A person only pretends to be a prepper if they don’t have a basic ham radio and some kind of scanner capability, as I see it.

A fair number of people (OK, one…) mentioned how useful last week’s notes on emergency services scanning was.  And, since he was kind enough to send it a good write up, reader Bill’s ‘Part 2’ on how fire department lingo has changed over the years in useful stuff to have…

“I am yet again honored.

Thank you.Your advice to listen and get the feel of the way the channel sounds is good.

Fire department training has become somewhat universalized and has moved to standardization of terms and procedures — for a lot of good reasons.

Here are a couple of useful “heard over the air” firefighter expressions. When a building is said to be “fully involved,” that is exactly what it means — visible flames shooting out the windows, and maybe from burned-through holes is the roof. Fully involved buildings are rarely saved. It becomes more a matter of letting them burn down in a controlled manner, and preventing damage to adjacent buildings and forest.

Hay barns are notorious for burning super-fast.When an engine first arrives at the alarm location, they might say,”nothing showing,” which is usually good news. It might be a false alarm,or the fire is still relatively small. Everybody inside COULD be dead from carbon monoxide, but you can’t see that yet till you get inside.As the engine arrives, and sees the building for the first time, they will begin referring to the “A-side,” the “B-side,” the “C-side,” and the “D-side.” The “A” is the front on the street side, the “B” is the side to the left, the “C” is the back of the building, and the “D” is the right sid eas you see the building from the street.

This is like “port” and “starboard.”The designations are the same no matter which way you are facing.A “Y” connector for fire hose is called a “Siamese.”

A “booster reel”is like a heavy-duty garden hose. Usually mounted on both sides of a pumper truck, these can be very quickly spooled out and fed with water from the pumper’s own tank.

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So there I was Monday, aided by Panama and Elaine, finally getting the last of the sheetrock put into our new room on the north end of the house.

It’s not a big deal; it is sheetrock, after all.  Two learning notes for the personal collection, however, are worth sharing.

First note is to be sure and get a sheetrock square before you tackle a project like this.  The one I got was a Johnson Level and Tool JTS48 48-Inch Aluminum Drywall T-Square for about $20 bucks.

The second hint is not to try and hang it all in a single day.

Hint #3?  I know, I didn’t say anything about #3, but by now you probably forgot the “Rend a sheetrock jack” to do the ceiling” advice.

Oh, and #4?  Just in case you get your stud spacing a bit off?  In a couple of places I had to cut lengths of 2-by-2 so I would have a screwing surface for the sheetrock.  In a perfect world, all rooms are some multiple of exactly 48-inches but not in this one.  Neither is it 96-inches high, either.

And all those design accoutrements that will let in light (small glass block windows), or the “cute” 45-degree angled section to bread up sound bounce?  Oh, yes, they add time, too.

And (if you’re building a super home studio/sound/music room, running the speaker wiring into their own boxes (runs spaced out from the AC power wiring, because I’m yes, that guy, then that adds time, too.

Still, the bulk of the “roughing in” is done and now all that (should) remain is taping and mudding.

A trip around the room to make sure all the sheetrock screws are set “just so” (dimpled, but not breaking the paper of the sheetrock, strong and easier to mud that way, and we’ll be into the taping part, probably tomorrow.

Highly recommended (unless you are really a well-practiced mud-slinger: Grabber GWNS125 Wet-N-Stick Water Activated Adhesive Joint Tape.  It’s not cheap, but if you don’t like bedding tape joints (my least favorite part of the next operation), then it’s easy to use.

I just cut up 4-foot strips (folding if it’s a corner) slop in some mud, and press on the wet (moistened) self-stick tape.  Works like a champ in the other room we used it in.

The next part of the project after that will be sorting out which paint colors to you.

My tastes run toward a “fire on the mountain red” (which is almost orange) with a chocolate brown or black ceiling, all rolled on as texture paint.

The trim molding around the big windows would be dark/black, and the accents will be of the sort you see in movie theatres.  I’m thinking some big, heavy velvet drapes, as wall hangings, a couple of half columns, and black track light, arranged to highlight the walls (wall washers is the architecting term, but we ain’t so formal out here).

Then all of our music and sound gear will get powered into the room:  18 channel mixer, all kinds of microphones, the drum kit, couple of keyboards, some guitars/the violin, an old clarinet.  On the sound side: there will be a computer, aftermarket sound card, firewire connection for the mixer.  Output will be via Bose 201’s and subs (bi-amped) on the front and Bose 901 (series 2s) for the fill speakers,

An “Ultimate Home Music/Sound/Media Room” doesn’t have to be terribly expensive.  Most of the gear I’ve been accumulating used off eBay, except for the firewire mixer, mics, and a few other things (stands and such).  If you shop and know speakers and amps, though, eBay is quite the deal if you’re patient.

Don’t know if I mentioned it, but the reason for going to all this effort is that over the years, I have been involved in sound systems and studio design a bit, including managing the design/build of over 40,000 square feet of commercial studio and media instruction facilities.

