Live 365. MainMilitary.com has a large selection of pistols and rifles suited for your needs. Are your local stores sold out of ammunition? Call or visit them today for prices on hard to find ammo and bulk ammo orders. You don't need to worry about having a military surplus store in your area because MainMilitary.com is the only store you'll ever need, all from the comfort of your computer. Visit them online today at MainMilitary.com. That's Main, like the state, Military.com. A figure walked in through the mist with a flintlock in his hand. His clothes were torn and dirty as he stood there by my bed. He took off his three-cornered hat and speaking low to me, he said, We've fought a revolution to secure our liberty. We wrote the Constitution as a shield from tyranny. For future generations, this legacy we gave. In this, the land of the free and home of the brave. The freedoms we secured for you we hoped you'd always keep. But tyrants labored endlessly while your parents were asleep. Your freedom's gone, your courage lost, you're no more than a slave. In this the land of the free and home of the brave. You buy permits to travel and permits to own a gun. Permits to start a business or to build a place for one. On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent. Although you have no voice in saying how the money's spent, your children must attend a school that doesn't educate, and your Christian values can't be taught according to the state. You read about the current news in a regulated press, and you pay a tax you do not owe to please the IRS. Your money is no longer made of silver nor of gold. You trade your wealth for paper so your life can be controlled. You pay for crimes that make our nation turn from God and shame. You've taken Satan's number. You've traded in your name. You've given government control to those who do you harm so they could burn down churches and seize the family farm and keep our country deep in debt. Put men of God in jail. Harash your fellow countrymen while corrupted courts prevail. Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oaths they've sworn. And your daughters visit doctors, so their children will be born. Your leaders send artillery and guns to foreign shores, and send your sons to slaughter fighting other people's wars. Can you regain the freedoms for which we fought and died? Or don't you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride? And are there no more values for which you'll fight to save? Or do you wish your children to live in fear and be a slave? Oh, sons of the Republic, arise. Take a stand. Defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land. Preserve our great Republic and each God given right. And pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright. As I awoke, he'd vanished in the mist for whence he came. His words were true. We are not free, but we have ourselves to blame. For even now as tyrants trampled each God given right we only watch him tremble too afraid to stand and fight If he stood by your bedside to dream while you were asleep and wondered what remains of the freedoms He fought to keep what would be your answer if he called out from the grave is this? On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of countless millions who would the dawn of victory sat down to rest and resting died Well, good evening ladies and gentlemen. This is the evening intelligence report time are quirky and butter nice one day closer to victory for all of our brothers and sisters both on and Behind the lines and occupied territories west central east and south west ladies and gentlemen you were listening to us on LibertyTreeRadio.4MG.com, Indiana Freedom Talk Radio.com, we're on AM and FM microstations, CB base stations, alternate hallmark and golden spike technologies east and west of the Mississippi, along with Alaska. Homework network from the top of Maine. We are up there right now. We got a crew left. Actually, I didn't know this until this morning. They didn't tell me. We got a crew up in Maine up towards Bangor right now. We don't go into towns like that. We surround the towns. So right now we're working on another junction of probably one of the most extreme points. in the area in terms of the kind of work that's going to be done, but another node is going into the far north eastern element and that's going to be a lot of work, but hey, we donated about two pallet bins full of electronics. We've got a company here. They're pissed at what the system is doing. They're tired of the illegal aliens. They're tired of the other junk. We're getting brand new tech circa three generations back. It's all going to the same groups up there in the northeast because it matches their present committed systems. So you guys, you got a gift that should be there in your front porch right now, actually in your driveways, and get to work. This is not going to be a laid back weekend. In fact, it's going to be Surprised Sergeant Carter. Anyway, BK, it's dark here. What's liking your neck of the woods? What is the day today? Let's jump it off the wall, sir. It is 5 December 2014. It is Friday evening. It is the last hour of the day and the week for the intelligence report and that makes this quarter masters corner. And it is a soggy and sloppy one here. We are well into winter and that means it's the wet season. So I have a bunch of stuff to do. I just finished digging around in the dirt and now I get to scrape the leaves. It's just one thing after another waiting for a warmish, preferably a dry day to do that. But that will provide the mulch that goes on top of all the dirt that we've just been digging. It never ends. By the time I get the leaves up, it will be spring again and I'll have to start mowing. So just one thing after another. So I have a thought for the week. And let me propose my thought for the week. Western civilization is responsible for the creation of Briar's waffle cone ice cream and Philip K. Dick and therefore it must be preserved. So let's set about preserving Western civilization from the vampire monsters because of all the good things it creates and has created and will continue in the future. With that in mind, we have a couple of interesting consumer items that have appeared recently on the market. I'd like to mention these things. I do not have extensive reviews of them, but I will call everybody's attention to them just as interesting phenomena that have