Jackalope

The Kenwood TH-D75A is a great radio, covers three bands, and it’s waterproof. It’s been my go to radio for the past 6 months or so. The receiver is excellent. Also have a Yaesu FT-5DR, as our local repeater has Yaesu Fusion. Not much DSTAR locally, so the Kenwood just gets used on analog FM, I’ve never used it on DSTAR.

Usually with the Baofeng programming cables you need to preload the cable driver before plugging the cable into the computer USB port. Also, not all “Baofeng” cables perform the same. Lots of hamfests coming up in the next 2-3 months.

The Icom IC-7100 covers all the HF bands, 2 meter band, and 440 band. It has multiple antenna ports. It is still in production. I’ve used one mobile, and it works well.

I use a SB tactical folding brace on both of my MP-5K clones. I may look for something else for one of them, as the paperwork was done to make it a SBR. But the SB tactical folding brace is very solid, it’s affordable too!

Purchased a suppressor from Tennessee Silencer last Friday. Received the BATF approval on Monday morning. I remember it took 9-10 months when I bought my first suppressor seven years.

I've got a Hybrid 46, and I'm very pleased with it. Also have a couple of .22 suppressors, one is a Form 1 model. I'd like to get one more 9mm suppressor which would be mounted on one firearm all the time.

I have a small system in my Sheepwagon/camping trailer. The 50 watt solar panels are in briefcase folding style. Using a Bioenno 30 Ah battery, and a Renogy charge controller. Sheepwagon is home made, and wired strictly for 12 vdc, using LED lighting. If some AC is needed, a Renogy Phoenix power station is also aboard. I've used the Sheepwagon solar system to power low power amateur radio equipment, lighting and fans during short camping trips. It's nice when a plan comes together.

We had some high winds, which broke some branches and flattened some tomato plants. An EF-1 tornado touched down about a mile south of me, but there were no reported injuries. It's weird there was a tornado so close, as we had EF-1 tornado damage our barn and our property back in October, 2021. I guess this local area is a tornado magnet. The weather service dropped the ball on local tornado activity again, as they issued their warning after the tornado had already touched down in town.

There's Dead Zero Shooting Park located in Spencer, TN, south of Cookeville. There's no membership fee and they have ranges out to 1000 yards.

From my experience, in Middle Tennessee, two meter repeaters are active. I think a lot of folks are monitoring frequencies, and if you make a call, someone will come back to you. If I want to chat, I'll go over to a simplex frequency, rather than tying up a repeater. Some repeaters are much busier, especially in the metro areas. Rather than tying up a scanner with ham radio transmissions, I scan the ham bands with a dual band transceiver, and that radio almost always has some activity, and the HomePatrol 2 scanner catches everything else. I also hear a lot of activity on GMRS repeaters.

Yeah, encryption is a challenge. In my part of middle Tennessee, a Uniden Homepatrol II picks up a lot of transmissions. It's useful for following utilities and other public agencies that haven't gone with encryption. I'm also surprised at the number of GMRS repeaters and the associated amount of radio traffic. It's also amazing how much radio traffic has been diverted to cell phones.

Tennessee Silencer Shop in Seymour rents suppressed firearms, though they're closer to east Tennessee. They have a wide selection of machine guns to rent too. Not associated with them, just a happy customer.

I have the PC Charger take down version. It's one of my favorite guns especially with a suppressor on it. It's very reliable, no problem with any ammo using the suppressor.

We have a couple of IBC totes for our rain water collection system. The water in one tote is used for our gardens, we always keep one tote topped off, and the water is cycled due to using it in the garden. We also have 5 gallon containers and one gallon jugs that are kept full, with about 50 gallons in portable containers. If we end up using our rainwater, it would be filtered and then treated with either chlorine or UV light, depending upon the quantity needed. We also have a spring, and the water from that would also be filtered and treated. Additionally, we have a pond for non-potable water. Water sources were a major consideration when we were looking for property.

There's also Range USA right off of I-40 in West Knoxville/Farragut. They were called Shoot Point Blank, but they changed their name recently. They have a wide array of new firearms. Last time I was there, about a month ago, they only had a couple of used firearms, but plenty of new ones. It's part of a corporate chain of gun stores.