Matter of Facts: Making Emergency Comms Work

[00:00:06] Welcome back to the Matter of Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping

[00:00:11] guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at MWFpodcast.com

[00:00:16] on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate

[00:00:20] partners. I'm your host, Phil Ravelet, Andrew, Nick are on the other side of the mic, and

[00:00:24] here's your show. Welcome back to Matter of Facts Podcast. No offense, Nick, but if I'm

[00:00:33] not on the left, it feels weird to me for some odd reason. All good. So we are streaming

[00:00:39] on a Wednesday, which is out of the ordinary. We usually stream on a Thursday. However,

[00:00:44] I was going to be childless tomorrow, so I decided to take Mama on a date and then the

[00:00:48] event that was going to make us childless, I think, got canceled because the birthday

[00:00:52] girl got sick. So here we are anyway. Ran over. It's also my Thursday because I took Friday

[00:00:59] off. Yep, braggle, fraggle. We had to pinch hit because I decided that Mama needed a date.

[00:01:06] And if any of you are married, like you understand where we're coming from. Mama needs a date

[00:01:10] every now and then. It's just you got to do that. But anyway, admin work. Thank you to

[00:01:16] the patrons. If you're not a patron, I'm not mad at you. I might even disappoint it. I

[00:01:19] don't begrudge anybody that doesn't think that the show isn't working for the buck a

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[00:01:41] business, you can click those links. Cypress Survivalist. We're getting very, very close

[00:01:48] to actually like legitimately starting to do advertising for our first event, which would

[00:01:53] be March 8th down in Southeast Louisiana at Found Blue State Park. I was talking to

[00:01:58] one patron who has already said he's going to make the event, which would be cool. I mean,

[00:02:05] I'm going to try to make it to I'm going to try to make it so that even for a person who's

[00:02:09] been into preparedness for a while, there's going to be something out there for you to

[00:02:12] be interested in, something to grab your attention, maybe even something that you hadn't thought

[00:02:17] about previously. So we'll see. And quite frankly, if it's nothing more than an excuse

[00:02:24] to like sit around, be a site, drink bourbon and smoke cigars and hang out with me like

[00:02:27] that. That's worth a drive anyway, I think.

[00:02:31] I'm yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:33] I wouldn't say I'm fun, not even funny, but yeah, we'll find some issues to get into.

[00:02:39] So I have to fall on my sword before we get to the topic again.

[00:02:45] I got to stop making the habit of telling Stuart he was right because his head's going to swell

[00:02:51] up and he's going to say, I told you so he's going to be freaking insufferable for weeks

[00:02:55] on the back of this. It'll be funny, though.

[00:02:59] So.

[00:03:01] One of our dear friends of the podcast, Stuart, has been telling me for, I don't know, Nick,

[00:03:07] years, years.

[00:03:09] Oh, as long as I've been in the page, he's been telling me for years, I need to get a

[00:03:13] 12 gauge.

[00:03:14] He's been telling me for years and for years I have done my absolute best to put it off

[00:03:19] and to ignore him unsuccessfully.

[00:03:21] I finally caved into all the peer pressure and bullying and I bought a Beretta A300.

[00:03:27] And it took exactly.

[00:03:31] I don't know, a couple of weeks of like, you know, figuring out the manual of arms and learning

[00:03:37] it, learning the techniques around it.

[00:03:38] One freaking range trip for me to admit shotguns are freaking awesome.

[00:03:46] And I'm not mad at Stuart, but I'm kind of mad at him.

[00:03:52] Yeah, he's right a lot.

[00:03:53] He's right way too much.

[00:03:56] So.

[00:03:57] So I will wholeheartedly admit that part of what has kept me away from shotguns are than

[00:04:02] probably just lack of experience, because like I've shot I've shot 12 gauges before.

[00:04:06] Like I played with 12 gauge pumps when I was younger, shot like, you know, milk jugs and

[00:04:11] tin cans and nonsense like that.

[00:04:13] Did some skeet shooting and trap shooting with them.

[00:04:15] And like I can shoot a shotgun.

[00:04:19] I can lead targets.

[00:04:20] I know what I'm doing.

[00:04:22] But there was never anything about a shotgun that just like called me and said, you need

[00:04:26] one of these in your life.

[00:04:29] That ended after one range trip and some measuring in my house, because I figured out that the

[00:04:34] distance from my bedroom to my front door is seven yards.

[00:04:38] And that's those that's that target on the left side of the screen.

[00:04:42] That's three shots at seven yards.

[00:04:45] Everything's in a nine ring at that range.

[00:04:48] And the other target was at 15 yards, which is the longest shot across my entire little house.

[00:04:55] So from the bedrooms to the refrigerator and I can keep all my shots in an eight ring.

[00:05:02] And that level of.

[00:05:05] That level of control over the shot and the disbursement of the spread was something that

[00:05:09] like I really wasn't expecting.

[00:05:11] And maybe that's my own personal blinders and, you know, my own ignorance.

[00:05:15] But like now that I have realized that I legitimately have a firearm in my hands, that if I if I do

[00:05:21] what I'm supposed to do, I can make nine pellets smack a target pretty regularly at range.

[00:05:29] That's I don't know, man, like this is this is elevated it from.

[00:05:34] Oh, it's a tool in the toolbox to now.

[00:05:36] I am honestly questioning, like if I was going to grab a gun for bump in the night, would

[00:05:41] it be that 12 gauge instead of grabbing my AR or grabbing like, you know, my nine millimeter

[00:05:47] pistol or a piece or something like that?

[00:05:49] Like that's a that is a earth shaking amount of power.

[00:05:54] And it's more controllable than I thought it was.

[00:05:58] I think the thing you have to remember, too, is that a lot of people for bump in the night

[00:06:04] home defense stuff, a lot of people survive being shot by handguns.

[00:06:07] They just do.

[00:06:08] This is something that a lot of us don't like to talk about.

[00:06:12] You hear from ER doctors all the time.

[00:06:15] People survive being shot by pistols.

[00:06:19] But what you don't hear a lot about is people surviving being shot by shotguns unless it's

[00:06:24] birdshot at a fairly extreme range.

[00:06:27] Yeah.

[00:06:28] You know, shotguns take a piece of you and put it on the other side of the room.

[00:06:33] Yeah.

[00:06:34] Tends to be a considerable piece.

[00:06:36] Clint Smith said it a bit more vulgar than that.

[00:06:39] But yeah, he did.

[00:06:42] Yeah.

[00:06:43] I mean, well, yeah.

[00:06:46] Yeah.

[00:06:46] So, yeah.

[00:06:46] I mean, I am I'm having like I honestly I was not I was completely no pun intended blown

[00:06:53] away by just how tightly this thing grouped with not remarkable ammo like this wasn't federal

[00:06:58] flight control or any of the new generation of really tightly grouping 12 gauge.

[00:07:03] This was like Winchester military surplus nine pellet buckshot.

[00:07:08] Nothing special.

[00:07:09] But the fact that federal eight pellets light control is acting like a slug at those range

[00:07:14] which by there was a guy there that had some at that class I took with track out of an

[00:07:19] a 300 and and, you know, like that it was ridiculous.

[00:07:24] It was golf ball size holes where all the pellets are in one hole.

[00:07:27] Yeah.

[00:07:28] So, yeah, I mean, that that's that's been my recent experience with shotguns is.

[00:07:34] I all my originally preconceived notions have been ripped away from me and I'm I will I will

[00:07:40] admit it, Stuart.

[00:07:42] I was wrong.

[00:07:42] I was wrong.

[00:07:44] I was wrong.

[00:07:45] Don't gloat too much.

[00:07:47] You crotch the old SOB.

[00:07:48] But I was wrong and I'm man enough to admit I was wrong.

[00:07:54] It's like I told track at the end of his at the end of his shotgun fundamental shotgun

[00:07:58] classes.

[00:08:01] I it is it is no longer a question of if I would be comfortable grabbing a shotgun.

[00:08:08] It will absolutely do the job well and above what my handgun is possibly capable of, and

[00:08:14] especially because I'm in a really stupid state.

[00:08:18] Yeah.

[00:08:18] And I can't have a 30 round AR with a can on it.

[00:08:23] Well, shotguns it is.

[00:08:25] Yeah.

[00:08:25] And to your point earlier that like survivability, like I've never been shot.

[00:08:33] Thank Christ.

[00:08:35] But yeah, same, but I am familiar enough with terminal effects of handguns and rifles to know

[00:08:42] that if I have to pick between getting shot with a handgun, a rifle or shotgun, give me

[00:08:47] the handgun twice.

[00:08:49] Because like even in the case of an AR, when we're talking about a tiny little 55 grand

[00:08:56] projectile going to like 3000 feet per second, that that can be very damaging.

[00:09:02] But the I the hydrostatic effects, but the idea of getting hit by nine 33 caliber pellets

[00:09:08] at once.

[00:09:09] No, not interested.

[00:09:11] Shoot.

[00:09:11] Shoot me with the hand.

[00:09:12] Shoot me with an eye bill of that.

[00:09:14] You know, I'll ride that lightning willingly before I take a blast from a 12 gauge.

[00:09:23] He's right.

[00:09:24] Hey, Illinois semi autos.

[00:09:27] We can only have a 10 round mag.

[00:09:28] That's freaking disgusting.

[00:09:30] Or I can.

[00:09:31] Yeah, I know it is.

[00:09:33] And hopefully Illinois has appealed it to the Supreme Court.

[00:09:39] We're going to see what comes down the pipe here in 2025, boys and girls.

[00:09:44] This, this assault weapon ban incorporates every single piece of wet dream legislation from New

[00:09:51] York to California and back.

