Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 08-22-25_FRIDAY_8AM

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

08-22-25_FRIDAY_8AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Emails of the day, and those are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson, Central Point Family Dentistry, Dentistry. Swinging into your mouth doing great work over there on Freeman Way next to the Mazadlon Mexican restaurant, Central Point Family Dentistry.com. By the way, even if you're not a patient of Dr. Steve, all you have to do is, let's say you need a water pick. I bought a water pick from him a few weeks ago.

Love it. And I'm working to save an old tooth, keep it from being pulled. You know, the deep pocket sort of thing. It just happens. It just happens. And so he has a kiosk where you can buy all of these kind of tools special, mouthwashes and toothbrushes and dental tools, you know, things like that to help. And he sells it to you, no markup.

No markup. It's just his wholesale cost. He just wants to make sure that you keep your mouth healthy, okay? Central Point family. dentistry.com. Dale writes me about the Cracker Barrel Gaff. Now, Cracker Barrel is changing up their restaurants. We used to have one here in Southern Oregon. It closed down. And frankly, I wasn't all that

impressed with the food there. I think that's probably why it ended up shutting down. But they had a new marketing person that says, oh, we're going to make them brighter and lighter, and we're going to still have memorabilia on the wall, but it's going to be really organized and it's going to be really neat I guess it's not going to look as much of a country store kind of motif as cracker barrel is known for and they change the logo they still have the same

cracker barrel name on it but they took out the the barrel with the old guy on it and playing the checkers and all that kind of stuff and people are coming on glued over this apparently they are and Dale says Bill why do the powers in that company leave the word Cracker in its name. Isn't that somewhat derogatory word used by blacks for the white folks? Turnabouts fair play. They don't like certain words used by whites, even though they use it among themselves. Why could they get away with using certain words about whites? Must it be a war of words

in the ammunition is running out? White is a color made up of all the colors, so why are they discriminating against the whites? Now, Dale, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but Cracker Barrel, he or she concludes that Cracker Barrel, he or she concludes that Cracker Barrel, has done themselves no favors, they just might be over a barrel. Well, Dale, to be fair, though, the cracker was not the derogatory racial connotation that you were referencing, but they had to do that crackers were sold in barrels before. And they used to be in barrels, and so it was cracker barrel, and you play chess or do whatever else there. But it is certainly more of, well, I don't know, maybe the market.

person and of course the the marketing person who has done this over at cracker barrel is a young white female and the thing about young white females right now in our culture not all but many they do tend to be a pretty hard lefty or you know coming out of that and now i'm not saying that this is necessarily the case but this reminds me of the same sort of thing that they were doing with with bud light and we're forgetting who your real market is or you don't like the customers that you have and so you want to really offend them and hopefully you're going to get a brand new set of customers it could be i don't know uh i was never all that impressed with cracker barrel anyway like i had mentioned before at least the iteration that we

had here in southern oregon and i think that's why it's a shut down now but they think that they need to bring it into more of a modern look and what you're saying though and what other people are saying they're just going and saying, I know the stock dropped 14% at one point then, then came back a little bit. I don't know where it is right now. But this whole old country style sort of thing is maybe not working as well for them at this point. That is the reason given, but when you look at the type of marketing people that are

cranked out these days and, oh, we're going to make it fresher and newer and this and the other, might be leaving a lot of those people behind that liked it before. But to also be fair to Cracker Barrel, maybe a lot of that demographic that's going to Cracker Barrel is older and maybe they just look at that that there's no growth in the future for it. I'm just giving you a lot of what-ifs on why they might be doing something like that. But yeah, it wouldn't be the first company that has taken something that was kind of okay and then found a way to ruin it. Okay. We'll catch up on what's happening with the rest of the news. Town Hall News is on the way. Kim Commando's digital update, too. And then we have more of your calls, plenty of calls on Find Your Phone Friday.

We can talk about that. A topic I have wanted to breach here for a number of days, though. Is it right that the Forest Service shuts down parts of our public land for Native American religious ceremonies? And they do it for several days or weeks at a time here. and they're doing that right now over what Huckleberry Flats, I think is what's going on. People have written me about that, and do you think that's something that we could do? You think that's something that is wise to be doing and just taking parts of the forest and just saying, hey, nobody else is allowed to go in there, and if you go in there, you get big fines.

