Intel Update - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the Intel update halfhazard as it may be for October 5th 2024 uh really I'm just going to talk about uh some of the issues and concerns that I have seen uh from the hurricane Helen damage recovery efforts over the past week or so as many of you may know I'm not exactly located directly in the middle of the disaster Zone thankfully I'm a few hours away from it. However uh things haven't exactly been uh entirely peachy uh this week it's I've spent a lot of time with a shovel in my hand so um I've kind of run out of time with regards to tracking a lot of the other international events and things like that I know there's war kicking off in Lebanon I know that uh the Middle East is is popping off again. But honestly I just uh I don't really care uh at the moment when um when we've got huge huge problems here in the United States right here in kind of my neck of the woods so I'm going to focus on that for for a little bit so today I wanted to do a little bit more of a just more disorganized than usual uh kind of wrap up with regards to the nature of the emergency itself how serious this is for those of you who may not um be following this along with some of the uh really rapid fire Lessons Learned uh right now everyone's kind of short for time right we've got 30 days for till the election and it doesn't look like it's going to be a very peaceful one to be honest uh so you know we we've got a lot of things stacking up and I don't have enough time to sit down and really you know think about uh Doctrine and things like that so we knew this was was going to happen we knew this was going to be busy so it's not anything out of the ordinary it's not anything surprising um it's just we're kind of strapped for time now right so I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things that I have learned and some of the the the considerations that you might want to take. Moving forward and I'm going to talk about some of the problems because I have seen a few problems uh with regards to This Disaster Response in the world of radio and it's just gotten me kind of hot under the collar so I I feel like I need to say something about that sort of stuff so so let's briefly Rec AP the the nature of this kind of emergency and why this is such a big deal. Even though hurricanes happen all the time why is this one such a big deal here's why so mid last week hurricane Helen made landfall uh really on the uh the panhandle of Florida. And then moved almost directly north through Georgia South Carolina and into the North Carolina Tennessee Mountains right in the heart land of Appalachia right or Southern Appalachia at least why is this such a big deal well the entire area really wasn't prepared for it because this is this is more along the lines of a hundred-year storm or even maybe a thousand year storm who knows all we know is that uh hurricanes normally impact coastal areas. But in this case uh it drove right into the mountains so we've got a you know category 4 hurricane I think it made landfall as a category 4 hurricane drove all the way North uh right into some areas that are not historically prepared for hurricanes so what are we talking here we're talking about a lot of people don't have flood insurance because they don't live in a flood plane because a flood has never happened in some areas before or at least history doesn't you know record it so that's one of the major concerns is Insurance a lot of people do not have uh insurance for floods in some of these regions because it's just not it just wasn't a concern before this sort of thing so the other reason why this is such a problem is that it didn't hit one area really hard and really specifically uh it really hit the whole region kind of at once so you know unlike Katrina uh which we kind of all know and think in terms of like this is a bad hurricane kind of thing we all think of Katrina right drove straight into New Orleans New Orleans disaster zone for years right well unlike that situation where you've got really the the main problem centralized in New Orleans the whole region here is kind of um hit so you may have people say oh well this wasn't as bad as Katrina well yeah maybe in a point Zone. But throughout spread out if you've got a whole lot of damage spread out throughout the whole region and you've got roads missing that's a huge huge problem right I'll get to that in a moment. But if you've got a lot of damage spread across the whole region this rapidly becomes a more serious problem uh that that can't really easily be solved so a lot of people are saying ah you know the federal government has allocated you know uh more Disaster Response supplies for Katrina than for uh the Appalachian Zone in terms of things like helicopters so let's just take the helicopter measure for a minute well if you're flying a lot of helicopters into into and out of an area New Orleans is small you can fly over New Orleans in a few minutes in a helicopter Appalachia man you might be flying an hour before you hit the people in need so you're talking about a lot of back and forth it's just when when you don't have a disaster localized it makes everything harder and like I mentioned it's made Harder by the fact there are no roads so it isn't as simple as oh we'll just go and repave man I'm telling you mountains have moved okay you're not going to be repaving you're not going to be putting the roads back so if you've got a North Carolina road map right now it ain't going to look the same this time next year these roads are literally going to have to move probably many miles out of the way uh now it's not like you could just move the road over and repave no no the whole side of the Mountain's gone so this is a huge problem for Recovery efforts because it's not like the pavement just kind of slipped away or there's a little bit of sand on the road no the road is gone like it's not there anymore so this presents a problem even you've got places where you've got a two-lane Highway going through an area and now that road is is so missing that you can't even walk where the road was like there's no ground there anymore so this presents a huge problem for Recovery too and again bringing back in the widespread nature of this if you are if you are say if you