[00:09:52] It's got mag limits.

[00:09:55] It's got mag bands.

[00:09:56] It's got semi auto bands by name.

[00:09:59] It's got restrictions on features.

[00:10:03] Kind of a stupid move.

[00:10:05] Can I just say that it might not be a popular sentiment with a certain population, but I kind

[00:10:12] of hope your governor chokes on a cannoli and dies.

[00:10:16] Someone's going to get really upset about that.

[00:10:18] Possibly YouTube.

[00:10:19] I don't care.

[00:10:20] Like what, you know, what a freaking useless fat, miserable SOB.

[00:10:26] Look, I'm just waiting for the corruption charges to come out about him, just like Blagojevich and

[00:10:31] just like every other governor in my living memory, except for, oh, right.

[00:10:34] The one Republican.

[00:10:37] I'm a little concerned about the terminal elements.

[00:10:41] Imagining me shirtless, to be perfectly honest.

[00:10:44] Hey, look, man.

[00:10:45] Sometimes you got to sleep and you don't want to sleep hot anyway.

[00:10:51] So the topic for today was the purpose of emergency comms.

[00:10:57] And we've talked about emergency comms a couple of times on this show.

[00:11:01] Like we've talked a lot about equipment and different things.

[00:11:04] And like, there will always be opinions on the usefulness of this versus that.

[00:11:10] What I wanted us to get into today was more talk about like the nerdy brain crap that

[00:11:17] makes emergency comms work because, you know, like you and I talked about as I was typing

[00:11:21] all these banners in.

[00:11:24] If you have nothing but a Baofang and your comms plan is I'm going to press a button after

[00:11:30] the S the S has hit the, you know, the fan and I'm going to talk to people I've never met

[00:11:36] before and they're going to come help me out of my time of need.

[00:11:38] Like your comms plan is nothing.

[00:11:41] You don't, you don't have a plan.

[00:11:42] You don't, that's not even a, that's not even wishful thinking.

[00:11:45] That's just, that's just not a plan.

[00:11:47] I don't know.

[00:11:48] It's as good as a firearm with no training.

[00:11:50] I'm trying to be really polite and not say that's stupid, but it's kind of stupid, kind

[00:11:55] of stupid.

[00:11:57] Well, it is, but you know, unfortunately a lot of modern advertising is here by the solution

[00:12:04] to your problems.

[00:12:07] Well, tools don't solve your problems until you know how to use them.

[00:12:15] True, true.

[00:12:18] So as we kind of go through this, what I, what I wanted to talk through was a couple

[00:12:22] of like big chunks of information that we'll break down a little bit more as we go through,

[00:12:26] depending on like which way the conversation goes.

[00:12:29] And I don't, I want to preface all this by saying that like, I'm looking in the comment

[00:12:34] section and I can see the terminal element.

[00:12:37] I see PCG.

[00:12:40] I see at least two people I know off the top of my head know absolutely as much, if not

[00:12:47] more than I do about comms.

[00:12:49] They definitely know more than I do.

[00:12:52] Nothing I'm saying here is a state secret.

[00:12:54] None of it's CIA crap.

[00:12:55] It is, it is a combination of like knowledge.

[00:12:59] I'm recalling from our very brief RTO training when I was enlisted and a lot of stuff you

[00:13:05] could Google.

[00:13:06] So like none of this is cool guy stuff.

[00:13:08] None of this is, is, is Phil's a genius for figuring it out.

[00:13:12] I'm just the guy telling you that you should look into all this stuff.

[00:13:16] The information is readily available, but I would, I would comfortably say that nine out

[00:13:21] of 10 people in the preparedness world have never even thought about any of this.

[00:13:24] So consider this your polite wake up call.

[00:13:27] And, and almost all of this can be done on zero budget.

[00:13:30] No, it's all between the ears.

[00:13:32] All of this, everything we're going to talk about is zero budget.

[00:13:36] It's, it's literally stuff you either know having, having the equipment is not true.

[00:13:42] These implementations.

[00:13:43] Yeah.

[00:13:43] But these implementations, like, you know, I talk about, like there are aspects of this

[00:13:46] that are going to apply to radios, to mesh, to mesh networks, to cell phones, to social

[00:13:51] media.

[00:13:53] It's just concepts.

[00:13:54] And that's, that's really what I want to try to hammer on people about.

[00:13:58] So the first thing that I always like try to explain to people is you need the bones of

[00:14:06] a communications plan.

[00:14:08] Now your comp plan in its most simplified terms is who am I going to reach out to?

[00:14:14] How am I going to reach out to them?

[00:14:16] How often am I going to reach out to them?

[00:14:18] Et cetera, et cetera.

[00:14:19] What are we going to talk about?

[00:14:21] All those are things you have to figure out before you need the comms plan.

[00:14:25] You need to know who's on the other side of the radio or the other side of the whatever,

[00:14:29] how you're going to talk to them.

[00:14:30] Y'all have to like, you have to meet each other.

[00:14:33] You have to get out of your mom's basement, meet each other, talk to each other, get to

[00:14:37] know each other, and then agree on these things because they're going to be really necessary,

[00:14:41] especially in the case of like, you know, power grid failure, natural disaster, things

[00:14:47] like that.

[00:14:48] Two things are going to happen.

[00:14:49] First of all, battery power, which is what all your stuff's going to be running on is

[00:14:52] precious.

[00:14:53] So you don't want to leave your radio fired up 24 hours a day, seven days a week until

[00:14:57] the battery dies.

[00:14:58] You want to turn it on when you need it, turn it off when you don't.

[00:15:00] And even if you can run power with impunity, you're going to be, you know, like the idea

[00:15:09] that two people are going to just find each other on the radio waves.

[00:15:12] And a lot of this is going to be sent around radios, but like the idea that two people

[00:15:16] are going to find each other by sheer luck on a common channel at a common time is minuscule.

[00:15:22] So these are the things you have to plan out in advance.

[00:15:25] I'm going to try to contact Nick in this way at this time per day, so on and so forth.

[00:15:30] So that we have a reasonable chance of actually meeting up.

[00:15:35] So the first things I want to talk about are time interval length.

[00:15:40] So as an example, let's assume, let's go back in, let's go back in the military days.

[00:15:46] I am the RTO.

[00:15:48] I'm the guy with the big boy radio.

[00:15:49] I'm trying to reach out to you a lot of lower elements or a lot of scattered elements.

[00:15:53] I tell everybody at the top of every hour.

[00:15:56] So right now it's like 515 p.m.

[00:15:58] Central time.

[00:15:59] I would say that starting at 6 p.m.

[00:16:01] Central, I'm going to key up for I'm going to keep on.

[00:16:05] I'm going to transmit for 60 seconds at the top of every hour.

[00:16:08] If anybody has a report, that's when you key up.

[00:16:11] You find me.

[00:16:11] We establish a calm.

[00:16:12] We transmit the information back and forth.

[00:16:14] And then we all shut down to conserve power.

[00:16:17] That is time interval length.

[00:16:20] Every hour, starting at this time for this long.

[00:16:24] Once you know those things and you know the method of transmission, which is this radio in this band on this frequency, so on and so forth.

[00:16:33] Now you have all the information you should need to make that contact and to make it repeatedly.

[00:16:39] To know that, okay, if I miss this person at 6 p.m. because I got a situation, I have radio silence, added equipment failure, whatever.

[00:16:46] I know that an hour later at 7 p.m. I can try them again.

[00:16:49] And I can continue to try them every hour.

[00:16:51] And you can modify this as needed.

[00:16:54] But it has to be information that has kind of worked out in advance.

[00:16:57] It's not something you're going to just figure it out on the fly.

[00:17:01] Know what I mean, Nick?

[00:17:02] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:17:04] You know, we actually used that a little bit when I was in Boy Scouts and they had the little handheld Motorola's.

[00:17:10] It was a 3-3-3 rule.

[00:17:13] When we were on dispersed campouts, it was every three hours on Channel 3 for three minutes.

[00:17:22] It was very easy to remember.

[00:17:24] 3-3-3.

[00:17:26] Every third hour for three minutes on Channel 3.

[00:17:30] And the radios were left on Channel 3 all the time.

[00:17:33] And we didn't do these dispersed camping trips regularly.

[00:17:35] But, you know, we were spread out a little bit.

[00:17:38] And they always had somebody on Firewatch.

[00:17:40] And it was the people on Firewatch that were managing the radios.

[00:17:42] And it was just checking, hey, everything okay?

[00:17:45] Everybody okay?

[00:17:46] Does anybody need anything?

[00:17:47] Nope.

[00:17:47] Good.

[00:17:47] All right.

[00:17:48] Good night.

[00:17:48] We'll talk to you in three hours.

[00:17:51] Now, it can be that simple if all you have is handheld Motorola walkie-talkies with the FMRS basic channels.

[00:18:00] If you have a variety of frequencies you talk on, maybe it's every three hours, but you're offsetting it based on whichever channel you have.

[00:18:12] So, say on hour one, you're talking on your GMRS frequencies.

[00:18:17] On hour two, you're talking on the FMRS frequencies.

[00:18:20] Hour three, you're talking on your ham.

[00:18:23] If you have that luxury or if you're talking to different groups.

[00:18:28] Commerce security is in about 25 minutes.

[00:18:32] Yeah, we'll get out of that.

[00:18:35] But, no, what I'm saying is, like, if you have different groups that have different radios, for instance, like, you don't want to have to be listening to two or three different radios at the same time because you're just not going to be able to manage it unless you have multiple people.

[00:18:48] But, say, like, my local neighborhood here, a couple of people have FMRS radios already.