It does have to do with a Native American religious freedom law, and it's certainly fine. I have no problem with Native Americans practicing their religious ceremonies in the middle. of forests, but does that mean nobody else can go there? What do you think? That could be one of many topics we talk about here on the Villemeyer shows, 7705-633. Is your water well not producing like it used to? It's slight chance for some isolated storms in the next week. I will get right to your calls here in just a moment.

7705-633-770 K-M-E-D. Stock markets in big rally mode right now because they're looking at the Federal Reserve being dovish and possibly cutting interest rates. And, of course, I have to look at the... price of gold. Generally speaking, that means that it could be even a little more printing in currency destruction. I don't know, but I don't know if you're thinking about physical gold and silver as part of your portfolio. I've been a big fan of that, and I've made no bones about it. One of my biggest sponsors and oldest sponsors, I should say, is Jay Austin

and company, Golden Silver Buyers, and Ashland. I was talking to Mark yesterday when he's here for something different. It's like, boy, I'm thinking about me stacking a little bit, but maybe you should too buying or selling maybe you need to liquidate and pay off some bills and so you're going to sell it a great rate right now for gold or silver maybe you want to continue to add a little bit either way they'll help you protect your wealth that's what this is all about precious metals for the long haul on wealth preservation in interesting times shall we say the interesting times j austin in ashlin 1632 ashland street sixth and g in downtown grants pass their website as a good one check it out fortune reserve dot com Let me go to Gene now. Gene is on, Gene, you have a dog in the fight on the ODOT conversation here. I'd love to hear more about that, please. Well, I'm no spokesperson for ODOT, but I do work there, and I'm close to retirement, but I'm also close to being laid off.

September 15th is my date for layoff, possibly. I don't really believe I'll be laid off because I think Kotech's got money, upper sleeve or in her couch fishing or wherever that money is. but we are thin the employees were thin before all this happened it just numbers are way down and it's going to be thinner and you've heard all the threats of the mountain

not being cloud and things not being able to be worked on like they have been and that's true we don't have the numbers we don't have the people and I don't want new taxes taxes. And a lot of the guys I work with don't want any taxes, but a lot of guys have long careers still going at ODOT and need this funding or need the job. But it's, I've been through

the county. I've been through BLM roads. And I've been through now ODOT for a few years. And they're all full of waste fraud and abuse. Every government entity is. I think everybody kind of knows that. Yeah, just comes with the territory. Sure, a little bit of that. Sure. Yeah, Elon Musk kind of brought that. to light recently with the federal, and now people are really digging in, and I think city, county, every government entity has massive waste. Where do you think, though, is something that could be best attacked in your experience within the group here, Gene, if you don't mind.

What probably bothers you more than anything else. Something that has concerned me is that it seems like when there are times to cut over at ODOT, it's never the white collar traffic planners who aren't building freeways any longer. it's always the people who are doing the actual work on the roads. Am I right or wrong about that? It just feels that way to me. I could be absolutely off base. And in a large informational meeting with the district manager,

I've asked that very question, how many upper management positions have been laid off. And they had some restructuring, as how they put it. And to me, that's okay. So a couple guys were fend out years ago, they're just not going to fill that position. Nobody big has been laid off.

Nobody up in Salem that has made these decisions of wasteful spending and losing the money and spending billions of dollars wastefully. None of those people are going anywhere. Yeah, I'm a snowplow operator. And in the winter, I'll get in a seat of a truck sometimes 12 hours a day, seven days a week. But you see, you're the kind of people that we want. You're the kind of people that we want on the job, not the ones that are up in Salem planning the next swidewalk, you know, the wide sidewalk and taking away road diet lanes

going out in front of Highway 62 of the Rogue Valley Mall. You know what I'm getting at? And that's, I mean, you're speaking my language. I mean, I have watched it over, again, 20 years at the county, about six years at the BLM Road Department, and now two years at the ODOT. I've just kind of bounced around a little bit just because I thought, oh, this side's going to be greener grass, but they're all the same. If you are in charge of ODOT right now, what would you do then to be able to cinch the belt in and spend money for what's really needed rather than what is wanted, let's say?

