Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-27-25_THURSDAY_8AM

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Steve and Kimber from Oregon GMRS dot org do a great dive into emergency radio communications and how you can explore GMRS radios very affordably for your friends and family.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. All right, sorry about that. A little bit of dead air because I'm answering the phones and telling someone, hey, just give me a call here in a little bit. We'll have open phones back. But you know, hey, one man band, what could I say here? And we have a one man and one woman band out in Joe County, Oregon. G.R. Maher asked me whether to talk a little bit about what is going on with emergency communications. And joining me is a great friend of the show, Steve Porter.

Steve Porter, how are you doing this morning, sir? Welcome. Very, very well. Thank you for having us. And someone who I've not had the pleasure of speaking with until now, and that is Kimber Quadrato. Hello, Kimber. How are you doing this morning? Welcome. Well, hello. I'm doing great. I hope you are, too. Thanks for having us. Hey, I understand that you were a DJ of some sort or of some quite renowned back in the day.

Tell me a little bit about it. I want to find out more about you, please. Yeah, I was a DJ for a San Francisco College radio, and it was, you know, all the DJs had hosted like two to three hours at a time, and I was the time warp show. It was called Blue Moon, and then it went to time warp show, and you play a little eclectic music from any genre you can think of. And it was midnight to 3 a.m. was my shift. Oh, that's perfect time. That's perfect time for the crazy, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Everybody's going home and everybody's sitting in their taxis listening to the radio. And all the college kids are, you know, partying and having fun. It was Friday nights into Saturday morning. And just a good time. Good time all around. And you could play whatever you wanted. And everybody's like, they would call in. And just really happy stuff.

That's great. I might add that also she's a stellar musician and quite accomplished. She has been in Beatles bands and everything up and down the peninsula down there. And is used to being stage time and microphones, and this transition into microphones being GMRS and radio has served her well. She's really on top of everything that we do up here, and that's why I've welcomed her to be a part of this program. All right.

Hey, Kimber and Steve, we'll kind of start here. The website, by the way, Oregon GMRS. I talked with you, Steve. This was several months ago that we ended up talking about this because people were always looking for what were the better ways of getting emergency communication and one thing i wanted to uh to kind of dispel right now and i have had so much inquiry uh steve and kimber about the ready radios they've been advertised by uh several talk show hosts. I'm seeing a lot of buzz about them and they're walkie talkies and they're

being sold as an emergency communication system with walkie talkies. You know, you get these ready radios and then you, and you give them to a friend or a family member and you're able to get in touch instantly. And it sounded really good. And the more I looked into it, I don't really see it as a good form of emergency communication because isn't it essentially just a walkie-talkie cell phone?

I was just wondering if I got that right, just my way of looking at how it actually works. Could either of you comment on that? Yeah. It's an extension of what was once very popular called the Nextel radio service, which was similar to cellular. It could do telephone and what we call push-to-talk, like a walkie-talkie, a two-way radio. That term is common, push-to-talk, instead of dialing somebody. You select who you want to be and push the talk and talk to them. The problem with it is that it goes over the cellular network,

and there's a few drawbacks on that. One is even though cellular networks are extremely hardened for longevity and survivability, there can be pitfalls with cellular. The networks can be overloaded at times when people have minor or major emergencies. Everybody's calling everybody. A lot of people live in an area where there's not cellular service. That's even more prone in Josephine County. We're more rural per populace than perhaps Jackson.

And range can be limited. And, again, the point is it goes over cellular, and there's limitations with that. Also, it's like one-on-one. Who are you going to call? Well, a lot of folks may not have close friends or family and anybody to call and even minor concerns, even trying to gather information on what's going on. So as an alternative to the ready radio is all the rest of the stuff that we'll talk about next. But that's the problem with these ready radios. All right, good.

That's what I thought. That was my instinct when I'm looking at it. And it said, well, there's no contract. But yeah, you had to pay $50 a year for the SIM card. I'm thinking, wait a minute, SIM card. That sounded to me like cellular network. And that's exactly. And that's exactly.

Use your cell phone. Yeah, yeah. So it's essentially a cell phone that you can only call the people that you want to call or just a few specific. It's not a general. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, I can see how that could be very useful in just normal times for your regular purposes. You can see something like that working, but I don't see it as a great versatile one.