some promise in the future. We have spoken in the past of the 3D printers and the filament printing and all that kind of good stuff. That is becoming Unless the domain of the do-it-yourself tinkerers is becoming a little bit more consumerized, Dremel has just released a device called the 3D Idea Builder. It is a $1,000 off-the-shelf filament printer. Believe it or not, $1,000 is actually a reduction in the cost considerably. You can do cheaper than that, but you're building things up from bits of threaded rod and stepper motors and things of that sort yourself. You're substituting a great deal of labor to do that and the production cost still ends up generally in the several hundred dollar range by the time you are done. So $1,000 off the shelf is actually a cheap device compared to the ones that are out there. The early reviews say it's got a lot of promise. It's got a few flaws as well. The included software, the embedded software is based on an ARM processor, so it is not the usual well shaken down Atmel based software, but it's a more powerful CPU. It's got good resolution, but the software is a little bit buggy, so wait for some revisions to come out. The other thing is that it is PLA only. There are two plastics that are routinely used in these things. One of them is PLA. It is a very soft, low melt plastic, but it's also rather weak and easily broken. It will distort even just being left in a car on a summer day, that sort of thing. So it's more a fun play toy type thing. And there is ABS, which is a much stronger tougher plastic but it is higher temperature and a bit more temperamental. One of the things you have to do to use ABS in a filament printer is you need to have a heated bed because the first few layers that you put down, if they cool, they will shrink and they will peel back from the bed and lift and that causes problems as you continue to print layers on top. So you have to have a heated bed to do ABS and the Dremel device does not. So until people come out with an aftermarket heated bed or they come out with a version 2 that does have a heated bed, It is not going to do ABS so it's limited to PLA only. The software is a little bit buggy. I have read that the filament it uses, 1.75mm, is one of the standard sizes. It uses that standard size filament but there's something proprietary about the filament they're trying to do the standard trick of selling you a device and then locking up the supply of the consumables at double a market price. People say well with a minor modification to the head you can use standard filament. I am not clear on the details involved there. Undoubtedly if this thing catches on people will market or widely distribute the information at least on how to modify the head. But as is The device, as delivered, is a nice little toy, but it's got a couple of deficiencies, so you don't want to buy it just yet. That said, it has reduced the cost considerably. It has a more powerful processor in it than is commonly the case. The software will probably get fixed at some point, so keep an eye on that. but do not buy the version 1.0 away for version 2 that has a hopefully a heated bed, will use ABS and does not require the proprietary plastics. However, that being the case, one of the things I would suggest, and I'm just going to put the idea in people's heads to rattle around, we should not be too focused on using these devices to build useful parts because PLA is a very weak plastic. What you should be doing though is use this device to make complex parts and then use those parts to make molds whether it's sand casting molds for metals or whether it is cast silicone molds for plastics and resins and things of this sort. Use these things to produce a very nice original from which to make a mold. And once you've made the mold, then you have a wider range of materials that you can cast into the mold. So this is a very useful tool. for one of the guys that's pasting a $500 printer. The $5, $600 printers that I have seen reviewed did not come out very well, but the trend is good. At any rate, what I would suggest is do not use these things with the intention of making a useful part, but rather use these with the intention of making a complex armature, the casting people use the word armature as an original from which to make a mold and then use the mold. So, comments there? Did I lose you? Mark? I know I thought. Go ahead. It seems to me it might be possible to use that 3D printer with the PLA to make applications. Well, like Hollywood uses soft material to make facial appliances for costumes and special effects. It could be used to drastically alter someone's Well, I suppose you might. Once again, if you're going to do that, I would say make that out of PLA and then mold it so that you can pour silicone into a mold, that kind of thing. What you're working towards is the sort of thing that they did in the 1960s, Mission Impossible. They were always making one person's face in somebody else's face. I remember that. And they're always peeling off these masks, yeah. Mr. Hand was the mimic. We're in trouble, we just killed the boss. The other piece of consumer equipment that has recently appeared that is also very interesting and has a downside is that I've been seeing ads recently for a device called the Harvest Right and that can be seen at Harvest What that is is a consumer tabletop freeze-dry machine. Believe it or not, somebody is producing a freeze-dry machine. So they say, well, you can do freeze-drying of your own foods, and it only takes 24 hours, and so on and so forth. That's a little bit worrisome because the commercial freeze dried process takes several days to run. And here's the fine print on the device. If you want one, you can have one. What about your credit card? The steel and enamel version will set you back only $3,900 and the stainless steel version $4,300. So you're going to have to freeze dry an awful lot of strawberries and stuff to pay for that. However, the notion is kind of neat. The actual freeze dry process involves not only freezing things to normal levels, but freezing them much, much colder than is normally the case. And then slowly warming them up under low pressure. So, people have tried home hacking that with mixed results. A vacuum pump is not hard to do. A container capable of withstanding negative one atmosphere of pressure, effectively zero pressure, is not hard to do. And slowly