live a mile off of a main hardack roadway and you can't use a road to get get from that you know road back to your place or to your street or whatever it may take you a full day okay mountains are no joke so you know if you live a couple miles outside of a town it may take you 10 to 12 miles to by foot to get someplace because you because it's just mountains right so again mountains are no joke flooding in mountains is no joke it is some very serious very deadly stuff um so this is why this is kind of a big deal so bad situation right uh you've got a lot of people scattered throughout an area and they may be only half a mile off a road. But they might as well be on Mars uh because you can't get to them so when you're talking about millions and millions of people you know this is very I mean doesn't seem like it. But it's a pretty densely populated area you know the North Carolina Mountains specifically the areas that are hit huge tour of spots you know for one uh. But there's also a lot of locals that live there too right a lot of manufacturing a lot of weird Factory that only make like one thing and that one thing that they make is uh you know crucial for like the world economy um like there's a couple of uh couple of mineral mines up there that uh really produce the world supply of I think high-grade quartz which is used in the production of pretty much every computer chip on Earth well that mine is now toast right you've got Baxter Healthcare up there right I mentioned that in the wire a couple of times Baxter Healthcare makes almost all of the dialysis supplies for this country at that factory uh that is now you know destroyed completely uh they also make I've seen reports that they make most of the um sailing uh IV bags for the country or you know disposable and injectable uh things like tubing and stuff like that they make there um hard to say how much of that is actually going to be impacted. But I've I've gotten a lot of emails from people saying yeah we're we're starting to hoard uh medical supplies at our facility because we're concerned about the shortage so again I don't know how big of a concern that is backer Healthcare doesn't have just that one Factory they've got other factories too and and I and I know they are pulling out the stops to to make sure there's no there's no interruption to to supply or anything like that. But again this is a huge huge problem so you see you know even if you didn't really care about the people who lived in this region this is going to affect the world economy in some ways how I don't know. But I can tell you that as time goes on right now we're still in the first order we're still in the first order effects right the the the immediate things that are going to happen LIF limb property those kind of concerns over the next couple of weeks when we shift out of rescue and we shift into recovery which is actually already happening now uh you're going to start identifying the second and third order effects of you know things that's kind of snowball uh in terms of how this is going to affect you know the country and the World At Large so the recovery operations uh what's going on here well most of the efforts are volunteer um the feds have kind of slow walked recovery I don't know how much of it's intentional. But there's been a lot of allegations flinging around and I just want to to state that we have to be very careful to examine the nature of this emergency you got to remember this is all volunteer or mostly volunteer so you've got one person on the ground and talking to another person on the ground that's you know just people talking back and forth issue arises so on. And so forth there are very few cases they're starting to emerge now but you there are very few cases where you've got a company saying formally hey this fire chief stopped us from delivering supplies here's the evidence what do we do right you see Elon mus kind of getting involved with this with starlink um we've seen this in a couple of jurisdictions um. But in terms of the grand recovery effort I don't know how much of this is actually happening because again our sources are lone individual human beings scattered throughout the area so you know one person in One County can just see nothing uh. But pure wholesome goodness right and just people coming together like the best parts of humanity that's great and then a guy you know literally a th000 feet away is having a nightmare like is trying to like do the right thing. And then people are people are giving him a hard time so again it's really hard to say what is the majority of the response it becomes a little bit more clear when we talk about FEMA uh FEMA being involved has been no help uh that is I think pretty much everyone would kind of agree they either haven't seen FEMA at all or FEMA has been not helpful you can even see this with regards to like what FEMA has said you don't even have to be in the area to know that FEMA's you know kind of clowning this up uh they're telling PE FEMA is telling people to oh go online and fill out this form and we'll get back to you in 10 days regarding your you know property damage you know telling people who just lost their house they don't have a they don't have cell signal they don't have electricity telling people to go online and fill out a form is just Peak federal government. Anyway um not going to rant on that too hard because people already having a hard enough time as is so again you have to remember the scale of this right so considering all the other resources and specifically the National Guard you have to remember where they're going so for instance I know a lot of guard guys they've told me they're heading up to Asheville they're heading up to Boon and they're heading up to some of these larger uh cities um The Chimney Rock area uh Blowing Rock area uh places like that bravard again and you have to remember that this is how Federal response works this is how emergency response Works in any situation you're going to send your people the bulk of your supplies to a a localized Hub. And then distribute from there it's easier to do it that way so you take over an airport you fly in a supplies on a fixed Wing offload them to helicopters and those helicopters can spread it out throughout the region it takes time uh so this is