That's right. What they're trying to do from the marketing standpoint is provide more products that leverage the availability of cellular. A lot of things that the cellular network can provide are digital-based, even what they call M2M, machine-to-machine. You might see a Coke machine with an antenna on the top, and it will tell the supplier how many cans of what type are there and all that, machine to machine. Obviously, we could just do digital applications over cellular. Well, we can search the internet over cellular. You can watch TV over cellular. So with cellular in place and so capable, diverse, this is another toy or marketing

device that ultimately the maker can profit on and the cellular can have more income because there's more use, but the application is not a big deal. All right. Now, Kimber, I want to talk with you then about Oregon GMRS, and I've talked with Steve about this here before. The GMRS frequencies are, there aren't a ton of them here in Southern Oregon, but there are enough that they could be quite useful. And it's something which is, I think, affordable and underappreciated, I think, would be a good way of putting it. I got my GMRS license, you know, a few months ago, just signed up with the FCC, got it. I couldn't tell you the call sign. Sorry, I haven't memorized that yet yet I stick it on the radio you remember your ham call sign though don't you yeah k7qwn

I remember that part you know there you go all right but uh anyway could you kind of break down for the uninitiated Kimber what the the GMRS world is all about and and how you know Steve is also connected in this with this because he's helped it out tremendously here in Southern Oregon. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, first of all, I'm going to give the website out. It's OregonGMRS.org. That's.org.

And GMRS radio is a huge expansion off of those, you know, the ready talkies, ready radios. Because when you can talk GMRS, it extends your coverage, okay? You can talk to, and around here in Southern Oregon especially, it's important. You can talk to friends, family. You can be driving out in the mountains having a, you, having a time out and reach down into the valley and talk to your family members or whoever. You can also use it for emergency communication. So say somebody in Grants Pass using the GMRS repeater can reach somebody in the Illinois Valley. Or if you use like the elk repeater, you can jump from Grants Pass or Illinois Valley all

the way over to Jackson County because that elk repeater pulls in Jackson County folks as well as folks this area if you can, you know, reach that repeater. And for the uninitiated, the repeater is essentially, you have a mountaintop transmitter, it has a receiver on it that listens to you on one GMR frequency, GMRS frequency, and then transmits on a different one, right? There's a split on that. Right. There's a small split. Yeah. But it's automatic. You don't have to worry about programming it in. Around here, everybody's using, they have the Baofeng UV5R, for example, which is actually a ham radio, but it's dual band. It's handheld. You can get them for as cheap as, you know, $36, and you can get all this stuff.

And you can program them for ham and GMRS. They're wonderful little radios. And that's what I did with my Baofeng. You know, you buy the programming cable, and I went to Oregon GMRS, and I looked at all your information, and I just plugged them all in, programmed it all into the computer, and then spit it into the radio. Exactly. It's all there with the PL tones and all these things that you can get off of a repeater.

It just expands your coverage. So, you know, you can talk Simplex, which is person-to-person, off the repeater. It doesn't have as much coverage or as distant as using a repeater. So what it is is your radio is going up to the repeater and bouncing that signal down to somebody else's radio. And you get all this all for the amazing price of $35 for your entire family through the FCC. $35 covers you for 10 years, and everybody in your household can use your call sign. So, you know, for instance, I'm WRKV487, and my husband is 487 Bravo. My son is 487 Charlie.

You know, you can do unlimited amounts of people in your household for 10 years. It's pretty darn good. And you get all that extra coverage. As far as repeaters now, Bill, as you said, they receive on one and transmit on another. I wish to point out that the frequency band is very similar to what police fire an ambulance use. It's really great. The FCC does provide to the public this service. And these repeaters are of highest quality,

as it could be used in public safety, on major mountaintops. This is key. These repeaters are on 4,000-foot mountains, and they cover significantly the entire area around here. And, again, that really helps fill in the nooks and crannies that cellular doesn't. So it's a very professional aspect as far as the hardware is concerned. That's where I come in. I own a lot of the mountaintop radio towers and host these things in my building. In fact, I wanted to just mention that, I just wanted to mention here,