Well, the top of the line is the DEI and the, there's some of the, I mean, we give half of our budget to public transit, which ends up in Portland, which, you know what, I don't ride the buses in Portland, and even the buses at RVTD, if you could see through. through the glass, you would see that there are probably two or three people in a big bus. So there's a lot of money that's going anywhere other than actually moving a lot of people around. Gene, appreciate sharing your story then, in O'Don, okay? Got a roll, and that's what we do here on Open Phones on Find Your Phone Friday. Dave, I know you've been holding here for a few minutes, and I don't want to hold you on any longer, but you wanted to toss in something about the Letitia James issue there with Trump having that big win yesterday in court. Yeah, yeah. So I want to wish you a happy vacation. Thank you. You deserve it. I wanted to talk

about, you know, they wiped out that debt. So now that clears the way for Letitia James to be indicted for her own mortgage fraud situation. And then, of course, you've got Bolton having his house rated. Yeah, today. Just this morning, four o'clock, they busted in. Yeah. So there's a lot of wheels in the air here that, uh, you know, a lot of things are happening. And, uh, you know, when you're proving a case, it does take time for them to gather the evidence. But I'm, I'm looking forward to some of these people that caused all the havoc last summer over Trump, get their just desserts. In other words, get out the popcorn, huh?

Could be an interesting few months here. In this case, get out the cotton candy. Okay, thank you, Dave. All right, Kim Commando, Digital Updates coming up, and if you're on hold, I will get right to you first. This is the Bill Myers Show. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services,

visit Fontana Roofing Services.com. If you really want to enjoy your open air, Talk to American Industrial Door. They're at Upton.com slash cam. Hear KMED and Krantz Pass on 105-9, K290AF, Rogue River, in South Jackson County on 1067 K294-A-S, Ashland. Taking your calls at 77056633 on Find Your Phone Friday, and Gene from Wilderville has awakened.

By the way, Gene, how you doing? Welcome. I'm doing okay, and as far as waking up. I wake up about 3.34 o'clock. Oh, okay. All right, but you don't normally call until a little later. But what I was going to ask you, though, is you wanted to know about Judge Jeanine, what was going to be happening, all right? And she's going to remain at the 8 a.m. thing.

The Judge Janine show will continue, but it's going to be hosted temporarily by Joe Concha for the duration because it's not known with whether Judge Janine's, well, how long Judge Janine's appointment there in her federal position is going to last. if it's going to be for just a few weeks, a few months or whatever. But the show will continue one way or the other, and we'll keep it. And Joe Conch is doing a fine fill-in on that. So that's what's going to happen, okay? Just want to give you that. Yeah, well, what time? It's still going to be 8 a.m.

You'll have to get up early on Sunday. That's the live clearance. That's the live time. We're going with a live. If I can play a show live, I will always do it live, rather than a recorded show. Okay. Okay, but what I wanted to talk about was on the tax. Yes.

They're going to raise gas taxes. But if they put a tracker on the gas cars, wouldn't that be double taxation? Oh, yeah, that is the idea. We're going to tax the fuel and we're going to want to eventually, or they, I should say, the state of Oregon wants to do that with the or ego system. They would like to mandate that. The push here in this upcoming special session, as it's been explained to me, is that they want do it to electric cars first. Well, we'll force this because you're not going to the gas

pump, so to speak. On the other hand, though, Gene, I've never quite understood why they need to do this because you could just as easily just put a big charge on electricity delivered to electric vehicles for electric vehicle purposes and do that, but that would be anonymous and they don't want anonymous because they really want to be able to raise the road fee at certain times a day. It's time-based pricing, which is what they're trying to do. That's the reason why they really want to go to the chip? They want to raise taxes enough that everybody

is going to be broke or try to find a way to get out. Well, all that matters though, all that matters is that the big fat upper level salaries at Oregon Department of Transportation continue to be big fat upper level salaries at Oregon Department of Transportation.

