Ware River Watershed

Although it's been postponed six months based on pushback, the Massachusetts DCR is trying to significantly reduce public access to the Ware Rive Watershed lands.

I originally found this on a hot day in the late 80s (maybe very early 90s?) driving around for relief from the heat. An extensive amount of internal roads are currently open to the public, and unlike nearly all state facilities it is open 24x7. They do seasonally close the roads to avoid excessive damage due to mud -- although some of the gates we came across are not normally closed until March they were locked already but I suspect that is based (quite reasonably) on the very, very mild winter we've been having.

However they are currently proposing extending the "prohibited zone" from about 15 acres to over 400 acres in a 1000 meter radius from the diversion intake -- except Route 122 which is a literal stones throw away from the intake will remain open for traffic, presumably including bulk shipments of water soluble hazardous materials.

In addition to that they want to close off all the roads on 23,000 acres of state land year round with a narrow exception for hunters possessing permits to hunt on the watershed land.

The area is also one of the very few state locations open to (authorized) activities like hiking, snowmobiles, and cars around the clock. They also want to end that as well.

Low today was 5, which is the coldest day we've had this winter -- last week most days got above 40, this week most days are predicted to get above 40.

I snagged Eric on the way north :D

A lot of the dashboard pics didn't come out that well with vibration from the car :/ . The videos seem OK-ish.




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Since these things have a habit of disappearing from state websites when it becomes inconvenient to regulators, here's the 2010 plan that is currently trying to be revised to (for the most part) significantly reduce public use while increasing a few things like authorizing more mountain bike trails.:
http://www.d90.us/fire/Jeep/20200215/2010wareaccessplan.pdf

February 2, 2020...

Do you have any idea how confusing the folder name 20200202 is to read?

Anyway, catching up with my exploits from last Sunday testing to make sure nothing from the ham radio install to that point shook loose.

Going up some powerlines until such point they were posted, scouting out if there was a good place to try and photograph bald eagles without having to hike on my bad knee.









And a clearing on the Connecticut / RI Border; I've posted this before under gypsy moth damage since they then killed many of the trees that had been left standing. Resisted temptation to go in :D

CT RI Borderlands

So I met up with a jeep club...found them on Sunday, happened to be their next run was on Saturday :)

Lest I be accused of burying the lede, let's just skip to the good part, asking the question, "Can you Ford a puddle in a Jeep?":


Ryuk just barely touched the "You must be this tall to ride" line...I was the only Jeep without a lift or larger than 32" tires. (One other Jeep may not have a lift, but definitely better tires).

Heading out




Ok, we're entering the first of two "bucket list" roads that I had never ventured on before. Never went down them with dad, I nosed into both from both ends over the years and nope'd out...thinking if I ever had a very dry summer or very cold (but not snowy) winter and a reliable vehicle I would try them.

You can't slap the grin off my face I got to go down these roads. I'd be shocked if my Dad hadn't done them with his older Scouts.


After this point I didn't take many photos in motion since I needed to concentrate more. This one did initially stop me and I had to back up a little and engage the rear lockers for the first time outside of testing :)



The middle of nowhere. Seriously, the nearest line is not a road, it's a border :D


It was only afterwards I had time to mount a new holder for my phone so I can take snaps / movies much more easily.


Some from Facebook:

Musings on Hampton Chaplin

Wrote this on another site, thought it came out well enough to preserve in my notes here:


Things that might mostly interest me:

Last all-volunteer ambulance service in my county (serving two towns with a combined population of about 5,000 folks and maybe 250 runs a year) shut down as of 1/31. They had a while back announced 4/1 but the contracts to replace them were in place sooner than expected.

31 years ago when Mortlake started an ambulance, we split from Killingly-Brooklyn Ambulance; at the time they were struggling to handle their call volume that was about 1200 runs a year, and we took 300 off that. At the time we were the first volunteer ambulance in the eastern half of Connecticut to charge; the mechanism that within 15 years allowed most of the volunteer ambulances in our area to convert to at least partial paid coverage. We're now darn close to 1200 alone with a 12x7 paid crew.