where KBXG is located on Gilbert Peak, you know, the 99.3 signal, you have a GMRS repeater up there for the Grants Pass in Josephine County area, right? Correct. Yes. Three digits of the frequency is located there, as is the SOARC, Southern World Amateur Radio Club repeater, that has, oh gosh, 60, 70 members, all available for in times of need, emergency community services and such, as well as the 99.3. We've got a 140-foot radio tower, and the GMRS antenna antenna is about 20-foot long on the top of that. We have a backup generator, so if power goes out, we can stay on the air, which is important. Again, from the MCOM, emergency communications standpoint, that's one of the big deals, whether it's providing continuous things being charged at your home or on the radio sites.

That's where I come in, and we all do the best we can to keep it going. Now, before we finish up on the quality of the GMRS equipment, similar to police, fire, ambulance frequencies and products, these repeaters put out 50 watts. We could legally put out 50 watts, and that's a heck of a lot. A CB in the old days put out three. So you can get a radio that you can put in your vehicle. We call them a mobile unit with a six inch antenna, non-imposing, with 50 watts, which is tremendous. You can go 20, 30 miles in the flats on that. You can get a handheld that puts out five. You can have a base station. This is

really desirable. You could have a small radio in your home with either an inside or an outside antenna, as small as six inches, quarter wave. And that can reach phenomenal distances, 20, 30, 40 miles, depending. And it helps you get to the repeater or simplex. Simplex, once a week, the group up here, and I believe Medford as well, hosts what's called the Channel 3 Project, where we don't use the repeater. We use Channel 3 of the GMRS channels, Channel 3 of CB. We use a certain frequency in the ham radio group. So all of us, and something called MERS, multi-use radio service, which is another similar to JamRest, but it doesn't get much popularity. But the FCC allows that to be used as well, as opposed to being a commercial entity for your business or public safety.

Anyway, all of us get on here, and there's 20, 30 of us that can now on Simplex point-to-point, no repeater, determine how far we can get and who we can talk to. So when everything goes down, we still have that available at 50 watts, which is significant. So the depth of the coverage, the quality of this is nothing like people used to be remembering at CB. Yeah, and CB was much more difficult to work back at that time. The antennas were also a little bit more. Now, contrast this. Now, Kimber, I don't know, are you a ham operator, too, by chance?

I don't know if you are. I am. I am. My ham call is KK7PNO. All right, great. Now, I don't know if, you know, because we've also talked about the value of amateur radio, ham radio, getting licensed for this. How would you contrast the abilities or the emergency communication capability of, let's say, all of the various ham bands as contrasted with just the UHF of the GMRS? Maybe you could just, you know, because the nice thing about GMRS, of course, is that

there's no testing or any real technical requirements of it. Isn't that right? That's right. There's no test. It's not like the ham test. GMRS, you just go in, you apply for your license, and you hear within 24 hours if you got it or not and what your call sign is. At $35, there you go. Ham testing, you've got to go in and take a test for each level. And it's worth it if you are into radio communications and you want to expand yourself. As far as GMRS versus HAM radio, there's, you know, JCEC is basically HAM. Tell them what it stands for. Houston County Emergency Communications.

Yeah. And all these different emergency communications clubs, whether it be HAM or GMRS, which we got the Amron net, we got different emergency preparation communications net that I do Sunday nights and Monday nights on GMRS. But the difference is everybody's listening. And a lot of people who have their GMRS license also have their ham license. So everybody is listening. So if somebody reaches out and asks for help, even all the way down to Channel 3 Simplex, somebody's, you know, they're unlicensed and they need help, they can reach out.

Somebody on GMRS will hear it and relay that to somebody. You know, the hams will hear it. So that is the big thing that's happening here in southern Oregon. And it's huge. So many people have their licenses. It's very exciting. And they want to do participate in a net where they get together once a week and they talk to each other and check in on each other and make sure that it's all well. So it's all connected. And GMRS is growing huge because you don't have to test for it. Families can talk on it. It's just super simple family talk radio, basically. Yeah. And you also look at this and like you were talking in the early, if you got, you know, 35 bucks for a radio, you can outfit a family pretty inexpensively and neighbors and getting everybody up. You know, the cost of entry is relatively low.