Appreciate your call, Gene. Let me go to Brother Brad. Hello, Brad. Good to have you on here. It's fine. Your phone Friday. What are you thinking? Hey, Bill. Good morning. G.S. Wood. What's this about you taking a vacation, seriously? You know, I've taken, it was just calculated that I've taken four days off the entire year. And so if I don't take my vacation, I lose it. And I love you all, but I also like being able to take a little trip to the coast every now and then.

You know, you're really screwing up this whole notion that people have of these radio personalities that you just, you know, you punch in for three hours a day, and then you just drink coffee or soda pop the rest of the day. You know, you really kind of wrecked that whole thing, Bill. It's like you're working too hard. So this is just where your friend, Brad, reminds you that the word vacation comes from the word vacate, which means to empty. So empty your schedule and just, I hope you and Linda, just rest and relax. So today, it is a solar panel apocalypse. What kind of solar panel apocalypse is that?

I know that it's been kind of creeping for a while now. Yeah, this is an article from August 21st, so just a couple of days ago, and it discloses that a Reuters study has found that China, the big Chinese manufacturers in the last year have laid off 31% of their solar panel workforce, 31%. But they're not talking about it. They don't want these layoffs being noticed because they're politically sensitive, but it says in the article, there are too many payments. panels and not enough buyers. It says the world is producing twice as many solar panels as it uses. They are producing twice. That sounds like a lot to me, Bill. They're producing twice as many solar panels as they need. Does that sound like a lot to you? Yeah, it does. And a lot of this, I have no doubt, was created or they were built, though, under the guys that the subsidies would

keep going, the subsidies train, right? You hit the nail on the head, Bill. That's exactly right. all these good time rock and roll subsidies are all going away. And in the state of California, one of the main things that cause people to buy these panels for their homes is they got the sweet deal. They got a one-for-one trade. So even when they didn't need the power, they'd be banking the power at a one-to-one ratio. Well, now California has discounted that. So now in some cases, you're only getting 25% or 50% of the same amount of power as a credit to. you than the program used to have.

So the financial legs have totally been cut out from underneath all this solar stuff. Yeah, it's interesting that you're talking about solar. I'm wondering if, now, I do not have an axe to grind against solar, per se. I see solar as like anything else part of the energy mix. And there are sometimes that solar makes absolute sense. you look at the former state senator Dennis Lynthicum, who it would have cost $30,000, $40,000 for him to extend Pacific power lines over to his home over in BD. Right.

Out in the Klamath Falls area. And so it made perfect sense. But this concept that we're going to power the entire grid on something, which is chaotic, problems with frequency and intermittent, and only provided when Mother Nature is willing to do it, doesn't make it grid level ready. but yet that's what their push has been here in the state of Oregon. I'm just curious, though, if what we could be looking at, though,

but to the positive side, could we be seeing some super deals on solar cells if you were looking to add that to your home in the near future? I'm kind of curious, what do you think about that? Yeah, so the good news is because of the overproduction, the cost of the panels has gone down. Right. But where the real money is is it's in getting everything hooked up to the grid and all the, you know, the subsidies and the contracts that make this attractive to the

suppliers, that's kind of where the problem is, because it's the subsidies that they're starting to get their legs cut out from underneath them, and that's the problem. So what you said that's absolutely correct is there's nothing wrong with solar as long as it makes sense. Like in Dennis Lentham's place out there by Quartz Mountain out of Boy, the amount of money it would have taken to run a light of there was just ridiculous. Oh, it's cost prohibitive, and that's great. And, of course, but he's talked about, though, how it really affects his living ability. You have to plan when you're going to do certain things at certain times a day, depending on how much power is available.

And yet, you know, that's great when you're out there and you're living on your ranch by, you know, by yourself. But you can't really do that for society as a whole, especially anything that you want to have any kind of industry. And every one of these solar systems that comes online raises the cost of electricity for everybody else because they're all subsidized. And they also need 100% backup by another form of energy that is available when the solar is not. That's the downside of it. Right. For base load, right. You can't use them for baseload.