[00:18:53] And we're a small enough neighborhood that the FMRS radios, hint, hint, your bail fangs can be tricked into transmitting on those frequencies.

[00:19:01] Don't do it unless it's an emergency.

[00:19:03] You're talking about FRS or GMRS?

[00:19:05] FRS and GMRS.

[00:19:07] The bail fangs, they may have changed it, but their hardware is capable of FRS, GMRS, and HAM, UV, UHF, VHF.

[00:19:19] If you're talking about, like, your wide-open unlocked UV-5 FARS?

[00:19:23] Yes.

[00:19:24] Yeah.

[00:19:25] Yeah, they can talk on all of those.

[00:19:27] Don't do that unless it's an emergency.

[00:19:32] The FCC may smack your hand and say that you're a naughty boy.

[00:19:35] So, I'm only going to address this one time.

[00:19:39] So, I have not been able to find an instance in history in which the FCC came down on an individual like a ton of bricks for transmitting up frequencies they were not licensed to unless it was repeated and it was, like, blocking frequencies.

[00:19:58] Or if you start fooling around with emergency response frequencies or military.

[00:20:02] You do that and they're going to get really pissy really fast.

[00:20:05] But we had a ham guy that was in our town about 25 years ago that was blocking out television signal stations with his base station.

[00:20:13] The FCC is going to be a purpose.

[00:20:15] And illegally broadcasting copyrighted materials.

[00:20:19] Yes, the FCC will get very pissy about that.

[00:20:22] But I guess what I'm saying is, like, I'm not saying this giving you license to go do it.

[00:20:26] But I'm just saying that, like, you know, if it's a freaking emergency, if it's a life or death emergency, there's a very low likelihood that you're going to have any serious downstream consequences.

[00:20:37] Zero likelihood.

[00:20:38] Life or death emergency, there's zero consequences.

[00:20:40] You can use whatever you need to defend yourself or preserve your life.

[00:20:44] I want to address, even in my state.

[00:20:45] I want to address this before I move on.

[00:20:48] Do you guys have solar panels to power your electronics?

[00:20:50] Yes, and you should.

[00:20:52] But that's a different topic.

[00:20:56] Anyway, so other than, like, time interval length, the other thing you need to figure out in your comms plan is purpose, which you brought up a very good use case earlier where it's a check-in.

[00:21:06] It's a if someone just just to let everybody know in a dispersed group, hey, I'm still doing OK.

[00:21:11] And I'm not dead.

[00:21:13] And ostensibly in a case like that, if that is your use case for emergency comms, then there would also be a component of that that says if you miss X number of check-ins,

[00:21:21] which is also driven by how dispersed is your group, like what time investment is going to be required to go find Nick if Nick stops checking in.

[00:21:30] If it's a day's if it's a day's trip on foot, we're not going to make that willy nilly.

[00:21:36] And it also depends on, like, how often are you checking in?

[00:21:38] If you're checking in every six hours and somebody misses a check-in, that's a long time to have to go to find out if someone needs help.

[00:21:45] You know, now you could potentially be 12 hours overdue before we start humping it through the woods to go looking for you.

[00:21:52] So, yep, it's this is one of those.

[00:21:55] This is a judgment call at the end of the day.

[00:21:57] But like it's a purpose.

[00:21:59] The other purpose is really common is just Intel.

[00:22:01] Like, hey, this is the situation in my neighborhood, this situation in your neighborhood.

[00:22:05] We're all sharing information so we can kind of like extend the reach of our Intel gathering boots on the ground.

[00:22:13] Those are probably the most two common purposes I can think of.

[00:22:16] But you have to kind of spell that out in your comms plan up front so that everybody knows this is what's being expected from me.

[00:22:23] And this is going to be the consequence of not reporting in.

[00:22:27] Like, and it doesn't even need to be a static number.

[00:22:32] Like, for instance, we had that ice storm a while ago.

[00:22:35] I was checking in via text with a couple of my elderly neighbors.

[00:22:39] Now.

[00:22:41] Now.

[00:22:41] I'm going to be a little bit more ready to jump the gun and go and check on them physically if they if they don't check in with me because they are elderly, in fact.

[00:22:53] But if you know, if I fired off a text at 930 at night and they don't reply back within a reasonable time frame, it's 930 at night and they are elderly.

[00:23:00] They're probably asleep.

[00:23:03] Right.

[00:23:03] So the situation is going to dictate a little bit of of of how extreme you go with how much you enforce that comms plan.

[00:23:11] Yeah.

[00:23:11] But these this is also why, like, everyone that's part of this plan has to kind of like agree to this up front, because if it's some component of this comms plan is, hey, our last check in is at 930 at night.

[00:23:23] People.

[00:23:24] That's everyone's opportunity to put their hand up and say, hey, I go to bed at nine o'clock, so I'm not going to make that check in.

[00:23:30] And then you either adjust the whole comms plan or you just make an exception for one person.

[00:23:35] But, you know, that information up front.

[00:23:37] And the thing of it is that if if everybody kind of takes a hard line with that and says, no, no, no.

[00:23:43] If you miss a check in, we're coming looking for you because it's 930 night.

[00:23:46] It's sub zero temperatures.

[00:23:47] You could be freezing death in your house.

[00:23:50] Then at least that person knows up front if I fall asleep at nine o'clock and I don't check in with so and so ahead of time, I'm going to get up.

[00:23:57] I'm going to get a knock on my door.

[00:23:59] People want to make sure I'm OK.

[00:24:00] But that's why all these things come with a comms plan.

[00:24:04] And it sounds like it's really nerdy, pedantic stuff.

[00:24:06] And it kind of is.

[00:24:07] But you have to work all this out in advance so that everyone that is part of this plan is like to me, this is no different than like a home defense plan.

[00:24:16] Everyone has to know what the plan is.

[00:24:17] Everybody has to know what's expected of them.

[00:24:19] Everything.

[00:24:20] This has to be done in advance because figuring this out post disaster is a much bigger problem than right now when you can just put it in a group text and wham, bam, get, you know, get everybody on the same sheet of music real fast.

[00:24:34] Exactly.

[00:24:35] So now I'm going to do this in the order I put it into the banners, which is not the order I originally wrote this in.

[00:24:40] But yeah, I mean, ordinarily we'd be talking comm security before it signals intelligence, which signals intelligence is just the military term for it.

[00:24:49] Like this is the information that I can get passively by listening on the airwaves.

[00:24:54] And by the way, anybody that has a radio, you don't even need a license to just turn that thing on and start scanning frequencies and listening to the traffic in your area.

[00:25:03] And it can be really interesting, but you can learn a lot of, you can learn a lot of stuff real fast because I'm going to tell you that a cool thing about radios is that 90% of the people using them do not even think about the fact that.

[00:25:16] Talking on a radio is like standing in the middle of an open field in the dark and shining a flashlight.

[00:25:23] Everybody can see the source of the light because it's a light in a dark field.

[00:25:27] But 90% of people using radios don't think about that.

[00:25:30] They just think I'm just talking on the radio, but you can hear that for miles and you can find out all kinds of interesting things because people have no radio discipline whatsoever.

[00:25:40] That comes later in comm security.

[00:25:44] Actually, that's one of the ways that they find poachers quite a lot.

[00:25:47] Yep.

[00:25:47] Believe it or not.

[00:25:48] Yep.

[00:25:48] This is also why when we get to comm security, which would be pretty short in just a minute.

[00:25:54] And it's probably the, it's probably the thing with the most little elements to consider is how to secure your communications.

[00:26:04] But scanning frequencies, which depending on your radio and the equipment and what it bandwidths it can operate on, like you can scan all kinds of frequencies.

[00:26:11] I'm going to tell you that the ones that I particularly tend to lean on are like your NOAA or your weather radio.

[00:26:18] Every single GMRS radio I have from my handhelds to my mobile in my truck to my man pack, they all have the NOAA frequencies in them.

[00:26:28] A lot of them actually have like a weather mode where you'll just like press and hold a button and it'll flip to the NOAA stations.

[00:26:34] If not, just Google what the NOAA station frequencies are and manually program them.

[00:26:40] You need to have that in every single radio you own if it's capable of listening because it comes in handy.

[00:26:47] I can remember a time when my wife and I, we were driving home from her sister's place.

[00:26:53] And like, it was a, it was a really bad thunderstorm that was cutting through and it was coming up kind of like behind us as we were leaving that area.

[00:27:03] And it became obvious very quickly.

[00:27:05] It was probably going to overtake us and there was concern about tornadoes.

[00:27:11] So Phil being Phil, I turned my GMRS radio on in my truck.

[00:27:15] I flipped the local NOAA weather stations and we spent the next 15 miles driving down the highway listening for tornado sightings, listening for road closures, listening for anything that was pertinent to our area.

[00:27:28] And that's the cool thing is that you can get a NOAA weather station almost anywhere in the country.

[00:27:34] Anywhere I've ever been, I've been able to find one of those seven channels that's lit up and talking.

[00:27:38] And it is an incredible, it's, it's not who's kicking indoors or doing clandestine stuff, but it's great intelligence because whether mother nature can screw us over if we're not paying attention to what she's doing.

[00:27:52] Um, your AM airport frequencies, again, publicly accessible.

[00:27:57] If you have something that'll listen to AM stations, not all radios are capable of it, but I encourage you to have at least one in your inventory that does.

[00:28:04] Even if you have to go out and get like an air band radio, they're not that expensive.

[00:28:11] No, they're really not.

[00:28:13] It's like the old police scanners, you know, not, not many jurisdictions are still using unencrypted comms for their police and fire.

[00:28:23] Whatever you want to say about that, it is what it is.

