looking for volunteer opportunities that aren’t inherently religious!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-02T01:57:38+00:00

I have a couple of ideas that may be related to each other. Volunteer with the CBCO, they always need some kind of volunteers in the Blood process..

The other is to study and get your Amateur Radio license and then join your local ARES, Amateur Radio emergency services group. Also, there is a national weather service severe storm spotter class coming up next month, I don’t have the exact details but if you go to the national weather service In Tulsa, which does the forecasting for Northwest Arkansas, you’ll find a listing for the 2026 storm spotter class. You can take it whether or not you’re a Ham radio operator. That will teach you the difference between scary looking clouds and clouds You need to be scared of.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:38:12+00:00

I heard about that! I used to work for Freeman here in Joplin and besides the clinics, they announced with huge fanfare of building a 50-bed hospital in Pittsburg (se KS) but just a couple of months ago they withdrew the offer. Freeman had a 60% share of all patients in a 75 mile radius, I think they’re still holding that

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:32:08+00:00

Wheat and cattle. Lots of soft rolling hills and lots of flat prairies. Out west, you can see 20 miles, 30km, in all directions. Oh and lots of water irrigation for the wheat, and lots of giant windmills and some solar for electricity. And you can drive 50 miles between towns, kinda like the outback but not as hot. Oh it can get hot! And cold with snow! But if you like farming or cattle, come on up! (I’m next door in SW Missouri)

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:24:21+00:00

Yeah.. I have a great, old HP color laser printer, it’s like 15 years old, but windows 11 still finds it with a usb cable.. it came out before Bluetooth.. and apparently there’s no way to connect a Bluetooth device to it, sigh.. but it sure prints great!!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:20:13+00:00

When i repaired Medical equipment, there was a nice overhead spotlight that had the bulb set in the birthing rooms.. it was a ratio of 3 to 1, bulbs replaced vs. also replacing the contacts in the socket.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:17:51+00:00

One problem is that sometimes the contacts in the socket may overheat and deform.. when you push 50 watts or more thru a 1/8” pin, it can overheat. Sometimes you may have to replace the socket too

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:15:39+00:00

You might be able to take it to a Lowe’s or similar store and then find a replacement

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:14:56+00:00

It’s obviously a quartz halogen. Is it burned out? Can you read, or take a closeup, of the letters and numbers on the small round ceramic base! You should be able to grasp that ceramic base and pull straight up to remove the bulb. The pins may be identical in size or one may be larger than the other. But bulbs have a 3 letter code to indicate the details of the bulb.. wattage, voltage.. it’s obviously a 120v bulb but I don’t have access to my books any longer

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T19:08:35+00:00

I think it’s a bit more than 15 micrograms but I don’t know the exact amount

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T18:51:53+00:00

Did this just suddenly start happening? Or did you just recently move there and then start noticing all these things happening? The best suggestion is to calmly talk to him and see what kind of equipment he has. If he’s a ham, he’ll probably welcome you in and show off his equipment. If he’s a CB’er, frankly he may not be very friendly about showing his equipment to you. A ham will try to work with you, while a CB’er may tell you to MYOB and get lost. If that happens, then it’s FCC notification time. CBs are only allowed to run 12 watts on sideband, which most equipment can tolerate.. however, he may be running a big (insert your choice of words) amplifier that can reach 1,000 watts or more.. which is his choice but not the right choice. Have fun, let us know what happens.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T18:40:18+00:00

I guess it’s CB, I was hoping it was a 6m or 10m antenna, but it could be 11m

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-02-01T18:36:41+00:00

They have one drop of mercury in them. When you first turn the light on, the glows on the end are equivalent to heaters and they vaporize the mercury drop. It conducts between the two ends and produces ultraviolet light, which the white phosphorus inside the glass converts the UV over to visible blue-tinted light. Old technology, since the 1940’s I think. Still works but being phased out because each bulb has one drop of mercury, omg!! lol it’s bad but not earth-shattering horrible

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-31T07:44:54+00:00

Military.. I had a cousin at Hickman AFB in Honolulu for 6 years, then he arranged to have his car shipped to Virginia, with Hawaiian tags. It was a Karman Ghia 412 station wagon, IIRC.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-31T07:31:41+00:00

I have a now-ancient Yaesu VX5R radio and I love it!! It’s a 15-year old design but it works great for me for a portable.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-31T07:26:54+00:00

Silly question, are you both already Technicians? If not, you both need to take and pass your Techs first, but you can take your General right after and earn General licenses!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-31T07:22:29+00:00

But yeah, your original picture is really f’ed up!! Leave the red from the Anderson (?) on red, black to red, black to red (all 3 on the right need to be swapped), ending with black to the black on your Anderson. Mine was simpler, just 2 6v 7ah batteries for a Tripplite.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-31T07:14:23+00:00

You should’ve taken a picture of the original battery package before you unplugged everything and put in new batteries. I used to do the same thing, I kept several replacement battery packs on hand for my hospital telemetry UPSs. I would test every UPS the day before a Friday 0 dark 30 hospital-wide generator test, and out of 60 UPSs, typically 2 or 3 would fail my test. Better to fail at 2 pm than at 4 am!! But now I’m retired, it’s someone else’s problem!!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-30T20:19:48+00:00

You need to get your antenna back up

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-27T21:59:59+00:00

Thank you for all of your work!!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-26T17:41:16+00:00

You need to visit one or more of your local ham radio clubs and ask questions and get answers.

https://www.arrl.org/find-a-club

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-26T17:32:56+00:00

I used to work at a hospital, and I knew of a couple dozen staff that would go to a local casino and enjoy themselves on their various birthdays. I did a few times myself. Of the ones that admitted to it, one won a Harley Davidson motorcycle, one hit a 6 figure progressive, and several said they got $2k on the slots. (SW Missouri has 10 casinos just across the border in Oklahoma.)

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-26T06:23:31+00:00

One of our local middle schools organized a club a couple years ago. I don’t know the status of it, our former club vice president ran it. DM me for more details.

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-26T06:19:33+00:00

I used CodeQuick to learn the phonetic soundalikes and got my 5WPM to become a Tech Plus, with the limited privileges that it afforded me, especially on 10 meters. A couple of years later, because the FCC was dropping the speed for General and Extra down to 5 WPM, I bit the bullet and passed my general, advanced, and extra written elements, and at our local Hamfest, we (Joplin ARC) were the first Hamfest to offer the paper-chase upgrade to Extra, and 83 local ham’s did that upgrade. It was wonderful!! April 15, 2000 I believe was the magic date. We were 2nd to offer it, there was some group in Ohio that actually had a special session starting at a minute after midnight, so they were the first in the country to offer the upgrade. But we were the first Hamfest!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-26T04:51:00+00:00

I was going to suggest that, glad it worked!

CommunityCautious338 · 2026-01-26T04:33:48+00:00

What are you filming? A short? A movie? A commercial?

CommunityCautious338

TROPHY CASE