While traveling over the weekend, I was asked what Ham Radio was. It is a good question, and I didn't have a simple answer. I asked ChatGPT to give me a summary. This is pretty good: NOTE: My main reason for being a "ham" is primarily for emergency communication. First when we lived in California for earthquakes and all the other hellfire that happens in CA. Now, living in Hatteras, it is for Hurricanes and flooding. It is also nice to be able to communicate with others for information, etc. #hamradio #amateurradio #ham #radio

Just transferred 40 pepper plants to grow bags, put down mulch in the backyard, got the wicking gardens operational, and planted some herbs in the raised gardens. We are going to be sore tomorrow after hauling soil, rocks, and mulch. #gardening #homestead

Made a new batch or hot sauce to get me through the next week or two 🤣 Home grown and smoked ghost peppers, red bell pepper, carrots, cranberries, and blue agave.

The changing barrier islands are always a wonder. GM all! #photography #obx #ourerbanks #gm

Anyone have a recommendation for a whole disk encryption method for an existing linux laptop? #linux #encryption #security

GM all. Beautiful morning here on Hatteras Island. #gm #outerbanks #obx

Anybody have a recommendation for a hotspot "appliance" I can use to give people free access to internet? This is for emergency preparedness, when terrestrial inrernet is down, our community radio station wants people to allow people to park in our parking lot to be able to hit internet, do calling over WiFi, etc. We have starlink, but on our island, cable providers are often down because of cable cuts, etc. We need to have logging and to have terms and conditions accepting to allow access. #emergencepreparedness #prepping

A big GM. One of my surf buddies snapped a few shots of me on my prone paddle board. Beautiful morning. #gm #pronepaddling #obx #outerbanks

What a great update for the BTech radio. Just the UI changes alone make it so much easier to use and read (especially out in bright sunlight). What a difference a font change makes. Now to figure out all the radio changes and to turn off the Rodger beep so others don't complain 🤣 #hamradio #amateurradio #btech #uvpro #aprs

Anybody using a phone running #GraphineOS? I am looking to setup sandboxed google play with a "burner" google account, but trying to figure out how to get an SMS without going to my phone number. I have used some free online SMS services, but google seems a bit wise to it or the SMS services dont work.

another pepper harvest. arent the little Piri Piri cute? purple death and carolina reapers going into the smoker to dehydrate #gardening #urbanfarming #hotpeppers #peppers

I really like Dilly Beans. Like skinny dill pickles. Just took the string beans out of the fermenter. #fermentation #preserving #canning #fermenting #urbanhomestead

Very cool. Not sure if anyone is using TC2-BBS with Meshtastic, but it works great. A bit crude, but not much worse than the BBSs I used back in the 80's. I have the BBS running on a Raspberry Pi. the Pi has a LoRa hat so that I can run a Meshtastic node on that same Raspberry Pi. I also have MQTT running on the pi. I can then connect to another Meshtastic node (in this case a Lilygo T-Beam) and have an internet disconnected network for sending emails, posting bulletins, and having chat sessions. I'll do a writeup on what I did to get the BBS and Meshtastic to run on a single Raspberry Pi. #meshtastic #raspberrypi #meshnetwork #prepper #hamradio

Yesterday, the bee guys came to move the bees from our outdoor shower. There was a big hive up in the underpinnings. Thanks to Jeff and Tyler for moving the bees. We are now going to name our house the Honeycomb Hideout. #beekeeping #bees #polinators