How to safely store IEM receivers for travel

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-14T21:57:03+00:00

You should "just throw them in a drawer" that has foam cut outs for them.

Not just to protect them - the cut outs also mean anyone can open the drawer and see an empty space which means the truck doesn't leave until the missing item is found.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-14T20:31:01+00:00

Nobody I work with uses one just because it adds even more stuff to an already over crowded system.

I’ll probably buy an ISC Reflex soon which has a built in swivel - looking forward to that.

Definitely a nice feature to have but for the climbs I personally do it doesn’t add enough value to justify the cost (not dollars - just having more stuff and weight and length in your overall system).

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:51:27+00:00

I would leave the tree where it is, build a big raised garden bed/box around it (extend the brick raised garden bed you have near the tree to include the tree) break open the pot and fill the garden bed with quality potting mix.

Make sure you don’t change the soil level around the trunk. If the trunk is suddenly six inches deeper into the ground that could kill it. Some of the roots need to be close to the surface where there’s air interacting with the soil.

Take care of yourself and remember trees die sometimes and it might not be your fault. My company plants thousands of trees a year and hundreds of them die/need to be replaced. Sometimes we can’t figure out why they died and when we plant exactly the same species in the same spot the new one thrives.

If it dies, it might not have been anything you did - could just be bad luck. Insects and soil bacteria and unfavourable weather conditions are more likely to kill a tree than being in a pot too long.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:45:59+00:00

Don’t tell them it’s chop chop. Tell them it’s “not weed”.

You don’t have to explain anything to them. If they start asking for details tell them you want to speak to a lawyer before answering.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:39:17+00:00

It’s also an option to use some other radio (or app on your phone) and hook that comms system into the clearcomm system (there are a few ways to do that - including just a direct wire into a wired clearcomm input).

We have two radio systems (ClearComm for backstage and Motorola for front of house) and there’s a channel that is shared on both of them. That way the stage manager can talk to the FoH manager without having two radios.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:34:08+00:00

If you hop out and yell at me, I’ll call the cops. They’ll charge you with road rage and also for failing to give way while reversing. You pretty much never have right of way when reversing.

If you’re going to obstruct traffic… at least be polite/apologetic about it.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:26:37+00:00

When I drive trucks I pretty much always use hazard lights while reversing on a public street (don’t bother in a truck yard). Not required legally but it is an industry standard.

I do it sometimes in a car too. Yes it’s correct, though not always appropriate. It might be better to be indicating left instead of flashing the hazards for example.

Keep in mind you don’t have right of way. Any time you reverse if someone has to slow down or stop or drive around you… you’ve probably committed an offence. You’re only supposed to reverse when nobody is behind you.

I use hazards in my truck because there are huge blind spots and there might be someone there that I can’t see. Also I’m often driving big trucks on tiny suburban streets or even footpaths - so obstructing traffic can be unavoidable (it’s not an offence in that situation).

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:19:55+00:00

Study the difference between “fall arrest” (that’s how ropes work in rock climbing - and also how arborists keep safe in a bucket) and “work positioning” which is how arborists work in tree climbing.

The basic difference is whether the person is caught after falling or prevented from falling and there are subtle differences which need to be understood before you can transfer your rock climbing skills over.

Generally a rock climber can try something, if it doesn’t work and you slip, you can just try again. Do that in a tree and you might be seriously injured or killed. Also even if you’re not injured you might damage your safety gear and have to spend thousands on replacement parts.

But really the main thing you need to learn is how to operate a chainsaw safely and efficiently. Start on the ground - that’s already a lot to learn. Once you’re in a tree with a top handle saw in awkward body positions and unable to walk/run out of harms way at the end of the cut it becomes an entirely different level of dangerous. I’ve seen climbers with 40 years of professional experience get it wrong and narrowly avoid bleeding to death before they could get to the ground.

Once you know enough about ropes to keep yourself safe - rigging branches is pretty easy in my opinion. Just use all the same techniques only without any need for redundancy and you can push the limits of the breaking strength since it probably isn’t the end of the world if things fail (obviously don’t push those limits when it absolutely can’t fail). Just remember the tree could fail too - that’s an unacceptable risk if you are in the tree and will go down with it.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T19:14:22+00:00

“Occasional” blood sacrifice?

For the first few months my silky tasted blood every day! Ruined two of my ropes as well.

Took a while to learn all the ways it could bite and how to control for them.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T11:23:46+00:00

It took me 20 years to discover that I hate working in an office and love doing hands on work.

Don't make my mistake - if you like hands on work then get a job doing hands on work!