warming something up is not hard to do. A commercial process starts at minus 50 Fahrenheit and then slowly works up from there. So you need something more rigorous than the average consumer deep freeze to get to the initial cold temperatures required. So I don't know whether this guy gets all the way down there. But the commercial process does require several days and this thing cycles in one day. So I don't know if the results are quite as good as what you would like. But the idea is certainly very interesting and exciting. And this is the version one product, the first one that anybody's brought out for consumer use. at the $4,000 level. Things are always very, very expensive when they first appear. The business geeks figure, well, we'll suck the money out of the early adopters, the people that absolutely just have to have the new cool thing initially. And that will pay for the R&D and make some fortunes and fund the organization. And then we'll bring out more mass market oriented versions later on. So that may be the intention here that certainly is the pattern. However, the fact that somebody has brought one out at all is an interesting thing. It also means that somebody believes that there is a mass market out there for food, storage, preparation, technology, freeze drying, and so on. So that is very interesting development. Comments? No, no, go right ahead, please. Jump in there. Keep going. Okay, let's see, while we're at it, I have a book report. We're doing all sorts of interesting, different, and miscellaneous things this evening. There is a book that's been out for quite a while. This is going to be a different kind of book report. This is a negative book report. Alright, I recommend that people get their hands on this book. It is available in both print and audio book format. But I'll warn you, do not let the kids read this book. Do not play the audio in the vicinity of the children. Not for the normal reason. There isn't a lot of heavy breathing or anything along those lines. But it may be a terrible influence if any of them actually listen to it literally. The book is by a fellow named Robert Green. You can guess his ethnicity from that perhaps. I don't know for sure, but we can make an educated guess. The title of the book is 48 Laws of Power. Basically, it seems to be consistent with a lot of these other yuppie business books, How to Succeed in Business, all this kind of good stuff. But if you listen to this book, it reads like the Boy Scout manual for vampires. It describes all of the contemptible things that we despise in an individual and advocates them. For instance, here's a little sample. His basic attitude is that all of your friends are out to get you. You need to get them first. So, your friends are just waiting for the opportunity to put the knife in, so you need to put the knife in first. So you should be very nice and pleasant and smiling and deceive them all into thinking that you like them while you're looking for an opportunity to put the knife in. You should never tell your subordinates or coworkers enough for them to get by without you because they will put the knife in. You should conceal from everybody in your vicinity whatever it is you really want until you get the opportunity to put the knife in. Do we start to get the pattern here? If you read or listen to this thing, it sounds like a primer on how to be Hillary or how to be Mr. Hillary or any of these vampire slimeballs. This is the way to run a civilization which implodes as soon as you get more than one in 10,000 of the population behaving like this, everything goes completely into the toilet. And yet, this guy is deliriously thrilled to hand out these tips to people on how to be vampire slime ball minions. So, if anybody is interested in life stories, life advice, don't do that. But if you are really, really interested in seeing how these people think, I find this fascinating. It is fascinating along the lines of you cannot tear your eyes away from the video of that automobile crash or that train wreck or whatever that case may be. In the same way, this particular book is fascinating in that regard, it is, I think, a monument to the entire vampire mindset. If you read or listen to this thing, you will discover exactly what it is that we are opposing exactly the sorts of people who are running the country and you will buy implication be able to see exactly what's going on in our culture right now. So that is Robert Greene, 48 Laws of Power. Do not purchase the book. Do not rent the audiobook. It would be a crime to put pennies into the pocket of this slime ball, but it would certainly be of interest to anybody interested in studying in an academic sense. the mindset of these people. What is true is that if you have a society that's made out of decent people that functions reasonably and you are one of these slime balls, you may prosper tremendously. As soon as a significant fraction of a percentage of people operate like this, then everything goes down the toilet. Right, because there is simply a critical predator to prey ratio. When you exceed that, everything goes to pot. I would say that the predator to prey ratio for this sort of behavior is somewhere in the 1000 to 1 or 10,000 to 1. If you have more than 1 in a 1000 or more than 1 in 10,000 people like this, they go through life leaving a trail of corpses behind them. You simply cannot run a society like that. But those who succeed operating like this may end up with the large screen televisions and the Bentleys and so on and so forth. It's just that as soon as too many people try to jump on that bandwagon, well, you can't have everybody peeing on everybody else simultaneously. Pretty soon everybody just gets smelly. It's interesting too. One of the things we've pointed out time and again is the founding fathers described it the same way. This form of government was based upon a just people. In other words, a people who were... They had a moral standard, guys. And this is something that we are seeing everybody brag up about not having. That's the big thing. Both with a lot of what's pumped here in the United States Amazingly enough, not a surprise, communist China has already prepped for this anyway. But China, there are a series of books on the very subject you're talking about that are at the top of the list. It's basically Dog Eat Dog, although it's nothing more than the Communist Party Revisited. It's