[00:28:25] The government has made that decision that the police and fire can use encrypted comms.

[00:28:30] Um, some of them don't, if your area doesn't, it'd be a good idea to know what frequencies they are on and listen only.

[00:28:38] That is one of the few times that people will come down on you with a hammer is if you start talking on police channels and it's not an emergency.

[00:28:44] You, you will, you will piss some people off very quickly if you do that.

[00:28:48] Yeah. And those people have the ability to wreck your entire financial and legal future.

[00:28:53] So don't, don't play that.

[00:28:54] They do.

[00:28:54] But yeah, I mean, I find that usually when you're talking about being able to listen in on like LE, EMS, fire frequencies, that tends to be like more rural areas.

[00:29:04] Mm-hmm.

[00:29:05] My area, you can.

[00:29:06] Like my area, first of all, most of the, most of the law enforcement out here, they use cell phones as a primary communication source.

[00:29:13] And there's no, there, I, I have no ability to cut into that.

[00:29:16] I'm sure there's some nerd out there that knows how, but I can't pull that off.

[00:29:21] Oh, I'm sure if it's broadcasted in the airwaves, it can be intercepted.

[00:29:25] That's, that's just something you're going to have to accept.

[00:29:27] But, you know, a lot of them still do use cruiser born radios, but even a lot of those, and even with them using, even with them using that, I mean, a lot of them don't.

[00:29:38] That's why they, it's encrypted is because those radios are, are boosting over the cell networks nowadays just because it gives better reception for them.

[00:29:46] But, um, and on my area, they, they have not made the switch to cell towers for their radios.

[00:29:53] Well, in my, in my area, they're primarily using cell phones.

[00:29:55] And when they're not, they're using a, an encrypted trunk system.

[00:29:58] So there are, you know, there are ways, there are ways.

[00:30:03] I just haven't invested in those ways at this point.

[00:30:05] So, you know, that's just a thing.

[00:30:08] Now, some of them even do a delayed broadcast over the internet.

[00:30:12] So if you do have access to the internet, there are some police departments.

[00:30:17] I don't know if that's required, if they're using an encrypted trunk net.

[00:30:21] I know.

[00:30:22] Yeah.

[00:30:22] Two towns over from me, they do use an encrypted trunk net, but they also do a delayed broadcast over their, over their social media.

[00:30:29] So you can listen into it if you feel like it.

[00:30:31] No, my area doesn't do anything near that cool.

[00:30:34] So I just have to kind of wonder, but the other thing is on top of knowing like where to listen is what information is pertinent to you.

[00:30:42] So like, like I was saying earlier, like, you know, weather events, tornado sightings, road closures, flooding, any, anything that is going to cause an ambulance, a police officer, or a firefighter to be in your local area.

[00:30:58] It's probably something you should be well aware of.

[00:31:01] So like, that is a lot of times, like what I'm doing, if I'm just scanning frequencies, or like if I'm listening to the NOAA stations is I'm looking for information that I don't have access to using my eyeballs in my ears.

[00:31:16] But signals intelligence is like an amazingly simple premise of I'm just, I'm just listening to see what I can find out there.

[00:31:24] And it's more than just basically anything that would, that would make you go, huh, that's interesting or oh crap, that's not good.

[00:31:32] You should probably record and take note of that.

[00:31:35] Yeah.

[00:31:35] Before we go to, to comm security, what radios do you guys have?

[00:31:40] That is the hardest question.

[00:31:41] What do you, what radios do you recommend?

[00:31:43] I mean, my recommendations are fairly simple, but I have my reasons for recommending what I do.

[00:31:50] I have no recommendations for radios.

[00:31:53] I have a Yesu Handy Talkie that's fairly old that I will be replacing soon with a base station.

[00:31:58] I have a couple of bail fangs as my kick around knocking the dirt radios because they're cheap.

[00:32:03] And when I inevitably run over them with my truck, I won't feel too bad.

[00:32:07] Yep.

[00:32:09] And personally, that's how I lost my first one.

[00:32:11] Oh, you poor SOB.

[00:32:14] It fell off my back pocket.

[00:32:16] So me personally, like I have, I have said in the past that I tend to recommend GMRS to people.

[00:32:23] And I'm not going to get drawn into the debate about how, how much more capability ham has or amateur radio.

[00:32:29] We've covered that before.

[00:32:29] All I'm going to say is that the overall majority of people, at least in the preparedness world that have a ham radio license only have a technician class,

[00:32:39] which means they can only play on UHF and VHF, which is the same, which has a lot of the same restrictions as GMRS does,

[00:32:47] as far as like being able to be being line of sight and range and so on and so forth.

[00:32:53] Yeah.

[00:32:53] That's very true.

[00:32:54] If you have a general license and you can play with like high frequency and you can do stuff like bouncing signals off the stratosphere,

[00:33:01] we're, I'm not talking to you, but I'm going to say that if all you have is a technician class license,

[00:33:06] and the only thing you can talk off on is UHF, VHF,

[00:33:10] the only thing you can do that I can't with GMRS is talk to a different set of radio nerds and talk on VHF.

[00:33:17] But the reason I recommend GMRS is always because for a radio service where I can get one license, it can cover my entire family.

[00:33:25] It can cover most of my extended family.

[00:33:28] So I can take any of the handful of very cheap Beofang GM15 Pros that I have, and I got a few of them.

[00:33:36] I can pitch one of those to my parents.

[00:33:38] I can pitch one of those to my in-laws.

[00:33:40] I can pitch one to my sister, my brother-in-law.

[00:33:42] I can hand one to my daughter.

[00:33:44] I can hand one to all kinds of people.

[00:33:46] And we can all use, we can all piggyback off of my license and my call sign.

[00:33:50] So I can arm up a small army with radios very, very quickly and 100% legally, I might add.

[00:33:58] And that is why I always recommend GMRS.

[00:34:01] I'm not saying don't get into amateur radio, but I am saying that for the barrier to entry being as low as it is,

[00:34:08] I recommend people start there because you can get a license for $35 that will cover your entire freaking family.

[00:34:13] You don't have to make your wife hate you by making her study for a ham radio test and then go someplace to go take it.

[00:34:21] And you can get the job done.

[00:34:24] You're going to, because at the end of the day, like I have no particular want, no offense to anybody,

[00:34:29] but I have no particular want to talk to like 10,000 strangers in the local area.

[00:34:34] My comms plan is built around my wife, my daughter, and me.

[00:34:38] Those are the people that I need to have comms with.

[00:34:42] So if I can't get my wife to get a ham radio license, then ham radio is useless to me.

[00:34:48] It doesn't.

[00:34:49] Because not just do you have to get her to get the license.

[00:34:52] You have to get her to use it and to familiarize herself with it.

[00:34:56] And the ham radios can be more complicated than the GMRS radios and the FRS radios.

[00:35:06] And that's the other thing is that with GMRS, it's channelized.

[00:35:10] I don't have to tell my daughter what frequency to go to.

[00:35:12] I tell her, press this button until you get to channel three.

[00:35:15] Problem solved.

[00:35:16] It is a radio service.

[00:35:18] It is equipment built for the layperson, which most people are.

[00:35:23] Now, your ham radios, they can do that same thing.

[00:35:26] You can channelize your ham radio, which I have done with my two Bayofangs that I use.

[00:35:33] I've got my grandfather.

[00:35:36] I believe his ham license is expired now.

[00:35:38] But when it was not, we were using it between fishing boats.

[00:35:42] And it was channelized for just that reason.

[00:35:45] Yeah.

[00:35:45] I mean, that is a fair point.

[00:35:47] If you have a GMRS license and you have a ham license and you have a ham radio, I mean, it's not 100% legal.

[00:35:53] Because technically, you're only supposed to use GMRS equipment for GMRS frequencies.

[00:35:57] But comma, however.

[00:35:58] Well, it's a wattage restriction.

[00:36:00] Yeah.

[00:36:01] Like I think your GMRS radios are like a half watt or a one and a half watt.

[00:36:05] And the low level handy talkies for ham are five watt.

[00:36:09] They are a half watt on the FRS frequencies.

[00:36:12] Two watts.

[00:36:14] Okay.

[00:36:16] On one through seven.

[00:36:18] So using my Bale Fang.

[00:36:19] Or no.

[00:36:20] Are they five watts?

[00:36:21] They're half a watt on the FRS frequencies.

[00:36:23] They're five watts on one through seven.

[00:36:26] And on 15 through 22, you can blow 50 watts up, which no handheld is going to push 50 watts.

[00:36:31] They're all like between five and eight.

[00:36:32] Oh, no, no.

[00:36:32] Absolutely not.

[00:36:33] You're going to have to have an amplifier.

[00:36:34] Yeah, for sure.

[00:36:35] Okay.

[00:36:35] So I think the Bale Fangs are five watts.

[00:36:38] They're four and a half.

[00:36:38] They're not pushing five watts.

[00:36:40] Yeah.

[00:36:40] Yeah.

[00:36:40] They're not getting quite there.

[00:36:42] As far as what kind of GMRS is that that I have?

[00:36:44] So I have a whole gaggle of Bale Fangs GM15 Pros.

[00:36:48] They are usually like two for 50 bucks on Amazon.

[00:36:51] They're cheap.

[00:36:52] They work.

[00:36:53] And I've knocked mine around enough to know that like I wouldn't say throw it off a building,

[00:36:58] but they'll take a knock and they're cheap enough.

[00:37:01] They're cheap enough that if you buy like a half dozen of the damn things, you should do that anyway

[00:37:05] because you have friends and they want to have radios too.