why you've you've got people you know hopping all over soci social media saying hey we've been handing out supplies here for for days and we haven't seen a National Guard at all it's not that the National Guard isn't there they've deployed thousands of troops well at least several hundred troops that I know of. But allegedly thousands but they're still Distributing themselves throughout the area again a private citizen response will always be faster than government just hands down you it it you're not going to get government to respond faster than a local will it's just the nature of it so again for people out there saying now the National Guard's not doing anything that's not true they are they're just it's just taking them time and I agree it's time we don't have uh so again this is um is kind of hard to explain the nature of things there's a lot of people very angry there's a lot of finger pointing back and forth uh there's a lot of angst and anxiety going on um. But I just want to say look it's it's working its way out from what I can see here at the wave toop level things are things are moving in the right direction okay slow progress is better than no progress it would be nice if we had fast progress so thank you especially to all the volunteers out there who are really this is one of the largest natural disasters which is primarily being responded to by volunteers being paying out of pocket for the supplies so this is fantastic this is good to see I I just I don't have enough praise for the people working this uh disaster um from that perspective so again this is good to see. But it's it's going to take time right and it's very important to understand that when you're looking at social media you're looking at the issue through a soda straw right so you you're not really uh getting the full picture and it's really hard to get the full picture because there's not a whole lot of leadership coming from any government agency it's all just you know passing the buck which is making it worse um the leadership that I have seen has come from the local Municipal level and lower right and Volunteers Of course so again in the absence of a strong authoritative Presence Power vacuums occur people step in and fill the role so I'm seeing a lot of volunteer groups that are that are really uh just taking the lead and just doing whatever they want right and they're they're effective so again the nature of the response is very hard to convey. But it is primarily volunteer and I think that people are very surprised by this because one of the only reasons why any government in the history of humanity has ever existed is to protect their citizens right that's the number one reason why a government anywhere in the world exists is that's to protect their citizens it's largely not happening from the fed's side of things and it is the people are being helped mostly by volunteers so so keeping all of that in perspective uh you've got to remember that as the feds get more involved as FEMA gets more involved as the the federal agencies get involved anytime a military asset National Guard or active duty it's the same kind of problem right when whenever a federal agency comes in or a military group comes in they're going to try to improve things they're going to try to increase the efficiency. But more more importantly for them they're going to try to increase the hierarchy and the chain of command kind of thing uh so that they can more Central centrally plan uh the rescue efforts there's Arguments for and against in a disaster uh Zone I personally and I think most of the people who are volunteering right now are in the perspective of uh if it ain't broke don't fix it so if volunteer groups are doing their own thing leave them alone and you can help other people in other ways um and vice versa so there's definitely there are definitely parallel rescue efforts going on here not is efficient sure. But you've got a lot of groups which are just kind of sidest stepping government they're sidest stepping the state they're sidest stepping the feds they're sidest stepping local authorities sometimes um and they're doing their own thing they're doing good again in the wrong hands this can result in a lot of chaos and and kind of inefficiencies and it and it can make problems worse in some situations. But I'm not seeing that I'm seeing a lot of companies and a lot of uh individuals with trucks and helicopters actually doing a much much better job than than anyone could have expected so again like I wrote In The Wire you know the average hillbilly with a pickup truck is is punching well above their weight they're they're doing so much more in terms of recovery assistance than an entire Federal you know agency is so again we're we're talking about comparing apples and oranges here. But it's very very important for me to you know talk 20 minutes about the nature of this because it's going to become important for later because let me tell you something this ain't the last time this is going to happen uh and people are learning people are learning now they're asking questions you know why are we paying taxes for this kind of thing why are we uh why do we even have a government if they're not going to help us kind of thing so again don't want to go down that R of a hole for now. But I'm telling you the questions are being asked and they're not being asked in people's minds they're being asked verbally you know why are you even here kind of thing so again uh it's kind of a mess so yeah sorry this is kind of a long-winded way to explain the complexities of what's going on on the ground this is not like any disaster that I have ever seen in terms of the complexity of what's going on you know you've got people sharing you know horrific footage let me tell you something the horrors of Disaster Response that there are some Universal truths to that and the gruesome parts of Disaster Recovery are are definitely one of those commonalities no matter what the disaster is you're going to have horrific stuff you're going to see a lot of horrific stuff. However in this case it's Unique because this is the largest disaster that I think has ever been responded to at scale at scale Remember by purely volunteers you know or or mostly Volunteers in some areas the government is nowhere to be seen