So that's why California has had to cut way back on their subsidies is that they've just run out of money to make this thing work. You know, when I was a kid, Bill, the farmers for their irrigation pumps out in lower Klamath Lake were paying one and a half cents per kilowatt back in the 60s. Can you believe that? No, I can't. I cannot believe that. But, yeah, it doesn't surprise me now. Well, you know, it's funny that you brought that up, though. I had saved it.

I should have kept it. I remember when we had KMED AM out on Coal Mine Road back before we decommissioned that, I guess it's going on three years here? go. I saved one of the power bills from the early 1990s. I think it was in 1991. I found it out of the transmitter shack back in that day. And in 1991, I think we were paying seven cents a kilowatt hour, three and a half cents on each side of it. So it ended up being seven percent or seven cents a kilowatt. Man, I'll tell you, that was a, that was a beautiful time to be on hydro in those days here, my friend. Okay. And PPNL was happy to sell it to you for that. they were happy as could be.

Yeah, I'll tell you, memories. Appreciate the call, Brother Brad. Thank you for that. 77056633-770K-MED. Something else I wanted to just touch on briefly here and think about. I got an email from Chris and Laura said, hey, Bill, I want the public to know what is happening right now here in our backyard. My family has been Huckleberry picking for generations in this site.

We tried to go up there last year, and we're surprised by a surprise by a roadblock with guards that were very rude. We had our kids with us, very disturbing. Where Native Oregonians, this land should never be closed down. It should be available for everyone. And they're talking about the tribal ceremony that the U.S. Forest Service is taking part in. And pursuant to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Cultural and Heritage Cooperation Authority.

The Forest Service is required to ensure access to National Forest System land to the maximum extent practical by Indians and Indian tribes for traditional and cultural purposes. 2024 marked the first time the Rogue River Sisku National Forest, coordinated with the tribes by closing a small portion of the High Cascades Ranger District to allow for this culturally important ceremony to take place. By implementing this closure, we recognize and celebrate tribal ceremony. for a local indigenous tribes. It's a positive step forward. So they have issued a closure for ceremonial purposes on Huckleberry Mountain. That's all shut down. And from what I understand, that shutdown is happening right now.

And the following individuals are exempt from the closure order. Those with a specific permit, any organized rescue or firefighting, and any member of the Klamath tribes are those invited by the Klamath tribes to participate in, ceremonial activities. So I guess we are all equal before the law unless you want to go to Huckleberry Mountain. In that particular case, you must be a member of the Klamath tribe. Is that a good way to run the National Forest? I have no problem with them doing their ceremony.

I think anybody should be able to go out there and do their religious ceremony. And it shouldn't have to be just a Native American ceremony. Would you agree or disagree? Or my misplaced, or is it just like, Bill, it's just for a short time. and it's only for right now, just for a little bit. I'm not a fan of special privileges on public land, but maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture. Do you have an opinion?

7705-633 if you don't. You know, I should have asked Greg Roberts about that, too, because he's a Native American tribal member too, but maybe we'll do it next time. We are United Through Service. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Yeah, I've always wanted to talk about this.

It's been kind of bubbling. with certain people on my email box over the last few weeks, but the closure of Huckleberry Mountain, and it's being reserved exclusively for Klamath tribal members. And once again, I'm happy with him going out and celebrating on

the Huckleberry Mountain, but does that mean you shouldn't be able to go out there and pick Huckleberries? Apparently that's the case. That's what the Forest Service has done, and they've shut this down. It's going to be for a couple of weeks or so. David, do you have a take on that this morning? Good to get your opinion.

go ahead well bill this is so fascinating i think about this a lot so you know we really made a mistake or most people make a mistake thinking that the era of tribes and tribe forming and like tribes interacting is over and so i don't think it is i kind of think like your radio show represents to me a tribe and so you know i think what most people take issue with is the way that the government takes the native tribes and and uses them essentially as a prop to kind of mess with the rest of us You know, but I feel like we should be reaching out to the tribe to see what kind of things they're doing and seeing, like, how our tribe could interact with their tribe and, like, learn about the ceremonies and, you know, seeing that Native Americans are like some separate entity, like, how can we interact with the tribes that are still here and see what they're doing?