interesting that it is the subject right now. Now that they're seeing, well as we know, a little case in point, we're not number one anymore, we're now number two economically. Everybody knows we passed that milestone last week, right? We're now number two. They were saying a few months ago that it was expected to occur soon, several years ahead of schedule. I called out that phrase, ahead of schedule. Wait a minute, there was a schedule? Really? You planned this path really? Yeah, a surprise. So for everybody out there, again, pay attention because it's not a surprise for us. The Patriot Movement has basically mapped it out for every step of the way. We're not getting caught flat-footed. There's a whole bunch of people that do look like deer in headlights, but it's interesting. Some of them are very characters you're describing who thought that, well, this thing was going to go on forever. They're not the brightest. These blames simply are crippled. They're mentally crippled and because they're also thinking they obviously can't think any farther than the end of their nose and they can't be allowed to. In fact, they're conditioned not to. Or they would realize that if you pee in the pool long enough, all you got left are baby roots and yellow water. And nobody wants it. Well, that's exactly what they've done here. And it's to the point now where we're at the crossroads. We literally across this, the whole of this country is at the crossroads with regard to a decision and it's now. It's not two years down the road, it's now. It's in your face. Go ahead, BK, please. Okay, well that's enough of that one. Let's see, there is a development on the powder front. Both Powder Valley and Grafts right now have IMR4064 in stock in the 8 pound containers. As usual, there's about a $20 price differential. Grafts is offering that at $173. They are listing it in stock. When they get down to low quantities they say less than 5 and that's our thing. They are not saying that. They have some significant amount of that. Powder Valley is offering it at a hair below 154, also in 8 pounds of course. That is 4064. Now 4064 is a very versatile powder. It runs the entire range of .223 to .308. If you have to have a single powder to handle all of your needs, that's not a bad choice. So, both of those have that. If you're out hunting for powder, somebody has shipped a bunch of IMR4064 and that is available now. So, heads up if you're looking, that is an available option this week. That hasn't been available for a while. These things have a habit of going out of stock rather rapidly. We are coming up on Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone. Therefore, it's entirely possible that the consumer attention is shifted a little bit more in the direction of televisions and wool socks and things of that sort. So it's possible that these powders may last a little bit longer this week, next week, than has been the habit recently. I wouldn't bet my life on that, but it's entirely possible. We may have a little bit of breathing space in that regard, but that particular choice is not a bad choice if you want to have a small number of different types that are highly versatile. That one has appeared again this week. So, 4064 at 154 at Potter Valley, 173 at Graf's, and probably other vendors have it as well at varying price points. available now online and the usual vendors all that kind of good stuff. Comments? Again, as expected, guys, if it fits your niche and it's part of the inventory, what you need to accomplish the task. Take a look at what it is you do and don't have filled in through the, oh that's right, that rat sheet that we've very commonly talked about on Quartermaster Friday that allows you to keep track of things, virtually anything in your inventory, not just food. Go ahead, BK. Okay, let's see, oh yes, and another comment. We have mentioned this previously this week on LTR, so it's not brand new news to anybody. But the National Retail Federation released statistics this week that Black Friday this year saw 11% less sales than last year. and has announced as usual that this is a wonderful thing. Everything that happens according to them is a wonderful thing and I have to jump through some hoops sometimes to try to come up with a rationale for why whatever happened is a wonderful thing. If things go up, that's great. If things go down, that's great. It reminds me of assignments in high school to come up with some BS argument in favor of our particular thesis the teacher proposed. They were teaching us to be apparatics to come up with some line of argument for any ridiculous thing that somebody might assign us. The National Retail Federation seems to be in the same mode. The most coherent excuse they've come up with that I've heard is, Oh, the economy is so good that people are not rushing out to get the bargains, I guess, because they're no longer so price sensitive. Well, wait a minute. If that were the case, then that would mean that they aren't rushing out for the bargains because they're paying full price for things. So the numbers would be higher. How exactly do they extract that? I don't know. I think that even the corporate press is having a little bit of difficulty swallowing that one. The people that work in the corporate press are not by and large drinkers of the Kool-Aid. They realize just what a load of hooey they're shoveling. Every once in a while it leaks into their comments and you kind of see them rolling their eyes. are by force of will maintaining a straight face, etc. But this is one of those times. Somehow they're reporting this 11% drop and the analysis that this is a sign of economic health. So I have no idea how they're going to spin that one. I think they're going to let that one just sort of drop into the stream and hope to outlive it. Comment. Well, interestingly enough, like you said, the math doesn't make sense. Well, then they're buying full price because they just feel like it's a wonderful life. Well, if they're buying full price, then the dollar numbers would be higher. Right. Or at least neutral. In other words, they should be at the same level because the additional money spent to buy that full priced item because they don't need the sale item. It would effectively change the numbers to at least a neutral point comparable sales if not exceeding the number that they reached beyond last year. It's one of those things where