it's only volunteers um you know and in some areas um it's mostly government so again it's just a mess uh there's no way for for me to really kind of wrap things up in a neat little bow and explain like the kind of intricacies that are going on you can even see my map here is a garbage map I'm having to Overlay the uh power outage map on top of my other map why is that well because even the feds don't have map Maps there are mapping teams right now that are going out and trying to get aerial photography and lar scans of the region because even the feds don't have maps of the damage so again this is how basic we're having to go back to you know um with regards to the Disaster Response it's uh we're having to start from scratching in a lot of in a lot of places so so that's pretty much all I have for the actual uh disaster itself I'm sorry that I can't be uh that that helpful with regards to details on the ground because is well details are changing so fast that by the time I say something it's already obsolete right so I'm I'm just going to kind of stick at the wave toop level uh and and uh kind of talk about the overall considerations for response because I think that's where the most value is in my position W watching this on YouTube right you know this is going to be probably the most benefit for most of you me talking about which roads are closed that's going to help the locals. But isn't going to help all of you Mo or most of you at least so again keeping things at wave toop level let's move over to some of the other things that have kind of come up with regards to radio me being in kind of the unique situation that I'm in I can talk about radio um and some of the the considerations that have come up I will do much more dedicated content on this later uh I just think that for now I need to get this out because this is super important and this is really kind of um it's kind of got me heated quite a bit so let's talk about The Good the Bad and the Ugly with regards to radio in this crisis so. First of all the good uh there have been very very very good things being done by all of the formalized emergency radio Nets out in Western North Carolina Eastern Tennessee and some in South Carolina as well that have been activated same thing in Florida and in Georgia uh right now most of the hardest hit areas in Western North Carolina and some sections of Tennessee that kind of fall in the same sort of sphere right with regards to radio so uh the guys running those Nets out there uh there's just a whole list of Nam names and whole list of Nets fantastic work I have seen nothing. But fantastic work from these guys um we'll come back to that in a moment but I just wanted to get the good out of the way these things these cheap analog handheld UHF VHF radios that you can program in the field and charge in the field these are saving lives okay uh I don't know how much more clearly to put it um there there needs to be an understanding. Though of when this is going to be helpful though and I will have much more dedicated content on that later uh but for now I wanted to just highlight that the importance of these okay I would really really like the if if we had some higher quality cheaper radios. But you just I mean it's just so the battle Fang debate goes on has gone on for years and I'm I'm really just getting tired of waiting into the weeds with it. Anyway you know these things are useful if you understand their role if you don't understand their role you might waste your money buying one but if you understand the use and the role these have you're goalen right you can't repl there's like there's nothing better right so that out of the way let's move on to some of the rumor for improvement and I think a lot of the room for improvement comes from within the realm of HF radio um this is kind of why I haven't I haven't push the ghost net stuff really hard during this disaster because it's a decentralized net you have to understand the nature of radio that's hard to convey so give me a moment and please please bear with me um the ghost net is is a good tool uh it seems to work. But you got to remember it's not tied into any agency it's it's it's a decentralized network it's coordinated but it's it's decentralized so emergency Nets need to be tied into like a government resource which is why I haven't like encouraged people to kind of you know prioritize the ghost net no there are things like Aries and some of the other agencies and and amateur radio stuff that uses radio more in conjunction with Federal groups right so so there's that um the ghost net is a good resource. Though for taking some of the pressure off though so if you want to do a little bit of rumor control share some information regarding what's going on in an area you know um the ghost n's good for that. But you know calling for help on the ghost net is I mean it's decentralized so who's going to hear you you know somebody might hear you and you might get lucky. But I you know it's like I think we're asking too much of it to be honest um especially considering there are other there are other radio efforts so I don't want to P any traffic from the from the emergency Nets if somebody's got one radio this isn't an HF radio. But they've got one radio and they can only tune to one frequency or two frequencies I don't want them to to be you know um I don't want to encourage them to kind of stay go away from the emergency stuff this like like real world emergency stuff and this go on the ghost net which is more of an informal information sharing net um. But you know some people have I've talked to a couple of guys who are looking for people um trying to find anybody local and I was able to you know tell them that the uh the town they were looking for somebody in is fine you know so you know it's it's real world it's not a toy you know this is real world use it's just with a decentralized net if you're trying to get Federal help that's probably not the best use for that um. But anyway more on that later so that's kind of the bad there are some room for improvements with regards to radio understanding the perspective is everything um and that is the hardest thing thing for hams to convey because what are hams going to do they're going to go to what they know which is radio and not understand