It's potentially very low. And that's good. Exactly. Okay. Ham radio tends to be a bit more expensive because they get a little more exotic and talk around the world and can run 1,500 watts and have big antennas. I see this comparison, GMRS, ham, amateur radio, same thing. It's kind of layering.

There are a lot of GMRS users. The net, meaning a gathering of people on the radio, and they call you, a call sign, and you answer up. Do you have anything going on? Is everything under control? Situation under control? Stat rep green? Things like that.

Up here, we have 100-plus people involved in GMRS. So that's kind of the eyes and the ears, a lot of them, that is public based. Whereas then the ham guys, they're a little bit closer to emergency communications because many of them up here are members of JCET, Josephine County Emergency Communications, which works directly under search and rescue. And in fact, much of the applications for that would be when search and rescue goes out on a search, it's usually well beyond cellular range. And we as ham radio people can go out there with a temporary repeater or in our vehicles, relay stations and all that, and support those people who are ground pounders doing searches who have radios,

so that we can relay back, you know, to the operations center and such. So the layers are where GRMRS is quantitative and feed on the street. The ham radios are not as few, but a little bit more capable, aligned with emergency service and search and rescue. And we can all talk to each other because we all have, well, the hams have GRMRS, but the the GMRS may not have hams. And of course, ham radio is a whole hobby in itself, which I'd like to mention that GMRS not only can be a social aspect of things or a prepared aspect of things, but it could be a segue to further interest in radio in itself. It's a fascination what it is. And many of them go on to get a ham license. And there's a group in Bedford, J-Cares, Jackson County Amateur Radio Services or something.

Up here we have SOARC and JCC accommodating the needs of those who might want to further their interest in radio and maybe community service, becoming a member of your local group, such as JTC, etc. There's lots of layers to this. I'm talking with Steve Porter and Kimber Quadrato. Kimber, can you use GMRS for your business? I know that there are business band radios out there, but can you use that for GMRS, or is it only designed for non-commercial activity? It's designed for non-commercial activity? It's designed for non-commercial activity. It's, you know, kind of, yeah, it's FTC guidelines and part 95 rules and all that.

You have to be very careful with anything commercial. This service was created in 1958. It's actually called Class A Citizens Band, where what we recall, CB, was Class D Citizens Band. It was allowed to be for business use, and in around 1989 or 8, the FCC allowed grandfathered businesses in, but no more businesses used it. They wanted to really steer it to this availability to the general public, families, you know, amongst themselves, and communities included. Yeah, but the thing is, though, you know, amongst themselves and communities included. Yeah, but the thing is, though, you're not going to get on GMRS and be a DJ, right? I just want to be clear about that.

Absolutely not. There's no broadcasting allowed on GMRS. Okay. All right, good. Okay. Because, you know, some people, I'm sure some people will try. Right, right. And it's all a matter of if you're going to get your license and be responsible for that.

If you don't want to lose your license, go to the FCC and pay attention to what their rules and laws are and all these different things. So it's a responsibility thing. And, you know, I'm finding most people who do get these radios are learning and they're aware of these things. So, you know, there's a few careless people, but mostly it's a great group of people who are very, very connected here in Southern Oregon. Thank you, Kimber. It's a very friendly-based thing. It's wonderful to have community come together on this level of communications. It's very user-friendly.

One of the more interesting questions that I received when I told a person that you were both going to come on, and it had to do with, is there any way for people to be able to communicate with one another and be encrypted so that people just can't listen in to what they do on the public airways? And I don't think there is, is at least nothing which is particularly legal i don't know could either of you comment on that well you know for the most part from what i know you can use a walkie talkie radio if you have a gmrs capable radio i mean you can get on in and put your own little privacy tone in there it's can be really considered private, really. So no, to answer the question, not completely private. You can talk as privately as you think you can,

but nothing's private. You used the word encryption, and that's a key point, which means it's scrambled in one form or another. There's ways to do it analog, and there's a way to do it digital. It's generally not very popular. The higher end radios that come out of the commercial market, as opposed to these things, do have built-in layers of encryption. And a person could do that, make your radio be the same encrypted key as other radios, and you could. I am not clear on the legality of that. I don't think, I don't believe it is, though. I don't think it is. So that's something for the radio hackers, I think, to deal with.