joy, joy, feelings and happy, happy thoughts. Remember that one? Smile and wave, everything's fine. Double plus good. Oh well, 1984. Oops, I have an interrupt. I'm going to need to step away for a minute. Oh, okay. Well, I'll tell you what, real quick here, guys, we are going to have a drawing starting Monday. We'll give you all the information on that. It should cover it maybe before the end of the program here. We have a number of knives, hats. Also, we're going to be setting up a second drawing with the T-shirt, the signed T-shirt that's coming up. But this is a step-by-step process. We've got to cover transport of certain things, shipping, and we also have to be able to pick up a few other items to replace older technology. I'm going to upgrade Ed a little bit without spending too much. But there are things that are also getting tired. It's not a matter of just a win. One of the good things I've been keeping my eyeballs peeled and so for instance switchers and you know different pieces of equipment I've been picking up exact you know duplicates of. The other day one of our units burned out well I had three on the shelf. They're exactly the same. I've kept them for that reason. Unplug the old one plug in the new one it's not new it's just brand new in the box but you know from three four years ago. and somebody else tossed it, it's free. And guess what? Nothing but a little hiccup taking the time to plug everything in and just changing it out so that the next new one's up. The wall work for the old one was saved, the unit itself right otherwise. And that's something to think about is watching all these odd locations where they have resale shops or church sales. A lot of stuff gets donated because it was last generation or two generations ago. For a lot of the work that we do, that's more than sufficient. In fact, again, we can do a lot more with a lot less, which we need to emphasize. It's not that difficult, but we've got again, everybody keep an eye out on things. We're probably going to also put a list out there. I've been going through all the Dell equipment for Henry from the trenches. And boy, I got a lot of Dell. So I might even be sending a whole bunch of other cool stuff out that way simply because it would be useful, but it doesn't match up with what we do. Sending it somewhere else and sending every model of it so that it can be used, say, by Henry and the crew, well, that'll probably be our best choice since we know that they're using Dell's. Another thing, keep an eye out for the Christmas, you know, post-Thanksgiving to Christmas sales as far as Thanksgiving items and still Halloween items. Things didn't go quite as well as the big system planned and candies and even some foodstuffs are still at places like Big Lots. and some of the regular utility stores that are like big lots. We've got what's called Oly's here. They've got some great prices on Halloween candy. Hey, it's Fufu stuff. It's the idea that you can change up. Peanut butter, you know, peanut butter, chews, things like that. They don't go out of style. Pumpkin flavor stuff, it doesn't go out of style. And bottom line is, it's a change up. Food fatigue is going to be an issue. Having unique stuff that you can incorporate or take a burden off of your food supply by reducing cost and incorporating these items into the system. The other thing is watching for solar lighting. Now, most everybody bought the stuff out within a few days after the Thanksgiving stuff, first with Halloween and then the Thanksgiving stuff. But watch your, not just your dollar stores, but your mainline track stores because... Also watch Aldi. Aldi has some of those sometimes. Yes. And the thing is that when they're done, if they still have any on the shelf, they will run them at regular price, but they are marking stuff down now. The big thing with Big Lot is that once they get past the holiday date, what they're doing now is putting a progressive scale discount sheet on the shelf. So if you bought it the week afterwards, you save 20%. The next few days, you save 25. Next few days, you save 30. Next few days, you save 50. Next few days, it costs one quarter what the original Anna had for price. That's the toughy because for instance we got a bunch of the LED lighting last year for a quarter a pack. I'm looking at one of the strings I got right here. Nancy just put up the test real quick. They're brand new. We're going to be using some of those this year but I'm also keeping some of them on standby. They're in kits for emergency lighting because they have learn little or no power. The cool thing is they can be used for night lighting to move around. But the solar lights, there's solar Christmas lights. Go take a look at, go do your pre-shopping for the sales. But you've got to remember that as soon as the holiday goes by, this stuff starts marking down and some people go in and just scarf everything up. I should also mention that I stopped in a deal recently, a few months ago actually, and they had a $1 yard light, one of these solar yard lights. It was all plastic, 100% plastic, bright pink, bright orange, that kind of stuff. But for a $1 unit, I was reasonably pleased. Took the thing apart and took a look at it. It's got a NiCad AAA battery in it. NICAD is particularly suitable for that use because it doesn't need the regulation circuitry for charging purposes and it will survive many cycles in that sort of use. As a very small white LED, you're not going to be able to read anything by it no matter how close you hold it to the newspaper, but it is sufficient to see where you're walking along a path, that sort of thing. and add a single one dollar. The thing is actually not bad and if you unscrew it, the battery was socketed in there so you could swap in a replacement if you needed to. I had a little 360 degree conical reflector for the down looking LED so that cast light in a circle and about an inch and a half square inch or so of photocell. Not too shabby. So, for $1, you could use quite a number of those things and sprinkle them along a path or whatever you want. It's not a bad option. Strangely enough, it was all injection molded plastic, so it's not going to be rugged. But it had a little spike in there, so you can poke it into the ground. You didn't even have to do that. And I was pretty pleased with that. One of the things that we do here, in fact I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven just in the window here, some of the exotic ones that came into Aldi's and some of the others from the dollar store. for night illumination. I shut the lights off in this part of the this side of the house. It's on the south side anyway. And we've got a really nice illumination for moving around the house in the evening. Don't have to switch a light on and off and cut down the light bill from that direction. Also, any of your south faces, or for that matter any face, you will collect some light. But your south and westerly faces especially for windows This time of year, everybody used to put, remember the little light with the candle in the window, and you'll see that this year for the holiday season, the Christmas season. You can take a yard light like that, make a little base for it a number of different ways. and put it in the window so that you've got additional illumination. Don't even have to hit a light when you go into the bedroom or go up the hallway. And again, you're starting to cut back on expenses there for a dollar's worth of purchase. It's going to be indoors. Not going to take any abuse, which is critical. Outside, the elements come and go. Moisture hits it. But inside, how long will it last sitting in that window? I'd say a pretty good long time. So you've got ways to in fact use this lighting for auxiliary lighting in and around the house too. The other consideration with solar is use it, treat it like candles. During the day, first thing, you have a little regimen in the morning. As you walk through the part of the house, they go over to the south side to a window. When you're ready towards the evening, you're going through your evening regimen just like they used to do. It's not a big deal. Take a second. Deploy them in the house in different places. And as it gets darker, They light up the corners. So there's a number of different ways it can be done. All of them are creative. I use them in the outlying areas also for all the animal sheds and for all the perimeter fence. I'm looking for a deal right now. Right now there's not any that are really at the dollar stores except for something that's kind of like a champagne glass thing that they're doing for party tables. You know, where you can put them on the table and they're illuminating and you know, they run for so long and then they go out. I'm pretty sure those are watch battery powered, which is interesting. But they're pretty serviceable. We've got about four or five I've been experimenting with using those in one window. They work religiously. So again, it's one of those little solution things where it doesn't cost much, dollars worth of resource, and how many years worth of service. I would say. And again, all you do is plug and play, walk away. That's the way to do it. Anything where you can minimize your time on one area means you can maximize your time on others. Go ahead, BK, please. Okay, and there is one last really interesting technology that has appeared recently. We have heard about software-defined radio, and this has been developing over time because of the improvement of DSP processors, that's Digital Signal Processing processors. There are a lot of processor CPUs coming out. which have special instructions in them that make DSP more efficient. And as a result, these chips are becoming much cheaper and people are starting to experiment with them. So some fairly inexpensive products are appearing within the financial reach of mere mortals. One of them is the RTL-SDR dongle. And this is a device that you can purchase for, I think it's on the order of $20. It is a receive-only device. It is a USB dongle. and with appropriate software, and this is the twitchy part because you have to learn a lot more about the stuff than I know, but there are Linux distributions with software-defined radio GUI packages all lined up. So you can start out with these graphs and take a signal source and drag a little arrow over into a mixer and mix in a constant frequency and heterodyne it down and take the output and route that around and so on. So basically you can architect a radio to your desires without doing any soldering or tinkering with an oscilloscope, all that kind of good stuff. You can sit there and fool around with a laptop and define a new radio and push the button and run it and see how it works. Some of these things are very very cheap and of course the Linux software is freely available. Others are a little bit more expensive but getting better. There is an website called GreatScottGadgets.com and they have produced a device called the Hack RF. This is a little on the more expensive side. I think it costs $300. It's a single board. Similar to other products, it is a USB device. plug it into your PC and fool around with the software and so on and tell it what you want it to do. That one has both transmit and receive capability and it is very very wide band. It goes all the way up to 6 GHz and all the way down into the MHz range. So, it will pick up everything all the way down to broadcast FM and AM. It will move all the way up into the Wi-Fi range, which is around 2.4. There are some wireless up around 5 GHz. GSM, the satellites, the global positioning stuff is within its range. So you can download packages of software configurations that people have already cooked up. If you are early on the learning curve like I am, you can get the benefit of other people's tinkering around. And as you learn, then you can fiddle around yourself. People have done demonstrations like set these things up to pick up two FM broadcast stations simultaneously to the same radio. Not that that's particularly useful, but it's a cute demonstration. But you can do other things. You can set up scanners across any range you want. So you're not limited to a CB scanner or a public service scanner. If you decide that you're interested in the 800 megahertz range, and you're looking for activity in an area, you can set up a scanner to run in a particular range and ping pong back and forth and generate alerts. One of the things people have used these for is to tune in and find out what an RFID device is doing and to look at the data and see is this really a secure device or is it simply broadcasting an RFID serial number. If it is, some of these things just ping those out on a regular basis. You can find out what the serial number is on that. You can replicate it. You can rebroadcast the