that there are other options out there like satellite communicators okay satellite communicators starlink satcoms have saved lives I don't know if I'm not going to say they've saved more lives than radio. But in the grand scheme of things um they have saved lives so having a satellite Communicator or something like this starlink I'm going to have a whole series of vide not just one. But a whole series of videos on starlink and how to how to implement it but again we're talking apples and oranges here right you can't compare this handheld radio to starlink it's just not the same thing you're going to use it for different reasons so if you're going to say oh get a quan Chang or some kind of Bal Fang uh instead of a starlink or instead of a satellite Communicator I already know uh you're off on the wrong foot and that's just that's just bad advice so again everything has a use everything has a perspective understanding when to use what is is important HF radio is for strategic coms in and out of the region okay you're not going to be sharing life- saving information over HF radio usually this you might if you've got one of these you can hit local emergency repeater if you know what it is or you can scan and find out what it is uh so there's that. But mostly these right here the benefit for these is not even really to deal with any ham stuff but just interp personal Communications between team members that's like the main use for this that's why you can go with options that are more like digital or something like that uh to to kind of keep H out of your way sometimes um because that has become a problem so so again we've got good we've got these kinds of radios we got radio saving lives we've got starlink saving lives you know um we've got that kind of good stuff going on we've got great great work being done by emergency Nets out here a lot of the net control guys um doing Absolut fantastic work um there are room for improvement number one is understand the perspective of radio and when to use it and when to use which tool that's that's room for improvement I think uh and um yeah so we can move on from there let's wrap things up with the ugly this is a topic I would like to do a four to six hour rant on. But I will spare your your guys' time and I will uh approach the topic with as much decorum as I could possibly manage uh but you also have to remember I'm in a unique spot right I do a lot of content on ham radio I I developed the ghost net HF radio net so I'm I've kind of got you know feet in the radio world. But I'm also not an influencer okay so I don't have my call sign out there I'm obviously privacy-minded I have very serious reservations about um some things in radio and one of them is that call sign and um I just don't think it's a very swell idea uh to put your real name and your home address uh on the internet uh via that call sign which is public record so let's let's talk about that for a minute because I have seen some very very shameful and disgraceful behavior from hams over the past few days and I just wanted to kind of highlight that and um highlight the way. Moving forward because this is a big issue and um I've kind of got to be in my Bonnet now and with regards to it and um yeah I'm not going to make a whole lot of friends in the ham world uh with this. But uh many of you may know so just start with this that ham radio requires a license to use. However during an emergency situation where life Lim or property is is impacted there's a cutout Clause so you do not need a license to transmit in an emergency you may have heard this instinctively a lot so here it is in part 97 this regulation right here is a cutout to allow people to use radio to save Life limmer Property okay and I have seen this over the past few days out West net control being awesome dudes because they're trying to you've got somebody hop up on the repeater um and say hey look you know my kids need drinking water like we're we're hungry here you know we need some help or um we're at uh this this location we've got 15 people here we need to evacuate good no I'm sorry I don't have a license net control has said nothing about it fine we'll get you some help this is great good on that control for that I I want to stress that right up front. But I've also seen some very bad behavior from hams um people trying to break into to some Nets to some repeaters saying hey look I need some help here I'm sorry I don't have a license. But this is this is bad and people trying to shout him down for using a repeater without a license absolutely disgraceful um this is something that I don't think a whole lot of hams out there will touch because they don't want to talk about the negative culture in ham radio. But I have hit my limit I have hit my limit with this kind of garbage um this is not good and and and let me explain that you can go on Reddit the cancerous uh hell hole that Reddit normally is uh and you can see a lot of bad bad messages from ham radio. But let me just get it right out of there look ham radio's got some problems and when I'm sitting there listening to Dan on the repeater out there managing this crisis and every five minutes he's trying to say hey look guys if you if you if you've got help if you need help this is an emergency key up don't worry about a license you can transmit hit us up and we'll help you he's doing that constantly and a lot of other dudes are doing that too the fact they have to do that is a shame the fact they have to say yeah this is an emergency so you can transmit is shameful so all the hams out there who are so absolutely obsessed with that license I have a pose a question for you how thirsty and how hungry does a child have to be for a disaster to be declared and for somebody to key this mic right here how much blood do I have to lose before I can click this mic like this okay that's a question I have to have and here's another thing here's another thing it may be a minority it may be not that many people out there. But I can tell you it's a it's a pretty good chunk of the ham radio Hobby and I'll take it a step further okay LIF Lim property fine you may say oh well our ham group here our our ham radio club we of course pass emergency traffic okay fine okay fine that's good you should do that because that's the rules the FCC