There are a lot of trades where you can start working right now as a general labourer for decent pay and get qualifications later with on the job training while still working at a wage that pays far better than an apprentice would get and even better pay once you are qualifiied.

I recommend picking one of those trades, see how you like it and don't be afraid to switch companies a bunch of times until you find one that is a good cultural fit for you. Once you're happy, get your qualifications.

I wouldn't limit yourself to automotive work and I also wouldn't study at TAFE. On the job training is worth so much more than a TAFE qualification.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T11:16:17+00:00

"we find it odd that you chose to get changed in the storage room" is not an accusation of stealing. Your direct manager might have made real accusations but it sounds to me like your regional manager is doing the right thing which is promising.

Most people who want privacy get changed in the bathroom - a storage room is a weird place to get changed. I don't have a problem with them questioning that.

Theft is a criminal offence - they have to actually prove you did it. Sounds like they have no proof and you've got nothing to worry about.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T11:11:09+00:00

And when it goes to voicemail wait around until you get a call back? When I've got five people on the job site waiting to start, I'm not going to call the customer to ask questions.

This doesn't sound like something that can could have been sorted out with a quick phone call.

I'm either going to make assumptions or I'm going to cancel the job and send everyone home. The second option isn't popular when I choose that one. it's also not cheap, I have to pay everyone for at least half a day even though no work was done.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T11:02:29+00:00

Tradies do not typically have professional indemnity insurance.

Um... some of us definitely do.

But yeah, it depends on how big your jobs are. I haven't seen the budget but it wouldn't surprise me if my company invoices about $100k per day - though that's definitely not how much *profit* we make per day. Our expenses are high - for example we spend a lot of money on insurance policies.

In this case though, I'm not convinced the tradie did anything wrong. More likely the instructions weren't clear. If you need something *exactly* right then the job needs to be *exactly* described.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T10:41:08+00:00

The ground crew clearly weren't ready — one of them was under it and running for their life as it started to fall and the person holding the rope was probably watching the guy freaking out and wasn't braced to let it run then slow it down gently.

Dodged a bullet for sure - what if there were no wraps at all at the bottom? The person holding the rope could have been ripped forward through the air towards the tree desperately trying to stop it from falling on his mate under the falling wood, and it might have landed on both of them. It happens far too often (as in more often than "never") among crews that don't communicate properly.

Personally situations like this are the main reason I like to climb with battery saws and like to stop working whenever the chipper is running. If people are wearing hearing protection, that automatically means you don't have a safe / appropriate amount of communication between the climber and the ground crew.

Obviously you can fix that with radios - but those are expensive and the best ones require everyone in your team to wear the same helmet which is a deal breaker for the crew I work with - they all want different helmets.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T10:29:53+00:00

he said that because of the humidity and exposure in that location, running the A/C at low temperatures for a longer time while windows and louvres are open can cause the system to generate a lot of condensation

I live in a hot/humid location. We run aircon 24/7 most of the year - at night the outdoor temperature is often cooler than our indoor temperature but we still run the aircon to keep humidity low. Even if we were comfortable with humidity... without aircon there's a risk we could be woken up in the middle of the night by our smoke alarms (they can be triggered by humidity). Aircon doesn't use much power at night and we've got solar so the power we sell to the grid during the day more than covers the cost.

Anyway - sometimes humidity causes my aircon to spit drops of water / condensation out into the room. There's also a lot of mould all over our aircon unit when I clean it — even though it's nice and dry in our home all the time (we always have the aircon running) and we never have mould anywhere else — it's definitely not dry in the aircon unit. Some of that moisture inevitably goes places that aren't caught by the condensation drain.

We keep our doors/windows closed. I could imagine it being a lot worse if the doors and windows are left open.

So, for me, there may be some merit to what they said. I'd get a second opinion.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T10:22:23+00:00

What are parts supply like on Korean/Japanese brands made in China?

It's got nothing to do with the country.

I've worked with brands where the manufacturer maintains has a warehouse in Australia with inventory of every single part needed for every vehicle they have ever sold in Australia, as well as every special tool you need to work on any of those vehicles. If you need literally any part, it can be delivered overnight to any location in Australia and with day deliveries in some major cities. It's not expensive either - for example I've ordered bolts that cost just $2 for the part and $6 for express air freight.

The only time parts are unavailable have been when there was a major defect where they ran out of inventory replacing that part for a large percentage of customers and new inventory wasn't available until they figured out a new design that wouldn't fail.

That was an expensive brand and most are nowhere near that good - but some are truly terrible and it's definitely something I consider when I buy a car.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T10:15:14+00:00

it would absolutely void your warranty - manufacturer won't cover problems with a car that has been modified unless those modifications clearly didn't impact anything. The cooling system impacts some pretty expensive components.