same thing. You can do your own replay attacks against your own equipment, of course. That's legal to do against your own equipment, of course. You can reverse engineer your garage door opener and see whether it really is a rotating key device or not, as it is described. You can sniff. to see whether some unknown persons are chatting away in bands that are normally to be considered fairly private and not visible to people with consumer technology. So what these things do is they give you the ability to wander around all over the spectrum across a very wide range. and do what you please, not what's just been packaged for you by the radio manufacturers. Now this is not going to be the do all, be all, end all replacement for ham rigs and so on. You're not going to be talking to the other end of the continent on one of these little single board devices with a whip antenna. It gives you many, many opportunities to sniff around looking for activity. If you're inside a metallic building, so you're heavily shielded from RF, and you fire this thing up and you find out that there's a live signal source, well, maybe there's some equipment in your vicinity that you didn't put there. you know, some hostile character is. Maybe that stranger over there has something in his pocket that he doesn't want you to know about. So you can do a lot of things with these things. You can sniff around across the spectrum. There's a display called a waterfall display, which is a graphical means of displaying a frequency sweep. These things can be connected up to an Android device and use the graphics of the Android device to behave like an oscilloscope or display the waterfall display or what have you to show you what's going on. These would be useful adjuncts to add into a radio van if you're doing a communications van and you've got a lot of conventional equipment in there. I would not add very much to the cost or the bulk to have a laptop and one of these guys in there to perform auxiliary functions that you may not have specialized equipment to do. As you expand your capabilities in something like a van or a trailer or whatnot, the weight and the power consumption and so on, I'll add every time you stuff a new box in there. These guys are very, very compact and very, very flexible. You can have an unlimited number of programs in one laptop and just switch modes and say, okay, now we're scanning CV. Oh, now we're scanning VHF to find out what's going on. Now we're scanning this, that, and the other thing. Maybe you're looking for a strong signal and then you run it through a filter to see if there's detectable voice signals. And if it's not, you raise a flag and say, hey, I think I found some encrypted traffic. Wouldn't you like to look at this? So there are some really interesting things going on in this area. The HackRF is available through GreatScottGadgets.com for $300. There's also a HackRF2 right now that's on an Indiegogo campaign. Since HackRF is open source, what's going on with that Indiegogo campaign is some people have said, okay, we're going to take this design. We're going to delete a few of the headers to reduce the cost. We are going to look for lower cost components to reduce the cost. We are going to sell these to the general public at $200 a unit and use the profits to send some free units out to various hackerspaces so people can play with these things and come up with additional software. So that's kind of a neat program. So, as a side effect of that, not only do you get a version 2 device that is consistent with all of the software that's already out there at $200 instead of $3, but you're also proliferating this technology to some organizations which among them will have a few people that are very interested and tinker with it and produce additional software. The HackRF version 1 from Great Scott Gadgets or version 2 from the Indiegogo campaign can be had for $300 and $200 respectively. Remember that those devices have transmit capability and the RTL SDRs have receive only but are much, much less expensive in the $20 range. Both of them can be driven from freely available open source Linux software, some of which is graphical, so that you do need to learn some things about how radio works. But you have to learn considerably less in order to get up and running to experiment and tinker and come up with new combinations to do things different from what is routinely being marketed. So, software defined radio, Google for it, take a look out there, it is becoming much, much less expensive than it has been only a few years ago and much, much more accessible than it has been only a few years ago. Comments? Again, what you were just bringing up about using it with the radio rig, if it's laptop compatible, What do we need and what are we looking at power wise? What drive, what are we looking for for RAM to keep anything like this in service? Well, the programs that drive the device use a megabyte or two. Anything would work just about then. Anything would work. Now, a lot of processing is done in the laptops themselves. So, for instance, people have done demonstrations pulling down FM broadcast stations and playing them back. And they say, well, you know, Ed, 10 MHz sampling rate, my little i3 really can't keep up, so we drop the sampling rate down to 6 MHz and it does okay. So some of the work is being done in the laptop. If you want to run a very retro laptop, you will limit what you can do. but the cost of even a state-of-the-art i7 type laptop and so on is so small by comparison with the prices people are accustomed to paying for very flexible ham gear that this is pushing the envelope down. And of course if you're in a van or whatnot, you don't have to use a laptop. You can use a desktop and You know, run that stuff. If you're willing to take a little bit of a hit on the portability scale, you still have a lot of capability for a small amount of dollars. Well, the reason I bring that up is that we do have a pile. In fact, I passed up yesterday. Another 15 laptops that everything was there. I just did not the only I didn't have was enough power supplies and since they're unique adapters typically how it is they pick pick a goofy connector for The obvious reason of selling if it does have a problem you're gonna you can only buy theirs and no more But they're Dell's so again we're looking at what, Pentium 4s or newer processors. We're looking at 40G to 100G