W2MC

First, Congratulations on achieving Technician! It is an accomplishment; to have stuck to it long enough to answer the questions. Or to have learned the answer to the questions....which is kinda what they are doing with the tests.....there is a body of knowledge that you need to grasp, so you are not a danger to yourself or an irritant to others. By publishing all of the questions and answers, and testing you on a small subset of them, it gives a reasonable assurance that you understand there is such a thing as a band plan, shared frequencies, basic antenna knowledge, and recognition that some of this stuff, such as amplifiers and towers, can kill you. Yes, many of the various modes you will never use.....but compare it to this hobby - do you know the difference between a shotgun, a rifle, and a pistol? Do you know there's a vast difference between a .22 LR, .223, and a .22-250? It's the same thing with ham radio, and you need to know there's a difference, even if you'll probably never fire a .22-250. What you need now is to get out and USE it. Most clubs, as you mentioned, have a repeater. Most of them have a evening net; for example, ours is on the Medford repeater on 145.290 on Mondays. It's a directed net, everybody gets a chance, and you'll rapidly pick up how to operate. It might seem a little daunting, but you'll figure it out.

The unwritten secret.....just show up! They'll run everyone that shows up thru the course, and you'll get your card.

Active military can get a NJ hunting license at resident prices...... See http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/als/websalesintro.htm They also have special one day license for $13 or so. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/hntlicfe.htm He does, though, need to have passed a hunter ed course, or have a previous hunting license.....

Does anyone have a "new" Remlin 11-87 that they can report on? They were great back in the day (and its a great price) when they were made by Remington, but I am leery of anything made by Remlin.

Looking forward to hearing more....and yes; I'l love to spend a morning out after pheasant. W2MC

I addressed you because you wrote: "Good points, and I see nobody else took the bait so let me try." I guess it was enough for me to take the bait, too. With the proliferation of cell phones, the internet, and vastly improved emergency communications, the need for ham radio ops in public service communications has been greatly diminished. But....there are many things you can do in ham radio--things like provide the communications for bike rides, marathons, dirt bike races, etc. For example, down here in south jersey there is the MS ride to the shore (annual Philly-to-the-Shore bike ride/fundraiser for MS research). All the comms between checkpoints, intersections, sag-wagons, etc are via ham radio. There are similar runs, marathons, and dirt-bike races that operate similarly...ham radio is their primary form of communications.

Good point. And we didn't mention the Judges, Governors, and all of the other revolvers chambered for .45/.410

