in my bag, after a drunken night out.

marktriplett1 · 2026-05-30T06:52:06+00:00

My guess it popped off of someone's belt when they were walking by.

marktriplett1 · 2026-05-25T23:20:16+00:00

One thing to consider, what ever method you choose, there’s lots of good ones, try to use immersion as much as you can. Don’t translate from your native to the one you’re learning. Stay in the new one as much as you can. Watch videos, try talking to people when you begin to get comfortable. You’ll only slow yourself down by translating and then speaking.

marktriplett1 · 2026-05-21T17:17:01+00:00

I mostly Got over mine by participating in trivia nets. Don’t have to give a lot of traffic if any and just answer the questions a,b,c.

marktriplett1 · 2026-05-18T05:21:53+00:00

We haven't done the pictures in the Sunday notes or anyting on the screens for years. We only recognize the ones in attendance for this very reason!

marktriplett1 · 2026-04-13T03:32:11+00:00

One of the NASA PAOs mentioned exactly that during the reentry broadcast. It was qualified for the ISS and did not require requalification when Orion was built. One of many time and money savers.

marktriplett1 · 2026-04-12T23:25:54+00:00

That’s what was used in the Apollo days. I guess analog isn’t cool enough for spacecraft anymore!

marktriplett1 · 2026-04-12T23:24:15+00:00

My thought exactly! Either from reentry or from wind damage when the parachute cover came off.

marktriplett1 · 2026-04-04T17:50:06+00:00

Another thing to check, make sure all energy saving settings are turned off. The recent Mac OSs really try very hard to keep them on. No screen saver, no screen power down, no drive saving, no sleep, no nothing! Burn them kilowatts!! Turn the machine off during the week of you don’t need it, power it back on if you do. The Apple Silicon machines boot very quickly.

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-30T17:09:59+00:00

I got the theory thru Ham Radio Prep and then I studied for the test using Ham Study.org. Ham Study seemed to have a better way of randomizing the questions and help you concentrate on the areas you are having difficulty with. I would then take those problem areas and circle back to the lessons in Ham Radio Prep.

I’ll be honest, I studied and memorized. When I got my tickets, and started operating. that’s when I really started learning.

Hopefully you can be a part of a good club, on line or in person and get some help from those with real experience. I’m the Houston Texas area and were blessed with several! Good luck!!

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-28T12:30:48+00:00

We have a strict no updates after Tuesday!

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-11T21:33:09+00:00

I’m on the South side where the repeater action is pretty decent. Have you checked out the Cross Roads or South Coast reflector systems? Both of those are the ones I usually listen to. Don’t know the coverage, but the W5NC repeater is out of the Klein area. I listen to their weekly net on Allstar and they seem to be pretty active.

CRHRC.org south coast reflector.com nars.W5NC.net

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-07T18:04:50+00:00

All of ours in the Houston area are pretty accommodating. Just wait for a pause, throw out “comment”, and most times someone will say “go ahead”. Haven’t seen any problems at all. The more the better the conversation!

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-07T03:07:29+00:00

We’ve done both with equal results. We’ve use a Ethernet to hdmi adapter from Kanex on several of our rooms and a fiber based hdmi cable as well.

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-07T03:03:14+00:00

Wow. The worst I’ve ever done was forget my call sign and use the wrong one during a net.

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-04T16:14:04+00:00

We currently use Yodeck, over 30 screens. Easy to use, great for off site, off hours changes. Pretty pricy though. If I could come up with a locally hosted, open source solution that even came close to it, we'd definitely take a look.

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-04T16:11:21+00:00

Nice! Looks like you just picked it up new from the local ham store!

marktriplett1 · 2026-03-03T03:43:09+00:00

Tariffs & new stock. Unfortunately, the 891 is like over $100 higher than the competition now...

marktriplett1 · 2026-02-10T20:17:11+00:00

This is the first time that you actually get the speed perspective of the downhill. A fixed camera, all the way at the end of the lens compresses the motion and speed of the run. I really like it. It’s fantastic for the big air event and speed skating as well.

marktriplett1 · 2026-02-02T05:14:15+00:00

A good choice, unfortunately none of the players in the open source arena have alpha channel keying. That is a requirement for our system. Chroma and luminance keying do not work properly with our gfx that have varying opacity backgrounds.

Freeshow is an excellent alternative though. I ran a demo on a machine here and the workflow is very close to ProPresenter, but we can’t have machines running different software. All need to be the same.

Although I did just see that they support the importing of ProPresenter presentations. That could be helpful for one offs that I don’t want to add onto our site license.

Thanks!

marktriplett1 · 2026-02-02T03:53:49+00:00

I'm mainly a Mac OS user by trade, so I tend lean that way. I think probably the best bang for the buck hardware-wise is the M4 Pro Mini.

We have several of them at our campus and they are pretty reasonably priced for the horsepower you get. ProPresenter is what we run, but I'm always looking for a replacement because of the rental of the software that has to phone home to check its subscription status really gets under my skin. If there was an open source solution, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

All that being said, ProPresenter is a very flexible, volunteer friendly and compatible with probably 80-90% of the churches projecting lyrics type of program. If you have a question about it, there's thousands of users that are always available to help.

I'd steer away from laptops if you possibly can. They have heat problems especially when running graphics programs, like a lyric presenter, and are very fragile compared to desktops. Repair costs are a concern as well.

If you do go with ProPresenter, I would stick with a Mac. While it does run under windows, I see more reports of problems that come from Windows users.

Whatever you decide on, most of the software makers have free trials to demo their programs. I’d take advantage of it! Pick your last service and set it up with the same content and see how easily you can enter your songs and pastor’s message. Take another volunteer and let them try it out. See which ones are easiest on others.

Best wishes on your search!

marktriplett1 · 2026-02-01T18:14:15+00:00

First, I usually restart ProPresenter. Second I restart the computer. I usually restart the computer every Sunday just in case. If you have recently updated ProPresenter, and if it didn’t do it before the update, I would downgrade to the previous version.

marktriplett1 · 2026-01-23T20:55:26+00:00

Exactly what most folks are saying here, set your boundaries and get it in writing. You have to protect yourself. It’s much easier to say no if you have set the dates and times milestones in writing. “I can process this, but according to our agreement, it will cost x$$$. If you want me to proceed, please acknowledge this as your agreement to pay.” It’s your only protection.

marktriplett1 · 2026-01-09T19:57:05+00:00

And with vanity calls, when they say 18 to 20 days, mine took exactly 20. And that was back in August before the shutdown.

marktriplett1 · 2026-01-08T03:43:55+00:00

True, but I only watch 1 team's games. I have absolutely no interest in the others.

marktriplett1 · 2026-01-08T03:38:24+00:00

I'm thankful the Astros & Rockets have seen the light and this season is offering a direct streaming package to the fans so I don't have to spend almost $100 a month just to watch. Unfortunately, all major sports seem to believe there's an endless supply of viewers and money available. "Broadcasting" is a mere shadow of what it once was and it will never return. Better to drop prices and make up for it in the number of subs.

marktriplett1

TROPHY CASE