Although we’re dispensing with the double doors and sound transmission coefficient glass, I’ve always wanted to build an online school where people can learn the basics of good, solid, home studio construction and basic operation.

At present, I’ve only reserved the site name: http://recordingengineerworkshop.com/ and I’ve started to draft curriculum.  Contributors will likely include Grady of our www.nostracodeus.com project, since in addition to being a crackerjack software engineer, he’s also got a fair amount of “time in grade” as a broadcast engineer in Canada.

The real prize, however, is my friend Howard Hill’s dad may go on camera when we go on our annual Seattle Adventure in August & September.  HE was the soundman at the White House for both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  (You didn’t really think I was going to Seattle just for fun, did you?)

The idea is to produce a really solid “ground up” online course that will give a lot more “bang for the buck” (including all the home construction notes you’d need to build a really good sound setup in your home) and then going through basic mic technique, basics of mixing, and some introduction to workflow management in the studio setting.

The best part of it is my price target (already approved by the State, by the way), will be $29.95.

The fine print says the course will be avocational in nature, as opposed to vocational in in nature.

But I’ve been looking at some of the “high end schools” that are out there.  What they all have in common is they are hugely expensive with many touting a four year degree program but in return getting people in debt to the tune of $35,000 and up for the four-year schools and $17,000 and up for the shorter schools.

Music production (like hanging sheetrock) is one of those things that is totally hands-on.  You can read tips and hints in a book, but when it comes down to it, there’s nothing like turning the weather stripping on a door, or setting up room equalizers using a sound pressure meter, or knowing how to use a audio generator to sweep a room’s frequency response.

I certainly understand how the high-end schools have equipment that is to drool for, and sound rooms that make your ears appreciate every nuance and note.

But, on the other hand, when you look at the student count in many of these high-end schools, they seem to have great equipment (a high end Solid State Logic (SSL mixing board, for example) the reality is that once I get my studio finished it will have technical capabilities that will be more advanced than the studio which put out the early Beatle’s records.

That’s how far things have come.

We have gone from a fairly complicated massive wiring world, where tubes and equipment and patch bays and all that were standard, to a world where a few peripherals and some kick-ass speakers is about all you need, plus a beefed up smoking PC with firewire.

Racks of equipment have been replaced with VST and other plugins, but the brick and mortar schools teaching the music arts have not “moved on” in many cases.

Just for example, most still spend a fair amount of time on theory of digital recording including long (dreadfully boring) discussions of things like “quantization error.”

Yes, if you’re going to work for Dolby, or you are planning to design your own equipment, I can see forking out a few bucks to walk through signal-to-quantization noise ratios.

But, as I told a colleague (an owner of a large and highly respected/successful school) issues like A/D conversion errors and quantization considerations are quickly fading into the background as higher quality A/Ds come to market and sample speed has been going up far and fast enough that things like “quantization” error just fades off into the obsolete pile.  If you’ve got 24-bit A/D and sample rates of 192 KHz, then some of the “old school” stuff in recording engineering fades into the background.

The course I’m building is not directed at this high-end market.  It’s designed for the home “project studio” owners, or those thousands of bands that form and then break up every year – several for each high school in America, says the research.

I’m building the definitive course for people who want to just “get something done” – whether it’s setting up a decent recording of the kid’s piano playing, recording a church choir or sermon right, or setting up a small PA system at a soccer game.

But just a little “peek under the covers” at what’s going on in George-Land where there’s always… Adventures Beyond Sheetrock.

Oh, and if you have color scheme/design ideas, please send them along: 

SO:  I’m currently hot on dark ceiling, red/orange walls, velvet hangings (more sound conditioning, right?) and engineered bamboo for the floor with a Persian or modern area run centered with the Drum throne on the edge of that with the drum kit down-lit from the track lighting which will have dimmable LED floods.

But if you have a better idea, I’m sure open to them until we get the taping and mudding done and go start mixing texture paint…

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Prepping Readers Want to Know

From the Inbox:

Good morning George,

My sister inlaw wants to get these little two way ham sets for everyone in the family for a SHTF worse case. Her thinking is that we could at least stay in touch over the ham waves better than anything else and who would care if we were licensed or not in that case. Here is what she wants to buy.

Baofeng UV5RA Ham Two Way Radio 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band Transceiver (Black)

Our budget is very limited and this is in the ball park budget wise. I appreciate any advise you can give

Great deal on a “starter” VHF dual band ham radio. Frankly, for a radio with this feature set, I don’t know how they do it for under $30.

Get the programming cable and some software to load frequencies, though, because the manual loading of a hundred channels is not my idea of fun, no sir.

On the license, yes, it’s true that in the event there is a terrible SHTF event, you would be able to use anything, there are several very solid reasons to go through one of the thousands of one-day ham radio licenses classes (free) that you can find by going to the www.arrl.org website and poking around.

The first is that you need to know something about how the radios work to get the most out of them.  Not everyone know was sub-audible tons are, know what I mean?

The second reason is many of the people involved in ham radio are involved in community recovery planning.  I’m in RACES *(radio amateur civil emergency service) and some of the folks in clubs go through the FEMA courses on disaster management, and so on.