Maybe they would invite us all out to Huckleberry Mountain to understand what these ceremonies are about. You know, that's a very good point. But I would find this irritating, you know, if I were going out there with my family. and then being almost sold. And what Christopher and Laura said, who wrote about this, they said, we got this roadblock there. The guard's incredibly rude to us. And, you know, the funny thing is, is that I remember saying in this land is your land.

This land is my land. Well, the land is not the Klamath tribal land. Well, I guess unless the federal government says it is, at least for a certain amount of time. I could be wrong here, but, you know. We're operating in the paradigm where the tribe is separate from us. That's what I'm saying. Like, yes, of course, the government gets off doing that to us and playing this. you know, us against them thing, but I'm just wondering why our tribe isn't interacting with

their tribe. Like how crazy would it be for you and 30 listeners to, you know, to get invited by the Klamath tribe to come understand what these ceremonies are about? I'd love to see it. You know, I'm with you. Let's try it. I would love to see what their ceremony is all about. Let's ask them.

Yeah. I'd love to share it with us. I really do. I sincerely believe they'd love to share it with you and your listeners to learn about their culture. Appreciate the call. Thank you for that, David. Let me go to, gosh, it's Darren.

Hello, Darren. How are you doing? Welcome. Hi, pretty good. Yeah, thanks, Bill. That last caller had a great idea. I'm just going to say, I think, so the Forest Service is required on many projects that impact the tribes, is required to consult on things. And a lot of that stems from the fact that that,

those lands formerly belong to the tribes. Yes. And there was treaty rights. I know the Klamath tribe has a little bit of their own land. But historically, they exert quite a bit of influence on the Forest Service because I think, I may be wrong, but I think they had some treaty rights that were violated that extended beyond what they have now. Yeah, and that's certainly, unfortunately, a reality of American history. But here is the issue that you run into with property rights and what used to be your land.

You know, the only property rights you have are the property rights that you're able to enforce and being able to commit violence against people who are trying to take it away from you. And once that's gone, it's gone, unfortunately. That's the reality. Well, true, but I think I think the federal government has recognized the fact that things weren't maybe honored as they were supposed to be, and as a result, they've given the tribes a place at the table where they have a say on land management issues and so forth.

So you're thinking this is almost kind of a consolation prize, so to speak, this kind of thing will let you close down Huckleberry Mountain for a couple of weeks at a time? A little bit, and I think the other thing is this is a really important cultural thing for that. them. And so when it comes to cultural issues, you know, that's one of those things that that's kind of like a bigger deal. And I think, so they make an accommodation. Got it. Hey, Darren, thank you for that take on it. I really appreciate it. 770563.3. My auto answer is not working, so I'm going to get that one on hold. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hello, this is Joe.

Hi, Joe. What are you thinking, Joe? What do you know? Well, I've kind of done my own little study here, grown up in Shady Cove in that area my whole life, also was a commercial fisherman's son out of Brookings, dealt with the Klamath Indians quite extensively, and as I'm looking at it, where does Huckleberry Mountain fall into the Klamath Basin? Where does Huckleberry and Mountain fall into the rivers, the Williamson and Sprague? word, it's not in their range. It's more in the Tekelema and more in the rogue Indian tribe range. And the rogues would have never given the Klamath Indians the rights to come to come do ceremonies on their land. Interesting. I can't really speak to the truth or non-truth of that, but that's a... I'm just Googling it, Bill. Oh, you are? Okay. I just Googled it. Okay. I'm giving you is what I googled. Well, maybe this, maybe this was what they

looked at, well, here's our, well, we'll just move our sacred focus to a different mountain that's available for closure. I don't know. Maybe that's what this is. Something as simple as that. All right. Let me grab another call here. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? If I can throw another thing out there is. Oh, sure. Go ahead. Congratulations to Doge. I appreciate the fact that I can breathe fresh air this year. It's amazing how last year we had 247,000 acres burned in the state of Oregon, and at current date, we have 12,000. It's amazing how when you cut the federal government heat away from these big fire camps and fire management, it turns into fire getting put out. All right. Appreciate the call. All right. Hi, good morning. Who's

this? Welcome. Hey, good morning, Bill, Bob and Medford. Hi, Bob. Hey, I'm just wondering if part of their ceremony is to pick all the right puckleberries. I wouldn't blame them. They're pretty good, right? If there'll be any huckleberries left. I can't answer that, but it would certainly... Well, you know, we have a religious need for good huckleberries, and boy, I tell you, a good huckleberry is a wonderful berry in my view.