[00:37:10] I have a Radiodity DB20G in my truck, which so far I've been able to make some contacts.

[00:37:19] I mean, I've been able to play tag with a repeater 20 to 30 miles away with that with a little 12 inch whip antenna.

[00:37:26] So like it definitely does work.

[00:37:29] And then that man pack is built around a Wux and KG1000G plus, which is in my opinion, like the GMRS radio to be in the mobile world right now until someone makes something better.

[00:37:42] But I'm going to tell you, which they will.

[00:37:44] I'm sure they will.

[00:37:45] But I'm going to tell you right now that for like 380, 400 bucks, that's how that is a butt kicking little radio.

[00:37:51] And I have.

[00:37:52] Yeah, I'm looking at a Yaesu mobile base station for my house to mash up with my big TV antenna that I'm going to put a ham radio antenna on.

[00:38:01] Okay, so back to the banner.

[00:38:03] So comm security is what I fully expect.

[00:38:06] We're going to spend the next 20 to 30 minutes talking about, which is why I saved it for last.

[00:38:11] So it's pretty smart.

[00:38:12] Everything in comm security is built around the idea that I want to talk to Nick.

[00:38:18] I don't want to talk to people I don't want to talk to.

[00:38:20] I don't want other people listening.

[00:38:23] And some of that is going to be impossible because it goes back to the flashlight in the dark concept where if you turn the light on, everybody can see the light where the light's coming from.

[00:38:31] Well, if you turn on your radio and transmit, everybody can see everybody can hear you like there's no way to avoid that.

[00:38:35] But there are ways to make make it more difficult for a person to hear you.

[00:38:40] And there are ways to make sure that what they hear doesn't do them a lot of good.

[00:38:45] And for anybody that thinks for a moment, all I'm talking about is like, you know, Mad Max stuff.

[00:38:51] I talk to my daughter about a lot of these things when we're at campgrounds and we start talking back and forth on radios because I don't want anybody to know that there is a 12 year old girl broadcasting her location when she's by herself on a radio on an open frequency.

[00:39:06] And if that sounds paranoid, there are people in this world that have made me that way.

[00:39:11] Blame them, not me.

[00:39:13] And and let's be honest here.

[00:39:14] Most criminals are opportunistic.

[00:39:16] I don't know how many of them have radios.

[00:39:18] I don't want to find out either.

[00:39:21] Poachers have radios, man.

[00:39:23] Everybody has radios.

[00:39:24] They're cheap.

[00:39:24] You can buy them at Walmart.

[00:39:25] You have to assume that anyone.

[00:39:29] And that means all of the worst people, as well as your local priest, can have a radio.

[00:39:36] Yep.

[00:39:37] So everything in comp security is built around those facets.

[00:39:40] I want to talk to people.

[00:39:41] I don't want people listening and I don't want them to be able to get signals intelligence from the things me and my buddies are talking about.

[00:39:47] So the very first thing that's worth pointing out is some kind of a protocol for authentication.

[00:39:54] Normally, when you talk to somebody on a radio, if you have a good signal, you can hear their voice well enough that between their voice and their accent and everything else, you probably will be able to work out who you're talking to.

[00:40:05] Like I can hear my daughter's voice on a radio and I know that's my daughter.

[00:40:09] But if you're talking about, if you're talking through brush, if the signal is broken, if they're static, you cannot depend on that.

[00:40:16] So you need some method of establishing that the person I'm speaking to is, has, I've established their bona fides.

[00:40:23] A lot of times, like with ham and with GMRS, there are official recorded call signs.

[00:40:31] Like for GMRS, mine is WSAK388.

[00:40:36] It's KD9DEW.

[00:40:37] It is publicly accessible information, guys.

[00:40:40] It's not like I'm giving away state secrets.

[00:40:42] Like anybody can Google.

[00:40:43] Right.

[00:40:43] If you know my name, you can find my ham call sign.

[00:40:46] Come on.

[00:40:47] Yeah.

[00:40:47] And that goes for anybody.

[00:40:49] That's actually, I should have put that in there, signals intelligence.

[00:40:51] But anyway, I digress.

[00:40:52] Oh, yeah.

[00:40:53] That's a fair point.

[00:40:54] Also, if anybody is concerned about the fact that your call sign is publicly searchable, you can actually use a P.O. box as your home address so that at least people can't search your ID and then trace it back to your home address.

[00:41:07] I don't worry about that because there's only so many rabelais in the world and I'm just not hard to find.

[00:41:13] But if that is a concern, that's valid.

[00:41:15] And that's how you get around it.

[00:41:17] Use a P.O. box.

[00:41:18] But you need some kind of a protocol for authentication.

[00:41:21] It's got to be something that you and the person you're speaking to can establish, can know in advance.

[00:41:26] And you can say, OK, if I use this code word or if I use this name or if I use this whatever, this is how I'm going to be able to identify that the person I'm speaking to is the person I want to talk to and not some random weirdo.

[00:41:38] And you can make that as complicated or as simple as it needs to be.

[00:41:42] But you need some kind of way to establish that I'm talking to the person I want to talk to.

[00:41:49] This goes back to even pre radio military security.

[00:41:56] Call and response.

[00:41:58] Anybody that's watched Band of Brothers?

[00:42:01] Flash Thunder.

[00:42:02] The little clickers.

[00:42:04] You know, people have been doing this for a very long time.

[00:42:07] All you have to do is work in, say, a word into a sentence and they know the proper response.

[00:42:14] Yeah.

[00:42:15] And they just include that single word in the sentence.

[00:42:18] So in another lifetime, when I wrote a book, there was actually one part of that where there was a group of people talking on radios and they were identifying not themselves, but the station they were transmitting from by the names of states.

[00:42:31] So Florida was the southeast station and California was the was the south or no Florida.

[00:42:38] California was southwest.

[00:42:40] Florida was southeast.

[00:42:41] But that way, the state that they were calling from was identified into the RTO at home base, what direction they were calling from.

[00:42:51] So that person knew that this intelligence support is coming from that direction.

[00:42:54] So they could kind of like a war game it out on a map.

[00:42:57] It's something that simple.

[00:42:59] And by the way, if it's going to be that simple, someone's going to figure it out sooner or later.

[00:43:03] Oh, yeah.

[00:43:04] You talk long enough.

[00:43:05] People are going to people are going to code break you if they speak your language.

[00:43:08] Which probably but things like coded names, coded, frequent coded phrases.

[00:43:12] Now, I will say that at least on GMRS and I'm pretty sure on him.

[00:43:16] Well, I think on him, actually, there are some frequencies you can use encryption.

[00:43:20] But on GMRS is strictly disallowed.

[00:43:23] You're not as far as I'm aware, you're not supposed to use any type of encryption on him.

[00:43:29] Now, I could be wrong.

[00:43:30] I could be wrong, too.

[00:43:31] But I seem to remember that from somewhere that there was an exception.

[00:43:34] Awful hard to prove if you're talking to your friend on ham frequencies and you're telling him about your ham sandwich that what you're actually talking about is your Ford F-150.

[00:43:44] And there is there is no way to there's no way to legally legally prevent you from using a name or a phrase that means something else.

[00:43:55] Right.

[00:43:56] And it's just good principle.

[00:43:58] I mean, that's why a lot of times like with when again, going back to the campsite analogy with my daughter.

[00:44:04] It's I'm home or I'm I'm at a place that means something to me because she and I have talked about that, but it doesn't mean something to somebody else who's not.

[00:44:14] So it's just it's the eye.

[00:44:15] So, for instance, I'm at work broadcasted in the clear.

[00:44:19] I know where my spouse's work is.

[00:44:23] Random individual who is listening doesn't know, number one, who my spouse is.

[00:44:27] Number two, where they work.

[00:44:29] Or number three, maybe there are multiple places where work could be.

[00:44:34] Here's one of my ham nerds, and I mean that with all the love and respect in the world.

[00:44:38] I think the only encryption exception is for amateur radio is certain transmissions to satellites.

[00:44:43] That might have been what I was thinking of, but I believe they do allow data transmission on some ham frequencies now.

[00:44:50] And they do allow digital.

[00:44:51] Like you can send text over ham.

[00:44:53] Yeah, digital transition.

[00:44:54] But that's the provable difference between slang and code?

[00:44:57] Zero.

[00:44:59] Yeah, intent.

[00:45:01] That's really what it is.

[00:45:02] They have to prove that you intended to deceive.

[00:45:04] Well, I mean, the ATF proves intent all the time.

[00:45:07] It's constructive intent.

[00:45:09] Let's not go down that road.

[00:45:10] I'm a toolmaker.

[00:45:11] I am constructive intent.

[00:45:12] I mean, come on.

[00:45:13] Any piece of metal I can make into whatever I feel like, assuming the dimensions fit within the bounds of that metal.

[00:45:20] Constructive intent is asinine.

[00:45:21] I'm a coonass with a Dremel.

[00:45:24] Right, exactly.

[00:45:25] Come on.

[00:45:26] Guys, teenagers have been making slam fire shotguns out of steel black pipe and roofing nails for, oh God, as long as there's been 12 gauge.

[00:45:35] Yeah.

[00:45:36] So the other thing is, once you get past this idea of authenticating who you're speaking to using coded names and phrases, is having secondary and tertiary frequencies.

[00:45:46] There is no practical limit to how many of these secondary frequencies you could have.

[00:45:54] And you should have, I would say at a minimum three.

[00:45:58] There's a primary.

[00:45:59] There's if primary gets blown.

[00:46:03] I know.

[00:46:04] I know.

[00:46:04] Primary, secondary, tertiary, and emergency.

[00:46:08] Primary, alternate, contingency, emergency.