And we're just going to leave it at that. Yeah, yeah, let's leave it at that. The intention of GMRS is to have it necessarily not be encrypted so others can help others. You know, here's a really good example where I really want to set this to use. Let's just say the power fails and somebody now can't get out of their garage because their electric garage door opener doesn't work. They don't understand you can pull the red cord handle and that will release it. And they may not have the strength to raise it up. To lift the book, to lift the door. Yeah, it happens. It really happens. So, okay, let's say they really want to go somewhere they consider it almost emergency.

You're not going to call 911 to come and open your garage door. So the point is, who are you going to call? You may not have any friends. You may not know your neighbors and your relatives might be in Kansas. If you got on GMRS and said, hi, this is WRMB 624, and I really need to leave, but my garage door won't open. I can't do it. Can anybody help me? There'll be a dozen saying, I will be right there. That is what this is. Yeah. Thank you so much for explaining a bit about what's going on here. By the way, the website is oregongmrs.org. I will post that,

of course, as I always do with any guest. And we may have someone with a question here, Steve and Kimber. Let me just grab it. Hopefully it is, or maybe not. Hopefully not off topic. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. This is Jim from Jacksonville. Hi, Jim. Did you have a question for Steve and Kimber about the GMRS radios? I'm sorry. Just a quick update on hospitals. I just got out of... Okay.

Now, are you on topic or not, Jim? I'm sorry. Hospital update. Jim, okay. Answer my question. Are you on topic or off topic? I'm off topic. Okay.

And then hang on. I'll get right to you. All right. That's what I was getting at. Let me grab this one. I think you Are you on topic or off topic? I'm off topic. Okay, and then hang on. I'll get right to you. All right, that's what I was getting at. Let me grab this one. I think you might be on topic. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome.

Yeah, this is John. Yeah, John, you have a question? Yeah, do they work point to point? And can it relay between different GMRS handhelds to, I don't know what the term is. I think that's what you're talking about, Kimber and Steve, is simplex, right? Exactly. Simplex means person-to-person, and now it's point to point and you got to be able to like be see each other and be where your radio can directly be in line with their radio. So it's within the same vicinity in your community. Usually there's lots of people listening and and it's definitely point to point.

That's the Channel 3 program. You know, that's the DMRS, FRS channels. That's the MERS channels. If you have an emergency, you can reach out to off the repeater. Those are your people in your community that are going to be able to help you and talk with you and whatever you may need, whatever your needs or wants may be. The benefit to point-to-point is, meaning we're bypassing the repeater, whether we choose to or the repeater is down, with a 50-watt radio and a little antenna on your roof or inside your house, you can go, again, depending on terrain, that greatly affects

it. But you can get guaranteed 5, 10, 15 miles and probably further. If you live in a central valley where it's flat, you can go 40 and 50 miles with an antenna 10 feet up with 50 watts. So the caller, yes, point to point is very significant, available, and doable. All right. Very good. Let me grab one more call here, and then we'll probably cut you loose for the time being. But I appreciate the information. Really do. Hi. Good morning. You're on with the GMRS folks. Welcome.

This is Terry. Can I get their phone number so I can call them about some equipment stuff? Email maybe. Okay. How about an email? I'll tell you what, can you email me and why don't you email me please, bill at billmyershow.com. I will forward it along and then they'll get in touch with you. Would that work okay? I'll try. I have to go to the library. Okay. All right. Well, just email me. I don't want to give out people's phone numbers on the air. Okay. Is that okay, Steve, Kimber? It's probably the best way to go about it. I have an email address as well, if people have something handy to write down.

And that email address is SO, like Southern Oregon, GMRSnet at gmail.com. So that's S-O-G-M-R-S-N-E-T at gmail.com. All right. I usually pick up my emails right away. All right. Kimber, Steve, and Kimber and Steve, thank you so much for this. OregonGMRS.org. I'll put everything that we have that we've talked about up on the show blog this morning. You know, when it comes to the emergency preparedness, I think what's also helpful here is that I know that our cellular systems are hardened, like you had mentioned, to a certain extent.

