HOBBY RADIO DAILY
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05-01-2025 - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing - National Current Ops / Monitoring – April 30-May 1, 2025
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• No new significant incidents / operations
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Weather (Slight Risk) – Southern Plains to Great Lakes
• Riverine Flooding (Moderate-Major) – Southern Plains
• Flash Flooding (Considerable) – Puerto Rico
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• No new declaration activity
05-01-2025 - Someone on X, formerly known as Twitter, asked the current administration to require all vehicles to have a CB Radio and train people to use those radios. Interesting. Be careful what you wish for.
05-01-2025 - Our public schools use the Multi-Use Radio Service frequency of 151.940 MHz. The school nearest to me was quite "radio busy" yesterday. So far, 151.940 MHz is the only MURS frequency on which I have not heard a non-school use. But it could happen. If it does, I'm betting the school system will think thev're been illegally interfered with. I'm sure 99% of school staff have never heard of license-free MURS or the associated FCC rules.
05-01-2025 - Good Morning! It's the 1st of May already, and another two days of rain are in the forecast. The recent rains have lifted us from the drought "watch" stage to normal. We need a little more to get through the long, hot summer ahead. The Morse code runs in the background, and my coffee is ready.
04-30-2025 - It was late 1975 when I stopped in Williams, Arizona for gas. I was on the way to San Francisco to play Army. In those days, the Radio was buzzing with activity, partly due to the speed limit being 55 MPH and the associated "smokey" reports. I asked the station attendant - yes, they pumped your gas and cleaned your windshield back then - about the nearest McDonald's. He said, "We don't allow them here. Only the good places!" In 2010, we stayed overnight in Williams - before going to the Grand Canyon - and had Big Macs at the local McDonald's! Times change. The CB Radio was also a lot quieter.
04-30-2025 - It was the late 1960s. I was sitting in the family CB Radio-equipped car when I heard two kids (I was a kid, but they were younger) playing with CB walkie-talkies. Before long, I had them believing I was a visitor from another planet hiding in a nearby storm drainage pipe. After about 15 minutes, some adult had heard enough and told me to knock it off. I did. Damn Kilocycle Kops!
04-30-2025 - There's a lot of chatter on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the requirement that commercial truck drivers be able to speak some level of English. Understanding the requirement and whether or not it is needed is swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other. Some people commenting know what they're talking about. Some saw the words trucker and English and imagined all kinds of things. CB Radio was mentioned, hence my limited interest. I'll let them hash it out. I've learned to keep my two cents in my pocket. I might need it for radios or radio accessories.
04-30-2025 - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing for April 30, 2025 - National Current Ops / Monitoring – April 29-30, 2025
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• Severe Weather – Southern Plains to Northeast
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Thunderstorms – Southern Plains to Lower Mississippi Valley
• Heavy Rain/Flash Flooding – Southern Plains to Middle Mississippi Valley
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• No new declaration activity
Event Monitoring:
• No new significant events
04-30-2025 - Has anyone made an FRS, MURS, GMRS, CB, or Ham Radio contact from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis? How about the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio? Ham Radio VHF or UHF contacts have probably happened, but what about the other radio services?
04-30-2025 - 6:30 AM - The line of storms has passed. Now, it's school buses, city transit buses, Walmart, the local prison, the county jail, Air Traffic Control, and other radio players that will provide morning radio entertainment.
04-29-2025 - I had a flashback of my first stop at the over-the-highway McDonald's in Vinita, Oklahoma, back in 1974. I was headed north to Savanna Army Depot to play Army. Those were the golden CB Radio years. All the truckers had radios, and many 4-wheelers also had radios. During that trip, I had a 102-inch fiberglass antenna on a Chevy Vega. That was a sight. My last stop there was heading north again, to the St. Louis area for the 2017 total solar eclipse. Yes, I had the CB Radio on but there was less Channel 19 CB Radio traffic. As I write this, two truckers are exchanging "smokey reports" on Channel 19. CB Radio is dead! Long live CB Radio!
04-29-2025 - An oversized load is passing through town, and the pilot cars are operating on CB Radio Channel 19. I have no idea what they're moving, but many of those huge turbine blades are a regular sight.
04-29-2025 - Another fun radio scanning target of a time gone by was the drive-thru ordering system at our local fast-food establishments. Just after midnight on the weekends seemed to be more comical due to the lack of sobriety of some customers. While not something you'd want to sit in your car and listen to, it was enjoyable enough to listen to from the comfort of your home. Most of these companies have moved to higher frequencies and use spread spectrum technology, which is beyond the capability of generic scanner radios.
04-29-2025 - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing - National Current Ops / Monitoring – April 28-29, 2025
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• Severe Weather - Southern Plains to Northeast
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Thunderstorms – Southern Plains to Northeast
• Heavy Rain/Flash Flooding – Southern Plains, Lower/Middle Mississippi Valley
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• Amendment No. 1 to FEMA-4863-DR-VA
Event Monitoring:
• No new significant events
04-29-2025 - Someone on X, formerly known as Twitter, said "CB Radio lingo" is the official language of truckers, and English will get you nowhere in that field. I don't know about that. I've been using plain language on the CB Radio since 1964, and I've never had trouble communicating with truckers or anyone else. I go out of my way to avoid "lingo" and 10-codes. Plain language is the best way to go because you don't have to translate it. Your opinion may vary.
04-28-2025 - I bought a 1960 copy of CQ Ghost Ship, a book by Walker A. Tompkins, K6ATX (SK), almost a year ago. It's one of the Amateur (ham) Radio books I read in 1966. Others were Death Valley QTH, DX Brings Danger, Grand Canyon QSO, and SOS at Midnight, all by Tompkins. These books were updated in paperback (featuring more modern equipment) in 1985 or so and sold by the American Radio Relay League. Nope! I want the original hardcover versions. As I did with SOS at Midnight, I paid too much for CQ Ghost Ship, but the nostalgia value is worth it.
04-28-2025 - A good source of entertainment for scanner radio owners is the local school bus operation. You don't have to wait long for interesting radio traffic in my town. Our city transit bus drivers are also good for a laugh now and then, mainly because they think no one can hear them. I'm not about to let them in on the secret world of scanner owners.
04-28-2025 - I miss the good old days of scanner radio wardriving when almost everyone had a cordless phone in the home and talked about everything under the sun or moon, thinking no one could hear them.
04-28-2025 - It was in 1976 and 77 when I would climb - in my Datsun B210 - to the highest points in San Francisco - Twin Peaks and Mount Davidson - to receive more signals on my AM-FM portable radio with extended VHF receiver coverage. I was interested in that, even more than listening to Dr. Don Rose on KFRC. With an extended VHF tuning range, in the days before scanner radios were popular and affordable, I could listen to commercial entities of all types. I even found the frequencies for car phones. Cordless phones were, as far as I know, not out at that time. I don't remember hearing any. It didn't matter since there was no shortage of scanning targets. Manual spin-the-dial scanning. I'm sure Hobby Radio enthusiasts still use that elevation for one purpose or another.
04-28-2025 - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing - National Current Ops / Monitoring – April 27-28, 2025
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• Severe Thunderstorms - Central U.S.
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Weather – Southern Plains to Great Lakes
• Critical Fire Weather – Southwest
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• No new declaration activity
Event Monitoring:
• No new significant events