[00:46:10] Pace plan.

[00:46:11] But the point remains, I would say you have to have multiple frequencies so that if there is cross chatter that you don't want to have to compete with, or if you have reason to believe that that frequency has been blown, someone's listening, you need some kind of a way to signal to everyone else that you jump to the next frequency.

[00:46:29] Which is right here.

[00:46:30] Criteria to transfer frequencies.

[00:46:32] Sometimes that's a command.

[00:46:34] Sometimes it is.

[00:46:38] A time?

[00:46:39] It could be.

[00:46:39] A date?

[00:46:40] And this is kind of what you were talking about earlier, where if you want to obscure your comms, you could literally say, in the bottom half of the hour, we're going to, let's say for a moment, we had a really frequent check-in period.

[00:46:54] It was every five minutes.

[00:46:55] Bottom half of the hour, we're going to be on this frequency.

[00:46:57] Top half of the hour, we're going to be on this frequency.

[00:47:00] Or before afternoon.

[00:47:02] You could even do talk on one, listen on the other, and swap those for the different people.

[00:47:08] So if I'm talking to Phil, I would be broadcasting on channel one and listening on channel two.

[00:47:14] He would be talking on channel two, listening on channel one.

[00:47:17] But that would only be possible with ham radios, because like with GMRS, they're locked in certain frequencies.

[00:47:21] With FRS, they don't have to.

[00:47:22] Unless you have two radios.

[00:47:24] Unless you have two radios.

[00:47:25] I mean, that can be kind of equipment dependent.

[00:47:28] But you could do something as simple as, we're going to be on channel one on the first check-in.

[00:47:33] We're going to be on channel two, the second check-in.

[00:47:34] We're going to be on channel three, the next check-in.

[00:47:37] Or it could be...

[00:47:38] And rotate through.

[00:47:39] And this, I don't think this happens near as much on like UHF, VHF.

[00:47:43] But I do know that on like HF, depending on atmospheric conditions, certain chunks of the bandwidth become very difficult to access at certain times of the day.

[00:47:50] They do.

[00:47:50] So you could be in a situation where like, hey, this is the time we're going to try to make this contact.

[00:47:56] If we don't make it here, your next attempt will be at this time on this frequency.

[00:48:01] So like you could have all that built into your comms plan.

[00:48:03] It is a combination of using the available bandwidth so that we can make our contact without having to compete with other users.

[00:48:12] It is also a function of making sure we can make this contact in such a way that there are not people listening in that we can help.

[00:48:19] Because we're going to...

[00:48:21] And again, that can be criteria.

[00:48:22] It could be a command where like you hear a certain word that is not something in common parlance.

[00:48:29] You know, disconnect, jump to the next frequency.

[00:48:33] And you know, this could even be event-based.

[00:48:36] So for instance, me and my wife's primary communication system.

[00:48:42] Cell phone.

[00:48:43] No reason not to be your primary.

[00:48:45] Everybody's got them and they work.

[00:48:47] While they work, it's a perfect communication system.

[00:48:50] It's damn near instantaneous.

[00:48:52] It's with you all the time.

[00:48:53] And it has near limitless bandwidth as long as you're willing to pay for it.

[00:48:58] But, okay.

[00:49:01] AT&T had an outage.

[00:49:02] We happened to use AT&T.

[00:49:04] We went to our alternate communications plan, which is an IM service that uses Wi-Fi.

[00:49:13] He was able to get a hold of me immediately.

[00:49:15] The event that triggered it was not able to get a hold of me via our normal text messages or phone calls.

[00:49:24] Because there happened to be a cell phone outage.

[00:49:26] That's an event-based frequency change.

[00:49:30] So, you know, it can be dynamic as well as, you know, scheduled.

[00:49:39] Yeah.

[00:49:40] Yeah.

[00:49:40] But, again, these are all ways that you know to engage those other frequencies or to engage those other communication devices.

[00:49:46] Like you said, go from cell phones to radios to mesh-tastic to whatever.

[00:49:52] Sooner or later, in a bad enough situation, sooner or later, your comms plan is going to run out if things get spicy.

[00:49:59] Oh, absolutely.

[00:50:00] But the point is, is that the whole point of making a plan, the whole point of preparedness is that the first hiccup doesn't cause your plan to fall apart.

[00:50:07] Like you have planned for something to pick up and something to be engaged.

[00:50:12] So that if you have to figure it out on the fly, you're figuring it out two or three steps down from normal operations.

[00:50:20] And the other thing that, like, we can debate this.

[00:50:25] How seriously somebody should take this in the civilian world.

[00:50:29] But a burn command.

[00:50:32] I think it needs to be taken very seriously.

[00:50:34] So in the military, the second thing I got taught about radios was that every radio in the military has a diagram that says, place muzzle here to disable radio.

[00:50:50] That was the second thing I learned about them.

[00:50:52] That was before.

[00:50:53] That was like right after how to turn them on, was how to make them turn off forever.

[00:50:59] Especially when you're using like digital encrypted communications like the U.S. military uses.

[00:51:04] Especially when you're using SyncGARS, where if someone, like with SyncGARS, with their ability to frequency hop, the ability to cut into a SyncGARS communication net is difficult.

[00:51:13] You need a certain level of technology to pull that off.

[00:51:16] But if you have one of the stupid things, it's really easy.

[00:51:22] You just, you've got the radio.

[00:51:23] It's like getting the Enigma machine off one of the subs.

[00:51:26] You know, at that point, like we got, we figured out your game.

[00:51:28] We got it.

[00:51:30] Congratulations.

[00:51:31] Your encryption means nothing.

[00:51:32] I have your files.

[00:51:33] Yes.

[00:51:33] So I would say, I would say that like put this somewhere in your comms plan as far as like at what point and how.

[00:51:44] Destroy the comms plan.

[00:51:46] At what point do you destroy your comms plan?

[00:51:49] You, if you, there's part of me that says you should never have any of this written down.

[00:51:54] But quite frankly, for certain family members, you're going to have to write some of this down because no one's going to commit all this to memory.

[00:51:59] But at a certain point, you need to have a command or a criteria that tells a person, I bash my radio on a rock until it stops turning on.

[00:52:08] I pop the battery out.

[00:52:10] I throw it as far that direction as I can.

[00:52:12] Throw the radio as far that direction as I can.

[00:52:14] And I eat the piece of paper that has all the frequencies written on it.

[00:52:18] Or if your frequencies are programmed into the radio, it'd be really nice to know how to quickly factory reset that radio to burn everything out of it.

[00:52:27] That's all.

[00:52:28] I think it's a three button combination on the bail fangs.

[00:52:31] I have to look at that.

[00:52:32] It's equipment dependent.

[00:52:33] But the thing of it is, is that if you, if you don't have a way to factory reset that radio quickly, like within 10 seconds.

[00:52:41] The nine millimeter reset.

[00:52:43] Yes, the nine millimeter or the rock reset, just battery as far that direction as I can throw it.

[00:52:50] Smash, hold the, hold the radio by the antenna and smash it on a rock or a tree until it, it, you don't think it's ever going to do anything.

[00:52:56] Sometimes the best solution is the most primitive one.

[00:52:59] Smash it with a rock.

[00:52:59] Caveman it.

[00:53:00] Ungabunga.

[00:53:01] But the point remains, you need a, you need a, you need some kind of way to tell a person, this is the point at which you're blown.

[00:53:08] Do not allow the comms plan and the radio and the communications device to fall into hands.

[00:53:13] We don't want it to be.

[00:53:15] And that doesn't always have to be a physical destruction of your comms.

[00:53:21] Sometimes it could be as simple as, Hey, if we, if you get the burn command, we are all radio silent for 24 hours.

[00:53:28] And then we will pick back up on a secondary comms plan.

[00:53:32] Say something written on the back of the first one.

[00:53:35] That is a whole different set of frequencies.

[00:53:37] That's a whole different timing.

[00:53:38] It's a whole different everything.

[00:53:39] But the point is, is that there has to be a point in this whole, the creation of this entire plan.

[00:53:45] And this has been like 45 minutes of us talking like nerds, but there has to be a point at which in the creation of this comms plan, the comms plan gets destroyed.

[00:53:54] It's burn.

[00:53:55] Someone knows everything.

[00:53:56] And this isn't, Oh, I heard some cross chatter or somebody was talking on one of our frequencies.

[00:54:01] That could be transient.

[00:54:02] You go to another frequency and try to get away from that.

[00:54:04] But I'm talking about, okay, the last three times we checked in, we've got a, we got a weirdo jumping on us every single time we transmit.

[00:54:12] So they now know, they know all of our frequencies.

[00:54:15] They know our timing.

[00:54:16] They know our interval.

[00:54:17] We've been cut.

[00:54:18] We've been cut into burn the comms plan.

[00:54:22] Yeah.

[00:54:23] Essentially your communications are compromised.

[00:54:24] And, and one, and one thing that I think we all need to admit to ourselves that it doesn't really fit in here.

[00:54:30] Yes.

[00:54:31] Maybe no.

[00:54:31] No.

[00:54:32] Your cell phone, your IMs, your encrypted communications apps, they are all compromised.

[00:54:38] They are.

[00:54:39] We have to assume they're all compromised.

[00:54:41] I mean, look at the, what was it?

[00:54:42] The U S government just said that China has compromised all cell phone traffic in the continental

[00:54:47] U S and that you shouldn't send text messages.

[00:54:50] I'm shocked.

[00:54:50] That was news.

[00:54:52] I mean, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:54] We come on.

[00:54:55] They build all of our fucking cell phones, man.

[00:54:57] They don't have to build all of our cell phones.