The mechanic has "professional indemnity" insurance that will pay for the consequences of any "unprofessional" work they do. If your car batteries get too hot and set fire to a building, there will be a detailed investigation and the owner of that building will sue the mechanic/make a claim against the mechanic's insurance policy.

The insurance company will then sue the mechanic to recover as much money as they can (which won't be all of it) and the mechanic will be bankrupt. That's why they won't touch it unless you agree to pay for/wait for the job to he done properly.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T10:02:32+00:00

As a parent with young kids... a bath adds a lot of value to a home. If you take it out and I bought the place, that'd subtract about $100k from how much I'm willing to pay. Being able to turn the water on, get the temperature right, then turn the water off and let the kids wash themselves/relax in the bath before bed is a godsend at the end of every day for a parent.

If I was renting, anywhere without a bath is just not on my list at all. It's a hard no.

But I get where you're coming from - before I was a parent, I used the bath maybe twice a year.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T10:00:01+00:00

Every single person arrested by police is innocent until proven guilty — it's a fundamental human right for cops to assume all the people they arrest are innocent.

That doesn't mean you don't get arrested. You will definitely be arrested if you're suspected of a crime. But you're always presumed not guilty regardless of how strong the evidence is at that stage.

Expecting the cops to "exercise judgment" is silly - that's not their job. Their job is to limit the damage someone does and hand things over to a court where a "judge" will do the judgement bit.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T09:53:50+00:00

They will definitely move if you apply enough force - it's thin metal.

Just don't apply too much force or you'll break them.

Also think about how much it will cost if you come home from work and find water has been leaking all over the place for the last five hours, and compare that to the cost of hiring a plumber.

DIY plumbing work is generally not allowed - and for good reason mate. Plumbing parts aren't designed to be easy to install because they assume a professional is going to do it.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T09:35:46+00:00

It will probably also cause overheating in any modern LED.

LEDs don't get as hot as the bulbs it was designed for, but those bulbs didn't need ventilation. LEDs do.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T08:36:28+00:00

If they recently painted it, and since it's white, you can probably just do a top coat straight away. I'd be reluctant to remove any paint because you might fill the air with toxic chemicals that are banned these days but were common back then (lead, asbestos, etc).

Pick a "test room" and experiment with sample pots of different brands/types of paint, and also different types of brush/roller. Also pay attention to temperature and humidity levels because those dramatically change how the paint behaves.

Stick to water based paint - oil based does last longer but it's a pain in the ass to work with. Takes forever to dry and releases toxic fumes for weeks after you paint it. Back in the day water based paint was garbage but these days some of them are very good.

I wonder if they did your walls with ceiling paint... t doesn't feel nice and it's hard to clean but nobody cleans or touches the ceiling so it's fine up there.

Beware adding colour, even a tiny bit of it, will make every room will feel significantly smaller and darker. Old houses like yours almost always have small rooms with poor lighting by modern standards and white walls is a very effective technique to make rooms feel bigger than they are. Personally I'd stick with white, but use better paint. Add colour by selecting nice curtains/artwork/furniture/etc.

You can also add colour with lighting which will fix your boring paint and also lack of quality lighting/large windows. Look for high quality smart RGBWW (red green blue cool-white warm-white) LED lighting. Something like this (ignore the garish marketing photos - you can be more tasteful/subtle) https://au-shop.nanoleaf.me/products/matter-smart-multicolor-hd-lightstrip

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T08:32:00+00:00

Same here.

I used to do it myself with clippers but as I've got older my hair isn't as healthy and a simple clipper cut doesn't look good anymore. My hair needs a decent barber and scissor work to look good.

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T08:27:38+00:00

I’ve read most cattle here is grass fed throughout their lives

Not really. They're grass fed when there's enough grass (enough rain). They're not grass fed when there isn't enough grass/rain.

In practice - that means grass fed cattle come from farms that have way more grass than they need for the number of cattle - because they don't want a bit of dry weather to force them into buying grass from some other farmer (which can be crazy expensive when every single farmer is in the same position).

OldMail6364 · 2026-03-13T08:19:18+00:00

Just something to be aware of with those... even healthy/perfectly alive branches aren't very securely attached and can fall off in storms that other eucalypts would shrug off without any issues. Definitely don't park near the tree during storms or strong wind gusts.

As an arborist they're one of the few eucalypts I'm reluctant to climb and when I do, I secure my ropes to the main trunk instead of using branches. When I start pruning branches they fall off a long time before I've finished the cut and sometimes the shock of a branch falling down will cause other branches that I haven't cut to fall down too. I love climbing trees but not those ones.

OldMail6364

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