They do a lot on it. But I'm also finding out here when I go into some of the sites that the cell sites don't have nearly as much backup as we think they do sometimes in fact i was at one site the other day in which uh the guy was telling me yeah you know our cell service will be up for six hours we got six hours of battery power and and that's about it right and that's that's not really unusual, wouldn't you think, Steve? Well, it could depend. If it's a smaller fill-in site within the city, there may be limitations on physical space, which equates to the amount of battery that they may choose to use.

But some of the more significant sites, a little more higher in elevation, et cetera, could very well have a stack of batteries that would last days with a propane generator, which is very common, that could take them possibly two weeks. Oh, okay. To get back up on a mountain and get propane and all that, that's an ongoing concern. But I would expect most cell sites to stay up without power for most of them at least a week. All right. Very good. Steve, Kimber, thanks for the talk. Good one. Good information. Okay. We'll have you back. Thank you very much. All right. Yeah. And those who feel concerned or apprehensive realize it's very easy to get a license, to get a low-cost radio, and be set up to be social or interested in radio or MCOM, point-to-point with your family. A lot of people

up here use it for their family just to keep in touch and share messages and stuff. It's, again, user-friendly as opposed to all the other things like ham radio. Don't be intimidated. Join the club. All right, will do. Thank you, Steve and Kimber. It is 843 at KMED, 99.3 KBXG. Good talk. Good talk. All right. What are we going to do next?

I think we're going to do the Diner 62 Real American Quiz. No, I'll tell you what. I'm going to, by the way, I'm going to hang up on Steve and Kimber. I don't mean to be rude here, but I'm going to go to Steve and Jim. I'm going to go to Jim. Hello, Jim. You had a quick update here. Go ahead.

Just briefly and a great update on amateur radio on K6IQL. I'm quite busy. Good. A hospital report just got out of Providence with spinal cord problem. But for your listeners, if they can avoid either of the hospitals and take care of it in some other manner, please avoid the hospital. I have a friend, well, and a ventilator and one I just got out of Providence. It's chaos, as you might suspect the uh what so things have not uh gotten back to so-called normal post-strike yeah no uh it is not

it's absolute chaos in both hospitals a friend on a ventilator, and I just got out of a week and a half to diagnose my spinal cord. It's read no sweat pill, but if they can go to emergency care or anywhere else for a minor or anything or a major, actually. Mercy Flight is available. Great Transport, call them. And that's all I have. Good morning, Bill. All right.

Well, thank you, Jim. Sorry for your trouble. Wow. So still, stay out if you can. It is 845. All right. Diner 62 quiz. We're going to do that here in just a minute. It is 845. All right. Diner 62 quiz. We're going to do that here in just a minute.

Yikes. Okay. Stay healthy, my friend, according to Jim, right? 770-5633. Great question. This is going to be a fun question. I can't wait to do this one.

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Just wonderful food. So let me go to the first potential winner. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Oh, wait a minute. Hang on just a second. I gotta turn off Buddy. There we go. Turned off Buddy. Because otherwise I can't hear myself think if Buddy's still singing, okay?

Who's this? Yep. This is Peggy, Bill. Good morning. Hey, Peggy. You could have been Peggy Sue, right? I could have. Yeah.

Well, it was today in 1980 that Buddy Holly's glasses that had been lost since his death, you know, the day the music died in 1959. They found them. And so when the Beechcraft Bonanza carrying Buddy, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa, well, it struck the ground with such force that all three passengers killed instantly.

The plane's wreckage was strewn over the snow-covered cornfields there. Death certificate issued by the Cerro Gordo County Coroner for Buddy Holly noted that the clothing Holly was wearing, they had $193 in cash, $181 cufflinks, and all sorts of stuff, and a top portion of a ballpoint pen. But what was missing were his eyeglasses. It was the most distinct visual legacy of this guy. So those glasses were presumed lost forever, Peggy, until it was announced in late February of 1980 that

they had found them. Where did they find Buddy Holly's glasses? Was it A, inside the pocket of a donated jacket? Was it B, in the glove box of a pickup truck? Was it C, in a filing cabinet? Was it D, stuck in a culvert screen in a ditch? Was it E, in a shoe box with baseball cards? It's one of those five. What do you say, Peggy? I have no idea. I'll go with B. You're going to go with B, in a glove box of a pickup truck. It's as good as any, but fortunately it wasn't the one. I was pulling for you, Peggy. Non-Peggy Sue. Hi, good morning.