hard drives, which I think would be sufficient, I would assume. Yeah, I'm sure that depending on what you're doing, if you're trying to bring in a clean signal and listen to audio, that's going to be more demanding than scanning around and saying, oh, there's activity in this area. So the capability of your laptop will affect how sophisticated your applications can be but the floor is very low level and you can go as high as you want and bear in mind that you can get some pretty capable small form factor PCs for not a whole lot of money too so you don't have to be strictly in the laptop if you can be in the low bulk end of things you can do things that are officially desktop but not much bigger than a laptop. Well, the other nice thing is that there is a plethora of the used laptops out there that are actually still quite serviceable. We're just not up to snuff for what a lot of people are expecting for multitasking. But we're not going to be multitasking. We're going to focus this particular piece of equipment. So what's cool is we're making it a very portable system and to attach it to a secondary unit or give it to a team as part of their mission statement, things to do. That would make that a very viable option. And like you said, with all of the other machines, with the machines that are available out there from one direction or another, the laptop to me, that fits right in with the niche with multi-purpose equipment that we've talked about on the one hand, isolating our radios. If you have a special like a signal interpretation or a signal tracking team, they're out in the front and they would be compressed and taken out typically using smaller pieces of equipment, more compressed technology. And this would fit that niche. That's why I'm saying it would be useful. There is a glut of laptops and like you said the other under the desk units but the laptops right now are we're just ending up with a flood of them. So I think we're going to take the time to experiment with the application with these because it's all one model. Right, you can choose the point that you want to be on the curve. Take a look at a conventional motherboard and figure if you're not putting big old video cards on it and things like that, you can build a desktop and a LCD monitor that's only two or three times as big and heavy as a laptop. So you can be wherever you want to be on the curve there. Right. Well actually, Ice Freedom and the chatroom are saying you could drill out the connector. Oh, I know we could modify the connector, but you've got to understand the situation I'm in here, guys. I can go and look through three or four bins a day of electronics coming in, and it's everything from eight-track AM-FM radios to cutting-edge state-of-the-art stuff that somebody's got more money in brains and they're just tossing. I kicked myself in the arse because while they were deactivated, somebody had drilled them. There was a pile of hard drives there, but nobody had scrapped them for their precious metals or unique components. And I should have grabbed them all. In fact, with what I just saw on the way of a write-up on some of the components, I should have grabbed them all. I would have gotten them for nothing. I could have had them for free probably just about. And the bad part is that there's a lot of other technology here. One day the laptops will come in, the next day there will be this rat nest. And I'm not exaggerating the size of two laundry baskets. And the power supplies will be in there. Microphones, headsets, auxiliary connectors, every variable connector. I've been putting kits together with every possible connector in a kit. So if you need it, you got it. and those are going in the trailer like we're talking about so the thing is we can improvise but if we're patient we can probably find it still sitting on the shelf it's just somebody else may have tossed it out or it's just waiting to be tossed out they just didn't get around to it always pay attention to all the junk passing through somebody's hands kids a lot of its treasure and they just don't have a clue and they don't care they get tons of it BK anything else before we go sir? Nah we're up Oh my goodness, yes we are. And for everybody out there, Quartermaster Friday is ending here, but we got gun shows this weekend and Ham Fest. Guys, get to the Ham Fest, at least start looking at those 6 meter radios we told you about. They're still cheap, they're kicking but everybody's put down this going, wow, Mark, this is fun. Yeah, it's fun and you get the job done, kids. God bless the Republic. Death to the New World Order. We shall prevail, ladies and gentlemen. The Empire is on the run. We are on the March Pose, day and night. Ooh-rah! Keep them in the flat to beat them down hard. Don't let them get back up. We're going to war. We're going to war to win. Thank you, BK. You're welcome. There's no better time than now to become a Live 365 DJ with the new Studio 365 mobile app. All Live 365 broadcasters can now manage their radio station anywhere they go with their iPhone or Android device. This now means that broadcasters can interact with you the listener at the tap of a button on their mobile screen. The Studio 365 app is just the first of many new innovative products scheduled to be released by Live 365. You too can be a broadcaster to learn more about the Studio 365 app. Visit live365.com slash DJ. This message brought to you by the American Institute of CPAs and the Ad Council. Parents who really know it all know for sure that their child is in the right car seat at the right age and size. Visit safercar.gov slash the right seat to make sure your child is protected. Brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Ad Council. You know, style is a personal thing and your lifestyle is your business. But if you take it on the road, it becomes everybody's business. So please, plan ahead, designate before you celebrate, friends don't let friends drive through. The question about the dollar, there is a growing concern that there is instability within the international financial system as a whole. How do you view this situation and what would be your primary concerns in such a reform of the international financial system? First let me say that this is an issue which needs to be addressed. But it needs to be addressed in a very thoughtful way. So as not to further aggravate whatever conditions exist there. Bada-