Episode 136 - Tornado Season

The peak of tornado season is February, you always need to be prepared for any kind of weather.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, everyone, Happy twenty twentyfour. Yes, because I haven't made
a podcast in twenty twenty four yetor since sometime in the beginning of December.
I had a lot of stuff happened, but I won't even bring up
anything from the old year. We'lljust start now, I know it.
Really, to be honest with you, I ran out of material. I
had really nothing to talk about andnothing that I thought was interesting to y'all.

(00:25):
So I just kind of fell outof it for a while. I
have been on HF every single day, the HF Activity Group hfqso dot com.
I've been on that in the vehicleseventeen meters, fifteen meters, twelve
meters, and ten meters. YesterdayI got all four. Sometimes seventeen is
really good, fifteen is good,then twelve starts to fade and I can't
hear anything on ten. But yesterdaywas perfect. And let me tell you,

(00:46):
there must have been seventy to eightypeople that participated in that just on
seventeen meters yesterday and last week.I think they had a record total of
all four bands two hundred and somethingcontacts in one day just from the HF
Activity group. Just giving signal reports. You'll see how it works if you
just check it out. I justmade a recent video again using a three

(01:07):
D printed n FED that Eric andNew York had experiment would have made something
for me to give away and totest and play with. And I gotta
tell you, though, what's messedup is so on that and FED seventeen
was okay, fifteen wasn't good atall, But that's sixty or seventy feet

(01:33):
whatever. In FED. I getway more contacts on the road on the
Highway Mobile with my little tar heelhp AD, a little hundred watt seventy
one hundred radio and there's only whatthirty two inches of radiator on top of
that antenna. It's not much.And I mean I get people all over
the country and some DX who've gotthe Mexico station and the guy in the

(01:55):
UK and stuff that participates every dayin Canada and stuff. They also give
me reports. So I do thatevery day, and I really haven't done
anything else. I've gotten to knowthese guys now on here and about where
they sound like or what they soundlike every day where they're at. Uh
And I just got on at tenthirty. I leave it sitting starting on

(02:17):
eighteen dot one, five seven dotfive, and I just drive and then
I'll hear him talking when the whenthe when the activity group starts at twelve
thirty Eastern or thirteen thirty at TC. And surprisingly I hear Buddy over in
California. He was an S seven. I hear Tom over in Texas,
he's always an S nine. Uh, this early in the morning. Uh,

(02:39):
there's just people everywhere. So thisis the peak of the solar cycle.
If somebody told you, I mean, we're coming up to the peak.
If somebody told you that the bandsare dead, don't listen to them.
I mean, I literally, ifI had a log book and I
could actually log while I'm driving,if I wanted to log, I'd fill
the book up in a week.I mean, that's how much HF I'm
working. So by the time weget home, I don't think a un

(03:01):
Sube Rahm Rady or whatever. Soanyways, we got some severe weather coming
now. Just in case you didn'tknow, the peak of tornado season is
February, and this is affecting multiplestates across the country. I was just
listening to Tom in Texas. Hewas watching some video footage on people that

(03:23):
have cams at their house and weathercams and storm chasers, and man,
there's some serious amount of tornadoes.It's a tornado outbreak on this thing.
It's like a huge line of frontalline, frontal boundary, and it's associated
with a coal front. And thisthing comes sweeping across and it's going anywhere
from Texas all the way up toNew England and everywhere in between as it

(03:43):
goes across the country. The thingI want to remind people is again the
peak of tornado season is February.This happens every year, and this should
be treated with severe weather, justlike hurricane season or just like natural disasters
or whatever. People get too complacent, not saying you guys. People get
too complacent when they turn your weatherradios off because it's not summer. And

(04:06):
mine sits on every day and everyWednesday it sends out a test. It
goes off. Sometimes that test willcome on at six o'clock in the morning
by accident, and it wakes meup. But that's what it's designed to
do. So you know, aweather radio is something twenty four to seven
and emergency power like the generator andstuff. You can get a tornado or

(04:29):
I get this storm's coming later inmy area about anywhere between five and eight
pm. And the person I heardsomebody talking at the gas station this morning
is getting gas that Target. Hiswife works at Target, and they send
out a first time ever an employeesafety of work saying, hey, listen,
you guys, be prepared. Thisis nasty weather coming today, and

(04:51):
be prepared on where you're at andget ready in case something, you know,
for the workers that are at whetherthey're a home or at work.
Target does that, but it comesa point when people just are totally blank,
like, oh, there's a there'sa a severe storm. Yes,
I mean these are right now.I'm driving through forty mile an hour wins.