Who's this on line two? This is Vicki from The Applegate. All right, Vicki. So it's not a filing cabinet. Where do they find Buddy Holly's glasses? Inside pocket of a donated jacket, in the glove box of a pickup, stuck in a culvert screen in a ditch, or in a shoebox with baseball cards? I'm going to say in a ditch. In a ditch.

That sounds good. Sitting there for 50 years. No. Wasn't that time. No. Sorry. Let me go to the next one. Hi, who's this?

This is Jenny. Hi, Jenny. All right, so it's not stuck in a culvert screen. It wasn't in a pickup truck. So it's either inside a donated jacket, in a filing cabinet, or in a shoebox with baseball cards. What do you say? Well, I'll guess with you. I'll say A. You'll say A.

Inside pocket of a, yeah, found over at Goodwill or something. No. Sure. Sorry. I was still pulling for you, too. We're at a 50-50 deal right now. Hi, who's this? Good morning. Hello? pulling for you, too. We're at a 50-50 deal right now. Hi, who's this? Good morning.

Hello? Kathy. Hey, Kathy. Kathy with a K or C? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, that doesn't...

Okay. No, with a K. With a K. Thank you. All right. In a filing cabinet or in a shoebox with baseball cards? Buddy Holly's glasses. Shoebox, I guess. Shoebox, you're thinking. No. Can you believe this? filing cabinet or in a shoebox with baseball cards buddy holly's glasses shoebox i guess

shoebox you're thinking no can you believe we are down to the end it's like the last person standing hi good morning who's this well bill this is peggy again you made it back through great i did i did after all that drama where was it? It was in the other one. Oh, yeah, the other one, filing cabinet. All right. Come on, man. All right. No, I'm just having fun with you.

But now, the thing is, so everyone was wondering, how did these famous glasses reemerge? Well, in the violence of the crash, it was thrown clear of the wreckage buried in the snow. And they were found along with the big Bokbers watch that same spring when the melting snow made them visible again. So they were handed into the county sheriff's office and they kind of forgot about it. It sat filed away for like 21 years

in just a sealed manila envelope in a court clerk's office in Mason City, Iowa. And that envelope was opened by clerk's office in mason city iowa and that envelope was opened by sheriff jerry allen in 1980 the glasses eventually returned to buddy's widow and another interesting part about this the glasses had the appearance of being government issue but they were carefully crafted as part of buddy holly's image in fact they said that this was about the uh you know this is something that it was intentional to make him kind of have that heavy glass

look, which then became very popular. And it turned into what was called geek chic later on. Because normally, you know, Buddy Holly was sort of gangly, knock-kneed, and all that kind of stuff. And this was a way just to stand out, I guess. You know, you put on a nice suit and wear those

thick glasses. And it became a big style back then so peggy off the diner 62 with you hang on okay we'll have fun yeah all right here i come all right pancakes here we come i love that 854 we should trademark that joel here at brother vorton truck center and you know how i spell transparency i-n-v-o-i-c-e invoice as in how we now post the invoice on every single new Ford every day. While other dealers only show you the suggested retail price and make you negotiate for a discount, at Butler Ford, you'll see the posted invoice right away. And we'll talk about a price that's fair to both of us. Let's face it, we're all busy. Let's use transparency, a.k.a. invoice, to make the car deal go faster.

Come on down to Butler Ford, walk the lot, and see the invoices posted on all the vehicles. That's why F-150 Super Duty's escapes. Yeah, the invoices are posted. Broncos and Rangers, Explorers and Expeditions, even Mustangs and Mach-Es. Invoices posted. It's not just a better way to buy. It's a more friendly and magnanimous experience. And you know how to spell magnanimous?