[00:54:59] They've got 300 of those little egg heads in a fricking room that do nothing but like try to hack U S government equipment.

[00:55:05] I mean, the only secure communications is in person, physical communications, and that's only as secure as your perimeter.

[00:55:12] Okay.

[00:55:13] So I'm, I'm going to tell all of y'all something before we go to this very last banner, something that was told to me by somebody far older and more experienced and smarter than I am in almost all disciplines.

[00:55:23] And it's important to have people like that in your life because they can tell it wasn't, this one was not Stewart.

[00:55:28] Although Stewart would probably agree with this guy.

[00:55:31] Probably.

[00:55:32] So he said, whether we are talking about communications, gun safes, home security, home hardening, self-defense, anything, everything in life.

[00:55:44] There is nothing proof.

[00:55:47] There is only resistant.

[00:55:49] Yeah.

[00:55:49] So he said, if, if you, if you let, let's say your concern is I want to make my guns and my safe theft proof.

[00:55:57] That's not possible.

[00:55:58] You can make them theft resistant.

[00:56:00] You can make it hard.

[00:56:01] You can make it take power tools and noise and time, but you cannot make it impossible.

[00:56:07] And he said, the same thing applies to your security.

[00:56:10] So you can have a computer that is locked down.

[00:56:14] It can have all the VPNs, all the firewalls, all the, whatever you could even go the extra step of saying this computer is never connected to the internet.

[00:56:21] There are still ways into it.

[00:56:23] Someone, someone who is motivated enough will kick in your front door and take the hard drive out of the stupid thing.

[00:56:30] So his point of view was always that what we have to understand is that we are making things resistant.

[00:56:37] We're not making them proof and the resources of a state or government agency and not necessarily one of our government agencies, but a foreign government agency are infinite.

[00:56:48] So even if you make it to where like Johnny crackhead down the street, can't get your guns.

[00:56:53] If the ATF wants in your safe, they're going to get in.

[00:56:57] If you make it to where like Johnny hacker can't get into your computer and do stuff.

[00:57:02] If China wants into your computer, they're going to get in because they will, they will lock 3000 eggheads in a room and tell them break into Nick's computer.

[00:57:12] No matter how long it takes.

[00:57:13] And they'll get in sooner or later.

[00:57:15] Cause there's no way to stop them.

[00:57:16] They will.

[00:57:17] Even with encrypted hard drives, encrypted operating systems.

[00:57:20] It doesn't matter.

[00:57:21] It's only a matter of time and resources because let's be honest.

[00:57:25] I'm not that clever.

[00:57:26] Yeah.

[00:57:27] Well, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not more clever than 300 people, but that's the point is the weight of numbers is going to win.

[00:57:32] Even if you are that clever, you are not more clever than the stubbornness of a government agency.

[00:57:38] They will, they will, they will spend, they will spend lifetimes and fortunes to get the end result they want.

[00:57:47] So just keep that in mind.

[00:57:49] All this stuff we're talking about is to make it to where it's difficult for somebody to cut into your comms.

[00:57:54] We're inconvenient.

[00:57:55] Convenient.

[00:57:56] Yes.

[00:57:56] At minimum.

[00:57:57] We're not making it impossible.

[00:57:58] We're just going to make it tricky.

[00:58:01] And the other, and, and, and for most threats that you or I, or, or anybody in this in that's watching now are going to face, that's probably good enough.

[00:58:10] You know, you're, you're 12 year old at the campground for the average criminal that may want to do harm to you or your daughter.

[00:58:18] That's good enough because the opportunity won't be presenting itself in a very clear matter.

[00:58:24] Yeah.

[00:58:25] And the last bullet point I had in here was ciphers.

[00:58:27] So we talked earlier about how speaking code and encrypting your transmissions is frowned upon by the FCC.

[00:58:36] I've, I've used my air quotes.

[00:58:38] I've given my disclaimer.

[00:58:41] Technically not.

[00:58:42] Yes.

[00:58:42] You will, you will be on the naughty list if you do this, but ciphers have been around as long as people have been speaking to each other.

[00:58:52] Pig Latin is a cipher.

[00:58:54] Uh, your standard alphanumeric.

[00:58:56] It's a very poor one.

[00:58:57] Yeah.

[00:58:58] Your standard alphanumeric where A is one, B is two, so on and so forth.

[00:59:03] That.

[00:59:03] Simple substitution ciphers.

[00:59:05] That is a cipher.

[00:59:07] Um, making an anagram in a, in a controlled fashion, not just a random one.

[00:59:12] Although it could be random depending on how many of you want to get.

[00:59:15] Like there's a million ways to scramble information.

[00:59:18] I would say that for a group of people trying to control information, it probably doesn't make sense to make the entire message a cipher.

[00:59:29] But if you have a specific piece of information, you don't want to speak out loud so that anybody can hear it.

[00:59:36] Perhaps consider applying a cipher to that.

[00:59:40] And if it is something that is vaguely pronounceable, then pronounce it, then spell it.

[00:59:46] And then people are going to be listening to your message.

[00:59:49] But the minute they hear something that sounds like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:59:51] They know, listen to the spelling.

[00:59:54] That's the information I need to record.

[00:59:55] I need to apply this cipher to decode it.

[00:59:57] And that can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make it.

[01:00:02] Like I go back to the principle that a sync guards operates on where it frequency hops.

[01:00:07] But in order to jump into that frequency, in order to jump into that series of frequencies, you have to know at what point do I intercept the first frequency in the series?

[01:00:16] So you need a time hack in addition to all the frequencies.

[01:00:19] You can do something very similarly where you integrate, say, the time of day into your cipher so that there is some component of this that regenerates every hour.

[01:00:33] You can do that with a book cipher based on the page or the chapter, I'm sure.

[01:00:37] I mean, book ciphers have been around for a very long time.

[01:00:40] But one thing you got to be really careful about that, especially with the modern cycle of iterating books and reprinting books,

[01:00:47] you must have the same edition and the same printing of book.

[01:00:53] So your King James Bible from 1985 that's been in your parents' bedroom for many, many years,

[01:00:59] and your King James Bible you bought at Barnes & Noble yesterday.

[01:01:02] Does Barnes & Noble still exist?

[01:01:04] Yes.

[01:01:04] I was there a couple of days ago.

[01:01:06] Good.

[01:01:07] Anyway, then it fits.

[01:01:07] The book you bought at Barnes & Noble yesterday is probably going to have different kerning or different spacing or whatever that's going to result in a different answer to your cipher.

[01:01:17] Yep.

[01:01:18] Joe Oliveira bringing up the Navajo co-talkers, which...

[01:01:22] Yeah.

[01:01:23] Boy, would I have loved to have been a fly on the wall when those poor Japanese SOBs were trying to figure out what the hell language these crazy Americans were speaking.

[01:01:30] Ah, it's a language with no written words.

[01:01:35] Fantastic.

[01:01:37] Although, God, the comments picked up the same thing that I've been thinking about, which is, A, I might crack it.

[01:01:42] It's very probable.

[01:01:43] Because the problem...

[01:01:45] Well...

[01:01:45] But again, what we're...

[01:01:47] It has infinite attention span to focus on.

[01:01:50] Yes.

[01:01:50] But again, what this boils down to is, is that it is a tool in the toolbox to help you secure the information.

[01:01:56] If you're...

[01:01:57] If you've applied everything else and you've tried to make it to where you're not being listened to, if this is like the last thing in your toolbox to try to control the release of certain information, like, it can't hurt to try.

[01:02:11] But it is something that if you're going to utilize a cipher in your comms plan, you have to know about it and agree to it ahead of time.

[01:02:18] It has...

[01:02:19] And you better have a pretty good reason for it.

[01:02:23] Just because of...

[01:02:24] Like, look, the ham clubs get really particular about people breaking FCC rules a lot of times.

[01:02:32] Well, and...

[01:02:32] Yes, the FCC is probably not going to come down on you because your child told you, use your ham radio.

[01:02:40] But the local ham club is probably going to be mad at you, and they're probably going to try to stop you from transmitting in the future.

[01:02:46] Yes.

[01:02:47] And it's also worth pointing out that, like...

[01:02:48] Because some of them are very ornery.

[01:02:49] Most of the stuff we've talked about up till now would not raise many eyebrows.

[01:02:54] Having multiple frequencies, even something as extreme sounding to some people as having a burn command that doesn't...

[01:03:01] When you say that over the radio, that doesn't immediately raise alarm bells.

[01:03:05] A cipher will.

[01:03:07] The minute you...

[01:03:09] A cipher is immediately, okay, I need to know whatever that was.

[01:03:13] So it's a double-edged sword of the minute you start speaking...

[01:03:18] It's...

[01:03:18] So earlier when we talked about coded names, like if I use a codename and Nick uses a codename, like people are just going to listen to us and think, well, they're nerds.

[01:03:28] And we are.

[01:03:29] Right.

[01:03:30] The minute you start talking in a cipher or the minute you start like using really heavily coded messages, someone is going to take notice of that.

[01:03:39] And their curiosity is going to...

[01:03:41] It's like buried treasure, man.

[01:03:43] And here's the thing.

[01:03:43] It doesn't matter what you buried.

[01:03:45] And here's the thing.

[01:03:46] You could be passing information back and forth about freaking baking recipes.

[01:03:50] It doesn't matter.

[01:03:51] It's the fact that you're trying to obscure the information, that someone is going to pay attention, and they're going to start digging.

[01:03:57] Because why wouldn't they?

[01:03:59] If they're doing the smart thing and they're listening for signals intelligence, they're going to be surfing the airways.

[01:04:04] And if they're smart, they're not going to be talking to you.