Okay, no. All right. Hey, appreciate the call. You'd be well. All right. Maybe we'll revisit a little bit more of this, because the closure is going to be on, and we're going to keep doing this here for a while. Coming up, we're going to completely shift gears here for a little bit.

I want to reach out to our friends over in Illinois Valley because I always like to help the amateur radio clubs here in Southern Oregon get membership, get prepared for emergency purposes, and all the rest. We'll have it all coming up on the Bill Myers Show. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit Fontana Roofing Services.com. One of each K-4, Vin, 168, 890. I wonder what old song I could use for Steve Viancy at some point.

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See, me, you can work a deal for you. We're going to deal just like Trump, all right? Skypark, INS.com. At Skypark, we make insurance easy. The Bill Myers Show is on News Talk 1063, KMED. You like me, and I know I am. I really appreciate what is going on with amateur radio here in Southern Oregon. and it's been a fascinating hobby.

I'm not as active as I would like to be, but I talk all day, and so that's part of the reason why I don't do as much talking in the evening. But there are people who are into this, and they perform great community services, and I want to make sure that everybody knows about all the clubs here in Southern Oregon. And so that's kind of my dog in the fight. And we have Judy Hinkle, who is the secretary and co-founder of the Illinois Valley Amateur Radio Club. How you doing this morning, Judy?

Great to have you on. Good morning, Bill. Good morning, community members. Yeah, and we have Dave Eck there, too. Hi, Dave. Hi, Bill. Good to hear your voice, and happy to be here. All right, great.

Dave Eck is vice president and the Hub Committee chairman. So, Judy, why don't you pick it up first here? Tell us what's going on in Illinois Valley and why if they don't know about you and they want to get involved with amateur radio, why it's a great deal and how you can help them out. Go ahead. Well, Illinois Valley Amateur Radio Club, Ivark, started in 20, We started with a net, and then we put a repeater up on the mountain later in the year. And by 2023, we had our first board meeting, and we basically are inclusive to all community members.

We're not just a ham club. Oh. We do GMRF, and we also do unlicensed FRS and MERS. Oh, so it's, you know, amateur radio in all its forms, not just the, you know, not just the FCC-LIN. Licensed amateur radio service is what you're saying. Correct. There is a handful of people in the community that actually do not like to get registered, but they want to be prepared and they want to be part of the radio club.

So we opened it up to all members of the community, whether you're licensed, unlicensed, and we actually went a step further, and we have not only our GMRS net on Monday night, but we also have the NRF and Mears Channel Nets, which are Channel 3 project, where we can find out, you know, who's in our neighborhood, who we can reach. At a time of emergency, you don't want to not know that information. You want to know who you can call right away.

Yeah, you don't want to start, try to figure out how to work your radio and get in touch with people when the big earthquake comes, right? That's not the first time you want to work it, correct? That's the bottom line here. Okay, all right. Hey, Dave, I want to talk with you then because I notice here on the notes that you are the vice president, but you are the hub committee chairman. What is the hub?

Tell me about that. Well, the hub is actually a 28-foot toy hauler, and it's got the heavy-duty axles. It's a heavy-duty vehicle. The back door goes down, which is a handicap access we have also. It's supplied with about five different radios than UHF, VHF, HF, and CB, actually, and also GMRS. And it's backed up with two battery backups. We also have inverter backups. We have generators, two generators, Hondas.

We also have solar panels on the roof. So this thing here, for any type of emergency, it's ready to go. It can be put on different sites, different areas. And the thing about it, most of all, is that we can help out the community and people that, you know, that needs the help. When the cell phones are down, there's no other communication. And we also have, like, 30 handheld radios, and you can get into this thing for under $100. The radio is like 40 bucks, and the license is $35 for 10 years. And, I mean, you've got to have communication.

