-box today: Ruger Releases LCR in .327 Federal Magnum | Gun Digest:

Like the rest of the LCRs, the new .327 has the dimensions to make it a slick deep-cover or backup gun. The double-action-only revolver is only 1.3 inches wide and tips the scales at 17 ounces, making it more than convenient for pocket carry. It has a 1.875-inch barrel and comes outfitted with a Hogue Tamer Monogrip, a feature that should make recoil even more manageable. It also has a pinned, replaceable ramp front sight and integral U-notch rear.

Emphasis added. What's up with that, Ruger?  Was I talking to a sales rep who didn't know squat? Was this some sort of disinformation campaign? And why? Why not just say "stay tuned"?

Oh, look! An SP101 in .327 Federal too! Ruger SP101® Double-Action Revolver Model 5773. "Four inch barrel", and I bet you could find a 'smith to chop it off an inch and a half and turn it into a snub...

So, what's the big deal a bout .327 Federal? Quoth Gun Digest:

The .327 Magnum has plenty of selling points in and of itself. Among these is it’s potent, yet manageable to shoot. The round achieves velocities similar to a .357 Magnum; it actually outperforms the larger cartridge in snubbed-nosed revolvers, such as the LCR. Of course, there’s a rub to the small magnum’s performance: It’s with a smaller projectile.
Presently, the majority of .327 Federal Magnum ammunition is topped with 85- to 130-grain bullets. And while availability is typically not a problem, there isn’t a ton of different rounds to choose from. However, shooters need not fear about fodder for a LCR in this caliber. It’s fully capable of shooting .327 H&R Magnum, .32 S&W Short and .32 S&W Long rounds as well.

 Would probably make a decent bedside gun,  especially if/when Crimson Trace makes a Lightguard for it. (Apparently they don't, but I thought I saw one listed or announced for a Smith & Wesson J-Frame revolver, so if that's true, the SP101 and LCR should be doable, if the demand is there.)

UPDATE: Lasermax sells a trigger guard-mounted light for J Frame revolvers. 

Just to be clear...

This is illegal in the US: The Enigma Event | Southgate Amateur Radio News

Members of the ARI Fidenza will be activating special callsigns IO4ENG and IQ4FE during the 'Enigma Event'.
The Enigma Event consists of exchanging ham radio messages over the air encrypted with the Enigma code of WW II memory to commemorate its importance in the history of communications and encryption.

Isn't that special...?

Anyway, it is illegal for amateur radio operators to send messages that are encoded or encrypted. Maybe Europe has different rules. Maybe the Italians have different rules. A club member's daughter was an exchange student in Italy, and her host was an Italian amateur operator, and according to him, all Italian hams are military veterans. I dunno.

Anyway. Considering it's origins, I find "commemorating" the Enigma code to be a little...creepy.

What Bugs Me About The NRA

It's not that it occasionally pursues a tactic (or strategy) that I disagree with, although sometimes I have to wonder what they see over there on the Least Coast.

No, it's that they keep sending me stuff urging me to join.

Not to renew -- although that would be irritating, as a Life Member for decades -- and not to upgrade my membership, but to join.

One would think that they would cross-check the various databases and notice that these variations on the same name all list the same address, so let's not bother sending this mailing. Maybe send the version of the "Great Gun Giveaway Contest" asking Patron Members to upgrade to... whatever is higher than that.

But, no. They have to waste money sending me a mailing urging me to sign up for the first time.

Not exactly like asking the Pope if he's been baptized, but...