[01:04:07] They're just going to be listening.

[01:04:10] Like, understand that of everything I've put in here, ciphers is the one thing that I would tell a person, like, have that in your comms plan.

[01:04:20] I wouldn't use it unless you have to.

[01:04:22] Unless you feel like you have really good reason to use it.

[01:04:25] Because the minute you start doing it, someone's attention is going to be aroused.

[01:04:32] And if you are going to use it, you need to use it sparingly.

[01:04:39] Yes.

[01:04:39] Because the more you use a cipher, the more likely it is that someone will be able to guess or brute force their way through it.

[01:04:47] And understand that in the world of AI, that could be once.

[01:04:53] Oh, yeah.

[01:04:54] It's probably once.

[01:04:55] And the thing, especially if it's a simple substitution cipher.

[01:04:58] With AI, I guarantee you it is once.

[01:05:00] And the only thing that makes a cipher, I think, still a useful tool is that the time it takes to break the cipher can make time-sensitive information useless by the time you break it.

[01:05:15] So, like, that's worth pointing out.

[01:05:17] I just say, like, it's a tool in the toolbox.

[01:05:19] But you'd better have a reason for using it.

[01:05:23] And you might even want to have, like, a cipher that kind of consumes itself over time or changes itself over time.

[01:05:31] Because if you use the exact same cipher more than once, you're blown.

[01:05:37] So, was there anything we talked about, Nick, that, like, you felt like I left out?

[01:05:41] Because I literally wrote all this down last night while I was trying to go to sleep.

[01:05:46] And this is, like, this is a lot of, like, old RTO and old knowledge.

[01:05:51] And this is a lot of crap you could Google off the internet.

[01:05:54] Like, nothing here is, look at me, I am a radio master.

[01:05:58] It is literally all stuff that's, like, it's accessible.

[01:06:01] It's out there.

[01:06:03] You know, I think the, I don't think you missed anything in key, any key point.

[01:06:11] Keeping it, obviously keeping it equipment agnostic.

[01:06:14] Yeah.

[01:06:15] But I think something that is worth reiterating is something I brought up earlier.

[01:06:20] Here, your comms plan should include your most basic forms of communication up to your most eccentric.

[01:06:29] So, your cell phone, your Snapchat, if you're still using that, email potentially.

[01:06:36] Because, yeah, maybe Snapchat's servers are down.

[01:06:39] Whatever.

[01:06:40] Maybe AT&T's down.

[01:06:41] Maybe Snapchat's got a hack.

[01:06:43] Fire off a Gmail.

[01:06:45] Maybe Google will figure it out before Snapchat figures it out.

[01:06:47] Who knows?

[01:06:48] But, that can go up to and including non-transmitted messaging systems.

[01:06:54] So, dead drops.

[01:06:58] If you guys are in a local area and you need to pass a message, and you need to pass a message in a semi-covert way,

[01:07:08] you can do that through dead drops or flaggings of whatever kind.

[01:07:13] So, hey, hang this in a certain location.

[01:07:17] It means there's a message.

[01:07:18] Or, it means I need to talk to you.

[01:07:21] So, say you happen to have a house on a hill like I do, and you can hop up on your roof, take a look at binoculars over a long distance.

[01:07:29] You got a buddy three blocks over.

[01:07:31] You can see the top of his roof and maybe, like, his old TV antenna.

[01:07:35] Hey, man, hang a blaze orange flag if you need help up on the TV antenna.

[01:07:40] It can be that simple.

[01:07:42] Now, if the TV antenna got knocked down by a hurricane, well, that's out the window.

[01:07:46] But, there are some things you just can't be ready for.

[01:07:51] But, you know, aside from working in, I would say, your everyday communications into this communications plan,

[01:07:58] the most important thing is to have some stated plan, even if it's just your immediate family.

[01:08:07] That's it.

[01:08:08] That's all I got.

[01:08:08] Well, I mean, I would also point out that, like, I would venture to say that even before you start approaching neighbors and friends and like-minded folks,

[01:08:20] your family should be the first people you rope into this comms plan because what is the whole point of us doing all the crazy things we talk about on this show if not to protect and look out for our loved ones?

[01:08:34] So, that, like, that is why my wife and daughter are part of that comms plan.

[01:08:39] When AT&T service went down not too long ago, my wife and I were talking back and forth on Signal.

[01:08:47] Exactly.

[01:08:48] She's got Wi-Fi in her building.

[01:08:49] I got Wi-Fi in my building.

[01:08:50] It was quick and dirty.

[01:08:53] But, it begs the question.

[01:08:55] It works.

[01:08:56] It begs the question of what would happen if, like, my home internet had gone out here.

[01:08:59] What happens if her internet goes out there?

[01:09:02] That's why we started having these bigger conversations about, you know, like, hey, honey, I need to get a radio in your Jeep and you need to be able to talk to me.

[01:09:11] And it's not, it's not because we have the expectation of being in a situation where we need to be able to talk back and forth at a moment's notice.

[01:09:22] But it is because if I lose contact with my wife while she's at work and I'm home, the only way I can reestablish that communication without a radio or a cell phone or whatever is a four and a half mile, you know, hike across town.

[01:09:40] And if I'm in New Orleans, I'm an hour away.

[01:09:44] So, it gets to be that situation where it's, like, better to have it and have it in place and for her to know.

[01:09:51] If I pick up my phone and my phone says SOS and the cell towers are out, the very first thing I need to do is I need to go out to the truck, get the radio fired up and try to reach Phil.

[01:10:01] If I don't get in touch with Phil, I need to try again every hour on the hour until he happens to have his radio on and then we can reestablish communications.

[01:10:11] Because I could be in a situation where she doesn't have service up here, but I'm in New Orleans and I do have service.

[01:10:17] Who freaking knows?

[01:10:18] Right.

[01:10:18] Those are all things you just, you owe it to yourself and your family to kind of work all those situations out and have a plan together.

[01:10:25] And that plan, well, especially where severe weather comes in, because it would not take much to take out a cell tower in the local area.

[01:10:32] But people that are, say, in the town over for work like myself, that tower might be fine.

[01:10:39] You're not going to even know anything's wrong.

[01:10:42] Ah, she's just busy.

[01:10:42] She hasn't texted me.

[01:10:45] Yep.

[01:10:48] So, I didn't really intend for this to be like an hour and 10 minutes, but I should have known that you and I could talk about it for that long.

[01:10:57] It's an important thing that needs to be discussed, Mark.

[01:10:59] And, you know, as much as we try to keep it hardware agnostic, there's a certain limitation to that.

[01:11:07] And eventually you're going to have to start getting into hardware.

[01:11:10] And we did have a couple of people asking what radios do we recommend?

[01:11:13] And honestly, it comes down to make your comms plan first and then let the requirements of your plan dictate your equipment.

[01:11:20] Yeah.

[01:11:21] I mean, that's a good way to go about it because, I mean, I'd be the first to admit that I would, if my wife and daughter both had technician class ham licenses, I would have jumped in.

[01:11:30] That'd be fantastic.

[01:11:30] I'd have jumped headfirst into ham.

[01:11:32] Ham would have been where I'd have put all my time and effort.

[01:11:35] But part of my comms plan includes who's involved in it.

[01:11:39] And it has to.

[01:11:41] It has to include the abilities of the people you're trying to talk to.

[01:11:44] Because if one of your kids is an eight-year-old, you're not going to get your eight-year-old to have a general class ham license.

[01:11:51] Yep.

[01:11:51] And be bouncing signals off the stratosphere.

[01:11:53] Unless they're some kind of whiz kid, which congratulations if they are.

[01:11:57] Yep.

[01:11:57] Well, before we sign this one out, I got to give a shout out.

[01:12:00] Joe said that his son is going to be a combat engineer, ships out to BASC on June 16th.

[01:12:08] Because your son is officially official, he is now included in this brotherhood of dysfunctional morons that all signed a blank check to serve their country.

[01:12:20] So tell my brother I said hey, and he's going to be in my thoughts and prayers, and I look forward to the next time I bump into him.

[01:12:26] And for anybody that listened to this and thought these guys are talking out of their freaking head, this is nonsense, then you can leave comments and you can grill us and that's your opinion and that's okay.

[01:12:37] Yeah.

[01:12:37] Harass me in the comments.

[01:12:38] I will ignore you.

[01:12:39] But on the other hand, if this kind of resonated with you and you thought, hmm, this nerdy stuff actually seems interesting, then leave us comments and tell us, hey, more nerd stuff.

[01:12:49] I mean, we can't always talk about fun stuff.

[01:12:51] Sometimes it's got to be like, you know, administrative work and things like that.

[01:12:57] That's true.

[01:12:58] I mean, eventually we're going to run off, run out of ammo to blow doors off of stuff.

[01:13:02] Which, speaking of which, I will have to order some of those frangible slugs to try blowing up some doors.

[01:13:08] Yeah, I got two boxes showing up tomorrow.

[01:13:10] I just don't have any doors that I can blow up without my wife getting pissed at me.

[01:13:13] I got one of our patrons that might have a range we can shoot some doors at.

[01:13:17] So maybe we'll be able to make that work out this summer.

[01:13:21] Oh.

[01:13:22] Oh, yeah.

[01:13:24] We might be shooting doors.

[01:13:27] All right.

[01:13:28] Let's go ahead and sign this out before I get into trouble.

[01:13:30] Matter of fact, this podcast is going out the door.

[01:13:32] Good night, everybody.

[01:13:33] Thank you for sticking around.

[01:13:34] Thanks for the comments and talk to you all another week.

[01:13:36] Bye, everybody.

[01:13:37] Later, guys.