That would be the house.

The only major problem there is I'm deathly afraid of heights. :( (Seriously, it's so bad that I start to have panic attacks in video games. You should watch me play Minecraft sometime. It's hysterical.)

I'm looking at different ideas for doing a vertical that I might be able to do from the house, or maybe a horizontal from the house to a tree that's on the property.

Great question!! As in 1991 I reported to 2 SOPS which performed C2 of a non-existent (according to this article) satellite system. We created navigation uploads based on fake Pseudo-Ranging from about 20 fake satellites received by fake monitoring stations. The Khalman filter took the fake PRs and created fake navigation uploads. I, as the Satellite Operator, started GPS (by name alone) satellite supports by slewing ground antennaes to a fake location (we used wiijii boards and random number generators for az and elev ) to then radiate into blank open space. Funny thing is watching Patrick AFB have fake launches!! They would load billion dollar Delta2 rockets on the pad, pretend they were fitting a GPS satellite onto the top, and then launch nothing into space. We would do pretend thruster firings to get it into a transfer orbit, and then de-spin the fake satellites.

So many fake things I did. OH! And we even stood up a Training Squadron, 534th TRS at Vandenberg to train fake satellite operators!! It's a shame only my last years teaching was to people flying real satellites. I guess we had good practice from years of faking it.

Your net is too small. Middle Easterners have been murdering millions for thousands of years, not hundreds. Look up the origins of Wahhabism. It started shortly after the death of Christ. The "Crusades" is often cast as a response in 1095 to Christians being murdered by Muslims, while crossing the Mediterranean. So that's 925 years ago that people on a large scale started getting pissed off about it.

The book "5 Pillars of Islam" really explains it well. And it's depressing when you realize just how long people have been killing each other over their invisible friend, beliefs, etc.

I used to say, of all the facts, press get about 40%. Of the 40% they probably only capture and understand 40%. Leaving us with 16% of the original. With the 16% they accurately present 40% in context, which leaves the reader with the ability to discern about 7% of what's actually going on in any situation. The more of an expert you are in ANY field, the more you realize how stupid our press, media, etc have become. They're great at sensationalism, but suck at everything else. Miley Cyrus gets front page while genocide runs on page 6. We are also at fault. 100% of teens can identify Miley Cyrus, while probably 20% can ID Biden, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, etc.

Great Britain thought this too in 1750's, 1760s, and not so much after that. :D

Don't be so quick to attribute deaths in Syria to gun related deaths. I personally watched ISR video where they decided to save ammunition by switching to a large blade (looked like a machete). They lined up people near Yazadi on a bridge over a river. They had the people lean over the bridge railing, and then slit their throats. The lifeless bodies were then kicked into the river. Thousands died without a single bullet.

Makes sense. Most anti-social behavior appears when populations are stressed. Low numbers, there are a low number of social issues from anti-social behaviors. Start over-crowding or making resources scarce and then issues start popping up. Probably is statistically linked to depression, suicide, and similar problems. I'm guessing though.

Holy shit balls. I wish people with your capability to understand basic tenants of gun ownership wrote our laws. Not dumbshits who say ARs left them crying, and somehow making a magazine release illegal (bullet buttons, etc) is safer. If gun ownership was an underlying root cause, homicides would be huge in Oklahoma and Texas compared to the NorthEast (Maine, NH, NY, etc). I do think there's a social-economic link, so I don't 100% agree with your points. However, you are able to logically work through the debate. Phuck I wish there were more people like you in the national debate on guns.

My name and call sign appeared in the FCC database last night, which means I can now transmit.

On the one hand, I'm looking forward to getting involved in the hobby. On the other, I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. :D

I've requested a "vanity call" for several reasons. I want to see if i can get my great-uncle's call, as a nod to him. If I can't have that, I have a few others in mind that are a bit easier to deal with as I learn CW.

That's me in a nutshell: Most of my interests tend to be fairly expensive. I don't know why that works out that way.

I'm looking forward to getting into HF, once I get a rig. I'm poking around now at ideas on how to build one. I've got an Electronics background, though it's largely unused for 20 years or so (except for what I might use in IT). I'm not expecting miracles overnight.

To get me started, my dad gave me a Baofeng BF-F8HP as an incentive to get licensed. It's good for 2m and 70cm bands. I can get local repeaters, so there's that.