Divemedic

The Days to Come

It’s becoming more and more obvious that the system of government that we have is failing. The way things are just can’t continue, and anything that can’t continue, won’t. Things are going to get bad. I know there are some who think that things are horrible already.

You haven’t seen anything, yet.

There haven’t been purges. The secret police haven’t yet begun to round people up in the middle of the night. There are no death squads.

We may wind up in a civil war. We may even wind up in a Communist Dictatorship with Biden as the nominal head of the party. Know that there is nothing that you can do about it. What is gonna happen is what will happen. The people reading this blog just aren’t in position or power to prevent it.

What you are in control of is how prepared you are to deal with it, and how you deal with it. There are going to be real tests of your resolve, your character, your will to survive. Now is the time to finish preparing. Now is the time to figure out who you can trust, and who you need to keep at arms’ length.

Just know that you are not alone. There are millions of people who feel the same as you do, even when you feel like all is lost. They will try to convince you otherwise. Organize locally. Make friends. Keep your eyes open, and learn. Take notes. Know your neighbors. Not just your allies, but learn who will be an informer, who will be an enemy, and who is just an NPC. Hide your preps.

How long do we have? We don’t know. It may be a year, it may be ten. One thing is for sure, when it does all go south, it will seem to have done so with blinding speed. Be ready.

By Divemedic, ago

No Words

These two healthcare workers abused an elderly patient AND LIVESTREAMED IT. The people in there were commenting and making fun of the elderly female dementia patient. Note that the press doesn’t mention the race of the victim. You bet your ass if two white nurses were abusing a black patient, it would be MSM coverage 24/7, complete with grifter black attorney Crump, Obama, and a visit to the White House.

Why isn’t this a hate crime? I will bet a large sum of money that this isn’t being mentioned by the media and was funny to everyone involved because the victim/patient was white, and they were all black.

By Divemedic, ago

Rule of Law is Ending?

The Democrats in Congress are now angry enough at the courts that they are pushing the Biden administration to ignore Federal court rulings on abortion. The Secretary of HHS is saying that “everything is on the table,” including the Federal government ignoring the court rulings that it does not agree with.

This is two branches of government declaring that the third branch is no longer relevant. How will that play out? What else can be ignored? Judicial limits on gun laws? Election tampering? The Democrats have taken the first steps in dissolving the Federal courts. Why pack the Supreme Court, if you can simply ignore whatever it does?

At the risk of running afoul of Godwin’s law, this is exactly what occurred when the Enabling Act was passed, which authorized Hitler to do whatever he needed to do. The Reichstag up to that point had been the check and balance against German dictatorship.

So what comes next, if the Feds begin ignoring whatever court orders that displease the left? I feel like, at that point, all semblance of a Constitutional Republic will have been eliminated. This will no longer be a nation of laws. A nation of might makes right. The Constitution itself will no longer matter as the source of government power. The only power that will exist will be at the point of a gun.

By Divemedic, ago

Attacking Teachers

I was attacked in my classroom by a student once. I feel sorry for this teacher because his career, at least with that school district, is over.

While legally a child, this student is large. Larger than the teacher, yet there are many who will say that the teacher can’t defend himself because teachers can’t hit children. There are those who say that the teacher can’t take a student’s property. Still others say that the teacher should have let him use the phone. I disagree with all of those.

No matter what, the school district will likely fire or force the teacher to resign. He is now a liability, because if there is a future incident, the parents will point to this one and claim there is a pattern of violence on the part of the teacher.

In my case, I found a new job. When I got there, I resolved to not ever take anything from a student. Ever. If a kid is on the phone, whatever. Not my circus, not my monkeys. The problem with this is that the kids learn that quickly, and many of them simply don’t learn. This causes a larger issue, because kids are not allowed to fail. So they haven’t learned anything, but they eventually graduate. That’s why we have a mostly “educated” but unlearned nation.

Our schools are out of control.  

By Divemedic, ago

Privilege

My sister called me last night. She works as a teacher here in Central Florida. She was contacted earlier in the week by her Principal because the mother of one of her students contacted the Superintendent’s office to complain that her son was being “targeted” by his teacher, as evidenced by his poor grades and discipline problems. The district office is sending an administrator to my sister’s school, so that they can meet with my sister, her Principal, and the parent to discuss the problem.

The problem? The kid is being suspended for calling another kid a “nigger” while they were at lunch. My sister isn’t the one who wrote the referral, the Principal is. My sister, as the teacher, was required to email the parent, as per district policy. The mother was very angry and claimed that her child “doesn’t even know that word.” She then demanded that my sister call her so they could discuss it. My sister wisely refused, and wants everything dealt with in writing. So that is why the parent has complained.

As soon as I heard “targeted” I knew without being told that this was a black student who was going to throw down the race card. I told her that, since this was a discipline meeting, she was entitled to have her union representative there as a matter of Federal law. I don’t really like a lot of what the union does, but in this case, it’s important to remember that there will be two administrators and a parent there. You will be alone, and need a witness there that will be somewhat impartial.

When I told her that, my sister replied, “Oh, no. The principal told me that this wasn’t a meeting where I would be disciplined. It’s just an informal meeting.” No. There is no such thing as an informal meeting when there are multiple administrators in a room with a parent making racism accusations against you. You are white, and that means you are guilty. If either of those administrators can avoid trouble by tossing you in front of that bus, they will do it without a second thought. That’s when my sister said, “Oh my principal is black. She told me that she knows I am not a racist.”