(05:12):
They're expecting gusts over sixty to seventymiles an hour today right now.
The one I'm driving through is tropicalstorm force thirty nine miles an hour or
above. So you know, thepeople that have their blow up snowman's and
stuff that are down the street thatare still blown up, they won't be
there later. And I hope thatthey take those things down because there's some

(05:35):
Christmas decorations everywhere and it's January ninth, so just an FYI just you know,
not for I'm sure everybody here's listening. If you're not not picking on
you, but find somebody or tryto enlighten somebody that talks to you about.
Oh well, I don't know whereradar is. I didn't know there's
severe weather. I don't watch thenews. Well, somebody's got to have

(05:57):
a way to know when there's somethingcoming, because you can get this line
of storms coming with tornadoes that comethrough, and you would pray for a
hurricane instead, tornadoes can destroy yourhouse, take out power for days.
Close roads, I mean right nowin the Panhandle up there that way,
Kansas, wherever, somewhere of thatway. I mean, I know Tallahassee,
Pensacola area, South Georgia. Schoolsare closed, roads are closed because

(06:23):
of already debris, multiple widespread powerodges. There's hundreds of thousands of people
without power. And guess what,It's forty one degrees up there, so
those people are probably freezing their assoff with no heat, you know what
I mean. So just have aplan ready, even if it's not hurricane

(06:43):
season, even if it's not youknow, world War three, Even if
the zombies don't come to the door, have some kind of plan to be
ready, you know, just forthe simple fact that when that happens,
if it happens, you don't wantto be driving out to get something that
you can't afford time or don't have, like, oh man, powers would
be out. Let me get agenerator now, because I sold mine after

(07:04):
hurricane season. No, I've heardpeople do that before they buy it.
They have to have it no hurricaneseason, they get pissed, they sell
it, and then get into thesummer, they go buy another one if
they could find one, you know. I mean, my generator sits for
it's sitting and it stays there,you know. So that's it. That's

(07:26):
my little rant there. In myfield of business or career, I am
in touch and responsible with a lotof public safety and radio networks and and
UH state wide radio networks for emergencycommunications like this, so you could you
can you can know that if Ihave tower sites that are on generator power,

(07:47):
I have to monitor it and ifthe generator doesn't start, I have
to go out and deploy a portablegenerator, you know, before the site
goes down on batteries, you know, because those sites are microwave and they're
really helping out with the State ofFlorida for public safety and the Highway Safety
Vehicles and Department of Transportation and allkinds of different organizations that utilize tower sites

(08:13):
here, I mean, and thatcould quickly recavoc with a tornado which has
done before. They come right acrossthe state and you know, doesn't lay
the tower over, but damn suretweaks some dishes or bends antennas and then
you've got to have tower climbers goup to fix it. But moral of
the story is that's why that stuffexists for simple fact that anything could happen,

(08:33):
severe weather can happen anywhere, andthey've got to have a way to
communicate when all else fails, whichis correct radio. So those who understand,
thank you. Those who don't understandwhat radio does. I understand that
you don't understand. That's why Itry to over the years explain what you

(08:54):
could do. You know, radio, amateur radio is a fun hobby,
but it teaches you a lot aboutwhat actually happens. And radio saves lives,
you know, whether it be gmrs, whether it be CB radio,
whether it be HAM radio. Butit'd be microwave radio. It all has
a purpose. And there's all kindsof people out there that are now jumping

(09:16):
onto amateur radio license because they wantto be prepared for anything. And I'll
throw the plug out because I justfor the last couple of months looking at
numbers and stuff out for the BlackFriday sales or hand radio Prep ise up.
Man. Another couple hundred people havewent and used hand Radio Prep to
get their license and they passed.Hand Radio Prep makes it in book form,

(09:41):
they make it. The most impressiveis the online, you know,
online courses. They have graphics andall that brain games and videos that can
watch. It makes it so easyto understand just what the hell you're getting
tested on. So, you know, I had a bunch of codes in
the past. I gave all ofthem out to a lot of people that
I had to push, you knowwhat, but no, all I wanted
to get it your book. Idon't have the money for the course.

(10:03):
Okay, here, it's all paidfor. There you go. I gave
it a course for free and goin there and got it. And you
know what, they got it.They actually did it, and they said,
wow, I should have done thissooner. So Ham Radio Prep greatest
sponsor I ever had. Thank youto hamradyop Prep. And if you're not
a hambrideo operator and you're listening tothis podcast, you can agree with the
the storm season, you know,a tornado season, and being prepared.

(10:26):
It's all about that. So rightnow, when I'm driving down south,
I'm already in my head that Imight be driving back through this and I
might have a road closure, imight get blown off the road. My
wife might have an issue at homeand needs to get a hold of me.
Is she's got bergey stuff there?What if a tornado blows my house
apart and I'm not home because this, you know, this line of storms
is severe, very severe, Sobe prepared, keep an eye on the

(10:52):
weather. Always have a weather radiowith batteries in it back you know,
backup batteries so that if power goesout, it still works. And check
out my videos in the past onweather radio is how they actually work.
Did you know that you know thatthat eas tone that is actually a coded

(11:13):
message that actually has data in itto tell which radios to open the squelch
and to go into alarm, whichradios to display on the front what the
alarm is is a tornadoes or hurricanewatch warning at what time it is.
That's a coded message. I dida whole video on that. It's called
Same Technology SAM for weather radios.Check that video out. That's pretty fun

(11:37):
to realize it's more than an annoyingtone to get your attention. That tone
is what sets off your radio,and that's how you know exactly which radio
is to set off based on location. So check that out if you want,
and I'll wrap it up here elevenfifty two, eleven fifty five called
twelve minutes. Thanks everyone, andyou know, I'll try to figure out

(11:58):
something though the blabbering on the road. It's kind of fun staring out the
window and just talking about bluetooth toa podcast, but I know you want
to learn something or have something totalk about, so just stay tuned hang
out. Email me at ham RadioConcepts at gmail dot com if you have
any questions or ideas on some futurestuff. And seventh Rio