KB picked up one of the two towns; Willimantic FD (part of the Town of Windham) which is the only career FD in my county picked up the other. This puts KB covering the towns east, north, and south of us now...as well as running the regional medic intercept.

With the exception of one or two services that have long standing "duty crew or no crew" policies, all the services still rely on volunteer/recall staffing for some of their hours and/or staff multiple rigs during busy periods. (Even Willimantic has frequent call backs for station coverage.)

When the time comes soon for paid overnight coverage I wouldn't object to having it go to KB rather renovating the firehouse to support an overnight crew. Heck, if I had my druthers we'd convert the ambulance staff to Firefighter/Equipment Maintenance Techs and let a regional service cover most if not all ambulance runs. (I wouldn't object to maintaining an "overflow" unit for when you have a flurry of transports at once.)

Ham Radio Install

...still in progress :D

Saturday, February 1st I went up to Ham Radio Outlet in Salem, NH since I wanted to take a look in person. Got the Icom ID-5100A mainly because I liked the amount of information it's screen can display (seemed more flexible/more characters than others) since I'm planning to use it for a fire scanner as well as ham radio.


Ended up re-purposing the mount I had to take trail movies with the phone to hold the head. Stopped at Michael's and picked up some foam board to make a little support. I can't have it flush with the dash (the "arms" on the holder spread) but I probably can lower it down to 3 or 2 pieces of foam. Waiting till I have it running so I can see how the ergonomics are.


Sunday 2/2 I got the antenna and base mounted, ran the cable between the head and base.

Hey, whadya know...I have a block heater!

Base fits nicely under the glove box. Just have a couple really heavy duty zip ties holding it in place, which I think will work fine (and save a smidge of mounting room not needing a bracket).



Sunday 2/9 ... got the wires run. There is a foam plug, but two things:
1) It isn't this round size the whole way through. It becomes square.
2) I don't trust that Chrysler finished the hole like the should, and I didn't have room to spare to fit a plastic bushing plus the wires I needed. (Never mind the square end meant I could just get a round plastic bushing to go through it. Grrrr.


Several attempts at getting the wires through until I figured out the shape of the opening. Finally used a big zip tie and loads of electric tape to get them through.

I pushed in the split loom to cover the wires as much as I could from both sides to hopefully minimize problems with wires chafing.

Next nice warm day I also need to put in a couple stick-on zip tie holders so I can secure the split loom on the engine side to minimize vibration.




Still to do:
One evening I'll get the power controller-to-base wires wired in and shrink wrap the connections.

Next good day I'll need to get out to the jeep with an extension cord and soldering iron and solder on a new PL-259 antenna jack and solder the rest of the power connections together.

THEN I should be ready to radio check for the first time in about 20 years :D

16 February 2020 update:
Guess I didn't take any photos on the inside finishing up the wiring...EXCEPT...dumbass me looked at the PL-259 connector I needed and neglected to hit 'buy now' on Amazon so I the part I thought I ordered I didn't :/



Ground wire is a bit deceiving, from when I split the wires there is a bit of red on the inside of the black cable.


The power controller fit up under the glove box, there is a void area between the glove box and the plastic panel on the cabin side. I wasn't able to figure out a good way to really hold it in place -- the plastic panel is curved so double sided tape doesn't seem to work, and there doesn't seem to be a place to zip tie it. Not ideal, but I'll think some more. Maybe zip tie then put the panel back?

Anyway the unit works...radio turns on when you start the car, and turns off a few minutes after the car is turned off.

17 February 2020 update:

Well hopefully the soldering job was OK. I'm not very experienced at it.



...I did some firewood while letting it cool, and screwed it in. Came inside to get frequencies to program then work called so I still haven't gotten to actually do a radio test :/