So when the SHTF you’ll be able to help in community recovery, rather than isolating yourself and ignoring the community when it is more important.

Third reason?  Radios have different capabilities.  By taking a ham radio license class (and get the damn license!!!) you’ll understand how line of sight works, understand repeaters, and on goes the list.

Rural Pioneer Website

OK, I am a hands-on guy and here’s the latest on my trademark ap for the Rural Pioneer website:

NOTICE OF ALLOWANCE (NOA)

ISSUE DATE: Jun 10, 2014

Serial Number: 86068949

Mark: RURAL PIONEER

Docket/Reference Number:

No opposition was filed for this published application.

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This is one of those stories which the wishy-washy, paid for, corporatized mainstream media has been failing to context for more than 40 years.  I won’t live long enough to see its end, but here’s a progress report on where we are – and more importantly – where we are going.

Not to step into a politically sensitive area, but has it occurred to anyone other than Ures truly, that Mexico is at war with the US and we are just too damn blind to see it?  This is a slow-motion war and therefore invisible.

Even more interesting is that Mexico is too smart to declare it.  And 99% of America is too lazy to see the role that narcodollars have (and will continue) to play in how American elections turn out.  They’re purchased, highest bidder, just to be clear on that nit.

Let’s begin with the definition, simplest terms, of what war is:

“…a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.”

Next we put on our thinking caps, because  most people consider “war” in a traditional sense; they think about AK-47s, a few crates of RPGs, and other conventionally “armed” forces.  Toss in a tank and some fighters, too, would you?

While Mexico has, in fact, been engaged in specifically this kind of armed conflict with the US it has been via population displacement and the drug cartels.  Hence, it, is true that we live in a world where “economic warfare” is just as nominally “real” or am I the only one that noticed how Russia just played the West in Ukraine’s former Crimea?  Thought about California as an analog? 

In that instance, the Russian version of our Mexico war, doctrine was to infiltrate a Russian population into the Crimea, where – over time – they became the majority.  Again, consider the US border states.

Now, I would further ask you to look very closely at the demographics of the border states, particularly California and Arizona, when illegal alien dumping and leaky borders are just an everyday fact of life.  We have a “tolerance policy” and I have never seen a good tolerance policy of any sort, but then I’m only 65 nowadays.  Maybe some day, but this ain’t it.

Obviously, the people who make policy decisions in Washington are heavily conflicted (although some say they are just out to destroy America as we knew it, as a top agenda item).  I don’t credit them as being that smart.  Still….

Conflicted in the sense that we all know that Social Security is running out of money sometime around 2040 (the last date I heard) but with any luck, and maybe if I lose 30 pounds, I will be around to be facing that financial problem.

It’s obvious to anyone with a lick of sense (which is about all I can accord an  ex-Chicago neighborhood organizer) that we need some people with incomes and an upwardly mobile lower class, all struggling and paying taxes to fund the government and Social Security system.

Germany is going great guns in Europe because Labor has a say on corporate boards of directors, so the middle class gets its bite.  But not in ‘Merica.  Here, the bite is given only to the shareholders.  The result is a hollowed out (and stupid, frankly) middle class that is uninvolved in preserving or building our country.

U.S. LOSES SEX WAR

Your memory may be faulting (what this being Monday and all) but if you look back to September of last year, CNN was reporting what?  “Baby bust:  U.S. Births at record low.”

In this story, we read how the birth rate (2012) was down to 63 births per 1,000 capable women.  But just so’s to do apples to apples, that was a (2012)  birth rate per thousand (both sexes, genpop) of  13.68.

MEXICO, on the other hand, same source, comes in at 18.87 per thousand in 2012 – basis their genpop.

So the Mexican proclivity to reproduce is 1.37 times what the US rate is in an even analysis.

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This morning’s report was to have been titled “What’ll Be Left Standing?  (2) The Matrix” but something much more important is coming into focus:  Yes, a huge blow-off top in the stock market with a Dow north of 20,000 is likely in the wings.  But it takes a lot of background to understand the dynamics and where it leads.  One reason to expect it is in the Fed’s Consumer debt report out late Friday.

In our Wednesday report, we delved into some of the drivers of the New Depression and explored how certain social trends, like “children” living with their parents well into adulthood are helping moderate what would otherwise likely be a much steeper and faster descent into economic hell.  Of course, the flip side of it isn’t all that pretty:  Kids coming home drive the parents to work well past what could otherwise have been an early retirement age, but for the kids that don’t have the jobs to support the home sales that live in the “house that Jack built.” Note to nonsubscribers: Finest nursery tale ever, and it explains more about economics than most four-year programs and a good number of post-grad schools:

This is the horse and the hound and the horn

That belonged to the farmer sowing his corn

That kept the rooster that crowed in the morn

That woke the judge all shaven and shorn

That married the man all tattered and torn

That kissed the maiden all forlorn

That milked the cow with the crumpled horn

That tossed the dog that worried the cat

That chased the rat that ate the cheese

That lay in the house that Jack built.

But, then again, most economists I would argue, know plenty of math yet don’t grasp the circularity firmly.

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