says so congratulations for following the rules as they stand most hams wouldn't most hams conveniently leave that stuff out they leave out that emergency Clause because they want to gatekeep their hobby so hard and prevent people from actually getting helped again absolutely detestable Behavior. But let me take it a step further okay you may be a ham out there you may be a have a ham club you may have a group or or some kind of organization or something like that how many of you just a question just posing the question how many of you will talk to somebody in a time of need where it's not immediate life limb or property. But they need somebody to talk to how many of you people are going to key up and talk to that guy or let that guy on your repeater who is tired they've lost their house they've lost some of their family members and they need somebody to talk to okay how many of you are going to talk to them because they don't have a license and how many of you are going to shun the other hams who don't talk to that guy we have got problems ladies and gentlemen we have got some serious problems in ham radio and it makes me sick to my stomach many of you have been able to read between the lines a lot of the content that I've made about the unique cultural problems of radio I can phrase it just as kindly and politely as I can to kind of avoid stepping on toes oh man I have seen some bad behavior on this thing right here the past few days I've seen some good behavior absolutely heroic and and and perfect ly altruistic Behavior. But from some hams oh my goodness oh my goodness I have seen some very bad stuff so this this this goes beyond emergency use right this goes beyond this kind of thing so with handheld radio it's a little bit easier because everybody and their cousins got one of these and they're and they're and they're using it without a license and the hams are just F fuming about that. But it's what people are doing they're everywhere they're able to use these things too uh handheld radio is a different thing HF radio is a whole other whole of the ball game. Though because well your range is farther from one and it's just a different culture altogether but let me tell you something man I have gotten messages from people talking about well this person didn't use their call sign properly or they're they're hopping on js8 call without a call sign or it's not proper yeah okay you know what no no I do not tolerate that I do not tolerate that whatsoever we have gotten problems so much so that if you are H if you are hopping on Reddit to make a post about how we've had unlicensed people call in for help and the net control has handled it well the a license should be so far away from any of this Disaster Response stuff that it's not even a consideration we're not even going to ask maybe ask for a call sign if they have one uh just so that the person taking the emergency report knows who they're talking to and they don't get people mixed up that's fine fine okay good. But hams are just so obsessed with that call sign that call sign that license that magic piece of paper from the government because they memorized some test answers for most hams that is more important than human life itself and that disgusts me to my core it makes me want to say much more serious things than that and it makes me want to take another step further and say look what are we going to do about this okay so let's talk Solutions you know I know you guys don't want to hear me rant and Rave about this stuff. But I'm sorry I I have really hit my limit you guys know I don't get angry very often but this oh this this radio stuff with this call sign business I I am I am past the end of my rope on that so let's talk Solutions let's be practical here Solutions number one do what you need to do okay if you've got it's not a problem with with with these kinds of radios. But uh because these are really just line of sight things but look man if you got to use a resource use a resource okay that's the easy part and I think most hams begrudgingly most hams would agree with that because that's the rules the rules they so so love so dearly more than their own name uh that's right there in those regulations so thing one you can always use a radio in a disaster in an emergency you don't need to wait for a net control to tell you it's enough of an emergency to transmit do it any way if you need to okay thing two we need to we need to change this culture right now I do not have time to sit here and type on my computer and I eloquent and and and politely worded uh discussion on this ham radio stuff we need to change this culture now we need to start pushing back against this Obsession within ham radio with regards to licenses we really do need to start pushing pushing back against that we need to start asking people why do you have your ham radio call sign embroidered on every piece of clothing you own why is that call sign on a bumper sticker on your car why is that call sign those four or those six letters why is that important more important than your children's names okay we need to start pushing back against that stuff we need to start real I I honestly think that shame and embarrassment is about the only way forward with this to change this culture now we can have discussion about the regulations changing those changing the regulations or or whatever further on. But I can tell you right now that people being scared to transmit without a license that should enter into no one's mind at all and it's such a problem that net control is having to remind people that it's okay to transmit in an emergency disgusting you should be ashamed of yourselves and I'm ashamed with myself for letting this culture go on for so long and not doing what I can to talk about it I get it if people have business relationships with ham radio group group and they have these sorts of kind of influencer relationships with companies and they don't want to stir the pot too much and they don't want to you know um use strong language uh as much as they can um because they want to make peace with people okay that's fine. But the very minute that you're criticizing someone for using a radio net to get water for their kid you are the enemy of the American people and you are an embarrassment to Human ity okay I have