I let it go back in July, because, being a "first responder" (firefighter) I knew we had little need/use for ARES/RACES folks, and I had little direct background with them. But, if you want me to respond, Newtonian, ..... The last big storm I lived through in NJ destroyed our local repeater and all the others were kind of dead ---A lot of them were. Several stayed active, and did provide communications for the county systems that also were destroyed. Many chased me off the air because they were being run by Skywarn or ARES. ---Um...yeah...and what did you expect? During the emergency is too late to learn how to operate during one. And if you aren't participating in Skywarn or ARES, sit back and listen. You might learn something. None of my friends and family could be reached by ham radio and I could not get accurate weather information unless I used one of the NOAA frequencies. I ended up using the internet which was working just fine. I sent and received text to all family members and even called them on the phone. ---If they aren's ham ops, they shouldn't be on the air in the first place. And if your internet and phone was working, you should be happy.... Down here, a rural area of Florida, the few repeaters are dead on a good day and not one soul could be found during the last hurricane we had. I have one HF and 3 VHF/UHF radios plus two digital scanners and could not get any info or even talk to someone. All public service providers here use digital encrypted communications that cannot be intercepted by anyone outside of their agency. I have $800 worth of scanners that get receive one fire station in a different county than were I live and that it is. ---Yup - they've learned...and many of em have significantly improved their communications and don't need us. I would think that is a good thing; wouldn't you? My experience in an emergency is that most of us had no power and insufficient battery backups. My handy talkies all had spare batteries but our radio club had all sorts of emergency power to last almost two days but did not do anything to prevent their antenna from being blown away. ---Who's fault is that? My complaint with the local RACES/ARES is that if they lose their repeater, they lose 80-90% of their operators. You usually need power during a "emergency", because you need to assume the repeater isnt going to be there - 50 watts of power minimum and a decent antenna is a whole lot better and more useful than HT's and batteries. And think about this...Harbor Freight sells 900 watt 2-stroke generators for $80-90 on sale. You could run your shack and a good bit of your house via one of those little guys. You know that in NJ we can reach a lot of repeaters in NYC but most were dead. ---A lot of the repeaters in NYC were on top of the WTC and went down with the buildings. Sad. My anger still burns.... This was my first emergency as a ham and I was expecting all sorts of activity but I got silence with the exception of a few others trying to get information like I was. My internet was down so I had no means to communicate and my $20K of ham radio equipment was useless. ---There was ham activity in NYC for close to a month in sept 2001, and several weeks during the flooding a few years later. While I did not participate (I was an active vol firefighter, so my services were needed elsewhere) I know several hams that did participate. Most of their work consisted of handling message traffic between shelters. But I do understand that there were some hams doing fire dispatch, because the county comms had been flooded. Now I have Cable internet and AT&T cellular internet and so far one of the other has always worked and the internet was far more helpful than any radio I owned. ---Again, you should feel happy that they do. A lot of hams go into the ARES/RACES thinking that during an emergency, they will be running around with the cops or the firemen...from what I have seen, that is rarely the case. They are usually used to run secondary comms between shelters, hospitals, etc. to let central services know they have xxx people and they need blankets, water, food, etc. Mundane, but its gotta be done. But those are my thoughts... W2MC

Looking forward to hearing you on the bands! W2MC

Now that you've told us that you're going to Giberson's tomorrow, your task is to let us all know how it went, what happened, what it cost, was it worth it, etc etc etc so that we can set up another hunt for all of us south jersey-ites to go.

As I mentioned in a similar thread on Facebook, after reading the article (and with a bit of reading between the lines), I got the impression that he forgot he was carrying and slipped it into his carry-on, and hoped the x-ray tech would miss it (which is pretty stupid...he should have gotten himself out of line on some pretext...'damn, I forgot a bag!' would work perfectly) and put the piece somewhere safe, like his car or something. Any other explanation just gets uglier and uglier...he "forgot" he had a loaded weapon in his bag/luggage? You just dont "forget" these things!

Stevens 311 SxS - I like it fine

Its a bit farther, but I have always enjoyed going to Sportsmans Center on Route 130 in Bordentown. http://www.sportsmenscenter.com/

Wrangler

Actually, I would have nailed it after Mr Hoodie came around. This is NOT how you warn drivers of approaching danger....he IS the approaching danger!

No, but you don't deviate, either. A "reasonable person" knows to stay out of the way of a car going in a straight line. Deviating from that straight line brings up (yes, in court) the question of were you aiming for the 'victim' when you ran his sorry ass over.

If its not for hunting and just for familiarization (or to repel boarders), what about a .410? I like my lil Stevens 311 SxS; not much kick but packs a pretty good punch. Mossberg also offers a .410 pump. Thoughts?

.357 Revolver...not sure which one, but I suspect it would be the Dan Wesson Pistol Pack

Yes - the shotguns were still selling at the black friday prices a week or three afterward

GORGEOUS! I'm envious!

i cant comment about the 22s, but last year, the shotgun deals were available-at the BF price-long after black friday.

My parents recently had a similar problem - new house, all-new appliances (it was one of the builder's model homes) and the microwave burned-up a few months after they moved in.

I saw at least one shotgun in there with a big red "EVIDENCE" sticker on it... Wonder who got the $100? The Police Benevolent Assn?

Photos....I can pick-out several that were worth more than they paid... http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2014/10/480_guns_collected_in_union_county_buyback_held_in_plainfield_linden.html

Comment deleted - RTSP1 response (above) shows he's a stand-up guy.