Yeah, me either. Come see us at Butler Ford and Truck Center just 12 short minutes down the freeway in Ashland off of Exit 19 where you already know we've got your truck, your SUV, your certified pre-owned, and all invoices posted on our new cars. Did you start someone else's diet and quit? Hi, this is Zola from planzdiet.com. Was it the cravings that drove you nuts? The crabbiness? Was the food just plain bad? Or did you figure out that at the rate you were losing,

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are available. Plansiediet.com. Conquer the crave. Hi, this is Bill Meyer. Always appreciate you listening no matter the time. Live six to nine weekdays on 106.3 KMED and 99.3 KBXG. I'm here for you. But life has a way of getting busy. So if you miss a show and you want to catch up or you just have a different schedule, well, that's what my podcasts are for. The last three months or so of my show is available for free download and sharing on KMED.com or BillMeyersShow.com.

Podcasts are sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They're helping keep you current. Find out about their services on Clouser Drilling. They're helping keep you current. Find out about their services on Clouser Drilling dot com. News Talk 1063 KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers show. I couldn't believe I was reading the Daily Mail yesterday

and there was a story about that American student who threw her newborn baby to its death from a Paris hotel room. That woman is from Bend. I couldn't believe that. Mia McQuillan, 18-year-old. Yikes.

I don't know what can make a mom do that. I really don't. All right, we'll switch to happier subjects here. Deplorable Patrick. Hey, Patrick, go ahead. Morning. Good morning. Thanks for having that segment on the GMRS radio.

You got me pretty excited. I'm definitely going to get into it. But you also talked about ham radio. Yes. And ham radio has been around for years and years and years. One of the things I don't understand in the world, you never come out with beef radio or chicken radio. See, that's the kind of stuff that drives me crazy.

I don't know where the term hand cave or amateur, but amateur, you see, I'm an amateur radio operator here on KMED every day, you know, even though I'm getting paid for it. So there we go. Well, that's why I do this, but I do want to wedge in this question. Seems rather peculiar.

Gene Hackman and his wife and his dog all died the same time, and there was no foul play. Have you figured that out? I haven't. Well, the only thing that comes to mind, and I can't prove it, it's just pure conjecture on my part. Yes, Lee. Yeah, well, I'm thinking like carbon dioxide. You know, there was a problem with the carbon monoxide, not dioxide, carbon monoxide from that sort of thing,

a bad furniture furnace, heat exchanger, something like that. I just don't know what else it might be on something like this. Do you? No. In fact, the gas leak just came to me as we were just now talking. Yeah. But I hate to see the guy gone. He was really was really good

Lex Luthor and all that every time I would look at him he just played that so perfectly so understated, I just loved it and I gotta roll but thank you very much, a great way to wrap up Conspiracy Theory Thursday and Gene Hackman, RIP

and so much more, we'll talk again Friday folks it's 8.58. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, and I'm with Charisse from No Wires Now, your Dish Premier local retailer. It's time to switch to Dish. If you have direct TV or cable TV, call me today to see how I can save you money. Plus, I'll lower your internet and cell phone bills. And those offers in the mail from Dish, you can go through No Wires Now for those.

Call me at 541-680-5875. Call Charisse like I did or visit their showroom off Biddle Road in Medford, nowiresnow.com. Restrictions apply. Call for details. Internet and cell phone service not provided by Dish. The countdown is on for when you can nominate your favorite business in Bicostal Media's annual 2025 Best of Southern Oregon. Nominations southern oregon's best begins march 12th you can visit best of southern oregon.com to browse the current magazine and get ideas on what businesses you'd like to nominate to win gold or silver in this year's edition publishing in august nominations start march 12th at best of southern oregon.com that's best of southern

oregon.com presented by dusty by Dusty's Transmissions. Southern Oregon's place to talk. KMED and KMED. HD1 Eagle Point. Medford, a bi-coastal media station. It's nine o'clock at KMED. News this hour from townhall.com. I'm Jason Walker. British Prime Minister Kara Starmer arriving at the White House this hour for talks with President Trump. Here's White House correspondent Greg Cluxton. Starmer is the second European leader to come here this week and meet with the president about his push to end Russia's war in Ukraine. The British Prime Minister, along with the French president and others, are...