Oh shit. It was at that point that I began to wonder whether or not my sister should bring not just a union rep, but a lawyer. If this woman wants to claim that racism is why her child is failing and getting in trouble, the only white person in the room is going to be the target.

Racism is a serious charge for a teacher. Not only will it cost you your job, it can cost you your teaching license. There goes your career, and my sister doesn’t have the looks for only fans.

I’ve seen this show before. I know how it turns out. You can win, but you need lawyers, representation, witnesses, and money. I got in that fight back in 2016, and I wound up quitting and going to a different school. The old school then tried to have my professional licenses revoked. They failed and I won, but it cost me nearly $10,000 in legal fees and I wound up switching jobs.

I don’t think that my sister has that kind of money.

So when the meeting happens this week, she will have a union representative there. At least she took my advice. She usually asks for my advice, then goes in a different direction. Then she comes to me and wants advice on the situation that she got into because she didn’t follow my original advice. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

By Divemedic, ago

FRS, GMRS, MURS, HAM, CB

So there is some discussion about FMRS vs. HAM vs. GMRS vs. CB. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. CB is high frequency (HF), FRS and GMRS are Ultra High Frequency (UHF), while MURS is Very High Frequency (VHF). HAM can be all three. Let’s take a look:

No License Required

CB Radio: Citizen’s Band, 11 meter band (~27 mHz)

CB doesn’t require a license, nor is it very regulated. CB’s biggest advantage is also its biggest disadvantage: So many people have them that it’s easy to use them to contact people not in your group, but its also a disadvantage because so many people are both listening and talking over you. Just tune to channel 6 some time and listen to the yahoos talking over everyone with their illegal high powered sets. There are people there that are transmitting with thousands of watts of power. Another big disadvantage is that there are only 40 channels. Sure, you can try tricks like SSB, but if you are going to do all of that, there are better formats than CB. Police are known to routinely monitor CB radio, especially near major highways. I’m not much of a fan of CB. That may be a plus or a minus, depending on whether or not you want to talk to them. Radios run anywhere from $50 on up.

FRS: The Family Radio Service, 462-467 mHz

FRS is a channelized FM radio service that allows families to talk to each other. There are 22 channels dedicated to this service, with channels 8-14 (467 mHz) restricted to 500 milliwatts, and the rest (462 mHz) permitted up to 2 watts. All 22 channels are shared with the GMRS. No license is needed, but like CB, you are limited to certain channels, so traffic may become an issue. They can use tone coded squelch to cut down on congestion, but remember that people not using it can still hear everything you say. The radios must use permanently attached antennas, and this is done because the antennas themselves are designed to limit the range of the radios. Expect the range on these to be somewhere around three quarters of a mile in realistic conditions. Repeaters, phone patches, and the like are prohibited by law on FRS. Radios cost anywhere from $20 on up.

MURS: Multi Use Radio Service

MURS is a UHF service that uses 5 channels in the 151 and 154 mHz band. Up to 2 watts is permitted. No license is required, and there is very little traffic on these channels, but there are a wide variety of radio products that use MURS frequencies. MURS devices include wireless base station intercoms, handheld two-way radios, wireless dog training collars, wireless public address units, customer service callboxes, and wireless remote switches. That may or may not mean interference.

License Required

GMRS: General Mobile Radio Service

This service uses the same channels as FRS, plus an additional 8 channels, for a total of 30. Using these does require a license, but the only real requirement to get one is to be 18 years old, register, and pay a fee of $35. The license is good for 10 years. One license is good for your entire family. Anyone not in the family must get their own license. Transmissions must periodically include the station’s license callsign. If you are using a repeater, the repeater can be used to do that automatically. With the GMRS, you get the 8 extra channels, the ability to use repeaters, and better antennas. This means handheld units get a range of about 2 miles, vehicles about 5, and using a repeater with an antenna on top of your house can get you 20 miles or more of range. Those 8 extra channels are allowed up to 50 watts. Radios are about the same cost as FRS, $20 on up.

HAM radio: VHF, UHF, and HF

HAM radio does require a license, but it allows you a great deal of flexibility. The license isn’t too difficult. The easiest one to get is the technician license, and that requires a small fee and a relatively easy test on basic electronics. With that license, you are good to go on HF, VHF, and UHF. Since there are no channels, you literally have thousands of possible choices. This means that the frequencies will be largely unused and not congested.

Here is what I have done: The only choice from the above list that I don’t have is MURS, but I can program the Baofeng to transmit there, if I have to. In my shack, I have radios that cover GMRS, FRS, and CB, as well as HAM. I like to be as flexible as possible. There is a small antenna farm in my attic.

Each of the above has its own advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage to a channelized system is that users will be compressed into a limited number of channels. They all have one major disadvantage: they are unencrypted. That means working out code phrases that aren’t obviously code phrases: “John has a long mustache. The chair is against the wall.” Asking someone how Frank is doing could mean something that is known only to the two of you.

The advantage to a non-licensed system is that your friends and neighbors can communicate with you without the need for them to have a license.

Different frequencies and power levels allow you to play physics to your advantage. VHF is easily refracted by vegetation but doesn’t penetrate buildings or rocks very well. UHF penetrates buildings better. A VHF transmission in the woods at low power is unlikely to be intercepted. UHF at low power is great for a block or two in the city, and beyond that is unlikely to be intercepted as well.

If I were to have just one, HAM is the way to go. After that, my second choice would be GMRS.

By Divemedic, ago