had enough of this and we have to stop this so how do we do it what do we do now what what do we do well one we remind people of the rules okay this is this is the thing one easy use radio in an emergency okay and we also have to start normalizing the embarrassment of the obsession with call signs and this can just start with a question like look oh you know you've got your uh ham radio call sign on everything you own um why you know uh you've got your ham radio call sign in your LinkedIn profile you know are are you working in the field of radio um is this crucial for your job or or something like that or or maybe you know something like that then why you know we need to make we need to make people feel awkward we need to make people feel embarrassed for plastering that call sign of everything that's the first step to cultural change right we got to remember why did the government stop requiring CB licenses back in the day why did they do that because people stopped getting them Civil Disobedience people stopped getting the CB licenses so the FCC said well we're just not going to issue CB licenses anymore and they did that to save face so again I'm not suggesting anything I'm just saying the first step towards eventually maybe encouraging civil disobedience in the future is to start asking the questions okay why is it that if I wanted to volunteer if I know radio and I wanted to volunteer why is it that all of the problems within radio come from hams okay why is that why is it that unlicensed guys aren't causing problems. But the hams are this elitism when people are starving and they're dehydrating to death out there this has got to stop and it's got to stop right now okay I can't do much about it. But I can I can get on YouTube and rant and Rave about it and hopefully enough people will see this to realize this is a problem you know just asking these questions you know in a polite and respectful way that might do something um I don't know. But I I just see this obsession with this licensing and this call sign issue becoming a huge problem and um I I can't stand it I can't stand it any longer so I'm sorry if I've upset a lot of people. But I hope I've upset the right kind of people and you're motivated to try to to try to work this along multiple Avenues of approach advocacy is largely just not a thing see in ham radio that the groups that are out there that are doing advocacy work for for the ham radio Community they're not approaching it from a free speech perspective um they're just not really mostly they're they're they're basically they lose a court case they're like well you know please government may I have another uh kind of attitude and approach to this sort of thing so again we have got to change this culture because I can't bear to listen to some of this stuff any longer okay um it's it's beyond it's beyond a problem and it is into um a societal problem it's not just a problem with with a hobby so I wish I could just not stir the pot I wish I could just not say anything and that this would just I could slowly work on content to to alleviate these problems. But I I have reached my limit and you guys know how rare this is so that should show you how serious this this problem is now again how much of a problem it is in terms of of people being shunned uh by hams for reporting an emergency thankfully that's rare it does happen. Though I've heard it myself I wish I had recorded it you know but. Anyway um it has happened it does happen so it's it's definitely a real thing um in terms of really what the bigger concerns are I think because those guys are obviously violating the rules okay it's like look what's your what's your call sign bro I'm going to report you to the FCC for stepping on emergency traffic it's a two-way street right um so that's that's easily handled right you really have a hard time justifying stepping on emergency traffic even unlicensed because the rules allow that right so you're wrong right out of the gate. But the next step the biggest problem that I see is people saying okay well um you've transmitted for long enough I guess we've gotten you help so um you know F off kind of thing this is my repeater that's the kind of stuff that's a problem okay that's the kind of stuff that's becoming a problem oh well I'm not going to talk to you I can't talk to you you've reported your emergency so I have fulfilled my obligation to the FCC regulations. But I'm not going to talk to you because um the emergency is no longer uh life or death so um sorry um you can't transmit anymore that kind of behavior mm nope don't fly with me no more and it's this little nebulous gray area which is why I think a lot of hams don't want to get involved I think they just rather say be cool about it you know don't say anything let the guy transmit let the guy talk if the guy's having a hard time and he's unlicensed let him talk let him you know you know handle it with with with respect and decorum right um. But the fact that other hams are are getting bent out of shape about the license during an emergency I can't stand it I cannot stand it any longer we've got to change this so again what can I say advocacy is really the only way forward at the moment um uh you can remind people of the rules if some is trying to transmit in an emergency and somebody's stepping all over them you know um they're in the wrong for that uh two we can start pushing back and we can start asking hams what is so important what is so start having the questions start having the and I don't have all the answers. But start asking the questions why is it your call sign is plastered all over everything you own why is it that you don't even like you tell people your your name. But your call sign comes first like why is it when you go to a ham radio convention it's just four four and six character groups all over the place why okay why can why is there such the obsession with this we can start by asking the question there ain't nothing wrong with asking a question right and I'm asking that question okay and I feel like I can because I'm in this unique spot so I can say a lot of things that a lot of other hams may not want to say or be or feel like they can say in the public sphere with the this side of audience right. But again I uh I can't bite my tongue any longer