I know those who are active in the group understand that national-level AMCON vetting may not happen for some time. There are also hints from Mike Glover's team that they no longer intend to interview every member, and are instead working to get the leaders of each group vetted and are going to rely on us to take it from there.
@TCAZ09 is a retired law enforcement officer and is able to do this vetting for our group. He will be our Security Officer here, and we will start offering vetting for those who would like to go through the process. If you're already coming to our events regularly, this will start with you showing him your ID and, if you have one, any government ID or CCW card. You can also talk to me to let me know you're interested.
This will not be required for those who want to come to our general preparedness classes, which we will keep having at least once a week for the foreseeable future, or for participating here on Locals, or with the future radio training Zello nets.
However, it will be required for some future group activities that are in the works. This includes local amateur radio nets and any potential classes related to firearms or tactical gear. There will also be a separate forum for vetted members where these more advanced training events will be announced and coordinated. If you see start seeing references to past events that weren't announced on Locals, that's why.
Vetting will also be required for those on our private communications channels, including the Signal group chat and the restricted Zello channel. There's a higher level of trust required for these activities, so we'll have to know who you are for you to participate.
The two people who would have your full name as a result of this process are TCAZ09 and myself. He will not pass on any other info to me besides the result ( pass / fail ) of the background check. He has already run through the process for me and several of our other most-active members.
If you would like to go through this vetting process, send an email to [email protected] with your full name and birthdate, and your Locals username here, and he will follow up with a list of other information he needs from you. After the vetting process completes without issues I will help you get set up on the forums. I am expecting to have that working early next week.
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If you have been waiting to get involved until after vetting happens, hopefully having this in place will help you feel more comfortable. However, I will always be a firm believer in vetting people the old fashioned way: By meeting them in person, and talking to each other. As far as I'm concerned, the vetting process begins the first time we actually see each other.
We have had zero issues so far with unfriendly people coming to our events, so I consider it to be low-risk and high-reward. Come on out, and if you can't come to events because of the scheduled time let me know so I can schedule good alternate times.
Email me here with any questions: [email protected]
[I'm reposting this to the top because we have a number of people who still need to get their ham license!]
For anyone near Tucson who hasn't already gotten your Ham license or is interested in upgrading what you already have, here is some info based on my experience of getting my Technician and General licenses recently:
- Free testing is available monthly in Tucson. Next event is March 8th @ 7PM . https://k7rst.org/testing.html
-- There is no preregistering. You just show up, but I highly recommend being there a half hour early to get in line. I was there 15 minutes early and waited a little more than an hour before it was my turn to take the test, and then there's more waiting in between exams if you take more than one.
- There is also an online testing option available now. It generally costs ~$15 and you need fairly decent internet, a computer with a webcam, and a phone with a camera. (Thanks to @freebirdie for sending me the info on this).
-- Look here to find a session that's open: ...
I've been meaning to document this for quite awhile but things kept getting in the way. I've been writing this slowly over the past several weeks now, and am finally ready to post it!
I've created a simple automated planter for low-effort food gardening that seems to work pretty well for a a decent number of different plants. This was originally inspired by Larry Hall's "Rain Gutter Grow System", and then I fused it with the general concept of bottom-watered reservoir planters, which you can find everywhere.
Larry Hall's video should show up at the end of this post:
One implementation of a standard, non-automatic, bottom-watered reservoir planter:
https://www.amazon.com/GroBucket-Watering-sub-irrigated-Container-portable/dp/B079CT29RZ/
My goals were to keep costs relatively low, minimize water usage, and minimize the weekly time I need to put in to maintain the garden. I don't mind spending a bit more time to get something set up if that means I don't have to remember to do another ...
I've recently upgraded my VHF transceiver capability, and it has made a huge difference. We ask everyone to have a radio of some sort, and the cheapest Ham radio that works is the Baofeng UV-5R. I don't want to ask people to spend a ton of money, but from my own experience I do think upgrading is worth the extra expense. The receive electronics on the UV-5R are low-quality so they don't seem to work well with external antennas. A lot (or all) of the advantage you'd get from putting an external antenna up on your roof is lost when you plug it into the UV-5R.
The tranceiver I bought is the Yaesu FT-2980R:
https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-015771
Unfortunately they just raised the price by $20, but it's still only $150 (or closer to $170 with shipping and tax). Note that it's a VHF only radio and is very simple compared to the more expensive models, but it is a beast of a machine that can dump 80W of power if needed.
This radio works well with every external antenna I've tried, and it's well suited to ...
