WAAF

There was a time if WAAF announced it was sold and converting to Christian Contemporary on Saturday you would know it was an epic troll.

This time I'm not so sure, and think instead a forever young bit of my soul is dying...

In it's heyday I was in a college class of 40+ people and the teacher did a survey in which 90% of the students listend to WAAF daily. It was noticeably different from all the other radio stations in that national advertising dominated its prime hours rather than little local places. It's old transmitter on Asnebumskit was absolutely dominating central New England with significant coverage in at least 5 states, maybe into southern Maine. Concerts from Springfield and Hartford to Boston would get promoted on it because it reached so many separate markets. Sadly I understand it can "never go back" because after it moved its site to Westborough the FCC adjusted what was allowed by other stations such that a move back and at the old power would cause interference with the other stations.

Of course, when I heard on another station and switched to 'AAF to see if it was real, "Here I Go Again" was playing. For reasons few if any will ever hear from me that's really the first rock song I remember a specific time, place, and state of mind hearing it. I had heard it before, but that night it burned into my mind in a way that will never go away.



On WGBH:

Temporary Jeep Accessory

Cooper is visiting for a few days. Took me & Missy both to get him in the back, I got him out on my own.

Wednesday morning trying to get him in alone might prove interesting :D

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.)