and um no not only not only do I not have any tolerance anymore for people not letting people transmit in an emergency okay that is unacceptable. But also unacceptable is the culture that got us here okay the culture that got us here me not stepping up and saying this is wrong we got to change this sooner okay because by the time we're at a point to where a net control guy like I said has to say okay it's enough of an emergency now you can transmit unacceptable this is not good again I applaud the net control guys for doing that. But the fact that that net control guy has to do that because he knows he knows people are not going to transmit because they're terrified the FCC is going to come for them the Boogeyman from the government's going to come get them for doing this okay um the fact that that net control guy knows the obsession with that license yeah unacceptable so people like me or or at least I'm going to try because of my unique role I'm going to try to do what I can to approach this topic more with more decorum and we're going to we're going to muscle this issue um I'm not going to stop talking about it now if I lose every friend I got in ham radio I don't care. But I'm going to try to be the advocate um that doesn't seem to exist right now with regards to questioning why we are so obsessed with life is in ham radio okay I am not a team of 300 lawyers you know I I I have no funding to dedicate to this. But I got a voice and I'm going to use it so that's what I plan to do um and I and I encourage everyone else out there to to start asking these questions okay you know I don't think that we are at the point to where Civil Disobedience would do a whole lot of good if you know what I'm trying to say um it may. But I don't think it'll do any I don't think it'll do that much good um at least on like HF or something like that I think it's probably just going to draw more IR because there's just too many hams with a lot of money to spend and a lot of time and cause a lot of problems than not so again we're starting from scratch here. But we got to start somewhere so um yeah that's that's my that's my rant on this rant over I guess uh I'm sorry you guys know I hate doing this I apologize a million times. But you know I I just I got to say something I can't stand by any longer and let this become a problem so again uh know the rules know the regulations and know when to break them okay. Even though the rules do allow for emergency use know when to talk to that guy that's that's lost his house and he's on the repeater and he just needs somebody to talk to so for all the hams out there okay who may have stuck around this far um I question this why is it that the Second Amendment Community why why is it that the gun guys out there despise despise the ATF and everything they do okay. But you guys can't be bothered to even slightly disagree with the FCC okay why is that why is it when I go over to the Second Amendment crowd they are doing everything they possibly can everything from Civil Disobedience to just saying I'm I do what I want to doing all this kind of stuff with the ATF okay with gun with gun laws and things like that the Second Amendment is an is an absolute why is it that that is is applied there. But the first amendment is not applied to radio why is it that during an emergency I'm even told radio is a privilege why is that why as far as I'm concerned the electromagnetic spectrum is a gift from God and it is for all humans to use okay. But that's my own opinion and that is a very unpopular opinion throughout radio to have it really is now there's Nuance there okay commercialism banned allocations the finite resource fine we can debate that later. But when people are on the ground and they need water I ain't going to have it okay so again advocacy more getting getting serious about this getting serious about opposing the hams making them feel ashamed at the Thanksgiving dinner table um that kind of thing is is really the only way that I have open uh forward and I would definitely definitely look forward to some more coherent less ranty um ideas for any of you out there who might have stuff because I am not the only one who has seen this I am not the only one who has has noticed these problems I'm not the only one who's been having these problems and I think a lot of you out there are way smarter than me and you may have some solutions for this all I can do is tell you the problems voice my frustrations and say look we got to do better so let's let's end on a positive note shall we let's let's strive to do better let's um do what we can to uh improve the world around us and if we're involved in the field of radio let's do it that way too so again um thank you all for sticking with me I know that this isn't really a great one today. But um I feel like this is a uh a very important thing to talk about considering the context of things that are going to be more serious because I can tell you this is a horrific disaster. But um we may be looking at Harder times in this in the very near future so again um now is the time for for looking forward looking to the Future and and and taking pride in the fact that we can change things for the better uh there are a lot of people doing very very good work um there are a lot of people even within the field of radio who are doing a very very good job. But I just want to say look I see the good work that's being done I really appreciate it I appreciate the guys who are doing the sort of read between the lines kind of content on radio I appreciate that as well good efforts are being made they are I'm just rather angry that with this crisis we had to find out just how much more work we have to do so um again trying to leave things on a kind of a positive note um I think we'll call it there so we've got our work cut out for us good work's being done um and and I hope that that good work can continue into the future so. But we'll get back to it on Monday and we will see what next week brings so uh thank you guys all for your support I really do mean it I know I don't deserve it. But thank you thank you thank you anyway uh it really does mean a lot and uh it really help helps continue this this work. Moving forward so thank you for that and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shade.