That's number one. And the hub is just a fantastic rig. You've got to see it. It thing will sleep three people, and we have enough supplies in it for at least two weeks to rotate 24-7. We can stay in that thing, and we can help out the community as much as we can, Bill. Are you all coordinating then with Josephine County sheriffs and other various law enforcement folks to help out? there's need be. Of course, Bill. You know, we also would Road Valley Rescue out there. We're hooked up with them. And, you know,

when the fire department, police department get overwhelmed, we can also help out as much as we can. The repeaters go down. We can also help out that way. So, you know, we're out there to help out as much as possible. Yeah, and for people who don't know what are... Oh, I'm sorry. Judy, I talked over you for a second. Sorry, start that again. Please. Oh, sorry. We're also members of the Josephine County Emergency Communications. JCEC, which is for the county, and we are direct link with them. When anything happens, we would be checking in with them

and relaying information to and from them. All right, glad to know. How much coordination do you stay in touch with the other amateur radio groups here? A number of the couple of them in Jackson County and more. We've talked with them off and on two. Yeah, of course. And, you know, one thing I forgot to mention, too, is that we, the most important thing that we have in the hub, Bill, is the Starlink.

So we are on top of that also. Oh, good. All right. Now, I wanted to make sure that people understand, first off, how do they get in touch with you? Do you have weekly or monthly meetings? And, you know, if you're in the Illinois Valley, this is a natural get-together. People are wondering, how do I get into this stuff? How do we even understand GMRS and FRS and all the rest of these acronyms?

How do we get on? And where do they go? Absolutely. Well, we have a club meeting. on the second Tuesday of every month at Wild River Pizza from 6 to 8, and we have a lot of exciting things that we bring in community resources and different presentations from local clubs that we're partnering with, like we just partnered with Ivy Frog, and they're doing a lot of preparedness. So that's part of it as joining the links with the community members that are all working on emergency preparedness. And then when things happen, we can immediately hook up with those partners that we've already set up. So we're working on all these different aspects.

You know, one of the things that we do for our members is important for people to know that we come out and we do free technical assistance. So we not only do free radio trainings, teach you how to run the two-way radio, but we also come out to your location, your house, and we'll set it up with an antenna, and we'll set it, we'll find out the best reception spot, we have equipment, we'll retest that, and then we'll get people set up, and that's really important. Once they have a radio, and then they have an antenna, and they're actually making, they're able to make the calls and receive, and make transmissions, that's key. and then they start hooking up on our net, and before you know it, they're a key member in their

neighborhood, and when anything happens, they're going to be there to relay the information for their neighbors. It's a really important role to play. You know, when it doesn't go down, we're going to need to be there for each other. Indeed. Just preparing is good. Hey, Dave, I want to ask you, what's coming up in? There's a three-day Labor Day Festival, so it's going to be next weekend, I guess. and you're going to be showing off the hub.

Where's it going to be parked? It's actually going to be parked in Cave Junction at the park down here at Jubilee Park. And, yeah, we're going to be doing at least two hours a day of demonstrations and showing people how to run the radios and how to go ahead and, you know, talk on the radios. And, you know, not be scared of the radio. The most important thing of everything is that people understand that we're here to help them and make it, you know, so you've got to come out and check this out because we're here to help the people. You know, this is nonprofit, and we're just really trying to go ahead and get

things going for everybody. All right. I want to say that we're going to be doing two trainings a day at the Labor Day Festival, 11 o'clock and 2 p.m. For those people that have their radio sitting in a drawer somewhere or in a closet, pull it out and come down and we'll show you some simple prompts of how to work the radio. And start practicing now so that when it does happen, you'll be able to run the radio and you won't that will be one less thing to worry about okay i got to ask you how many bow fangs do you think you have in the whole club if if i were to if you were to actually go out there and count them because they're so inexpensive even still today any bow fugs do we have in our club yeah well we have about 30 people that are checking in weekly out in the in the community um that

check in monday night but i don't know i think there's quite a few hundred out there yeah i know Well, what I was getting, the reason I'm bringing it up, though, is that trying to make people understand that, you know, when I first got in the ham radio back when I was a kid in high school, you know, so you're going back 50 years, man, you know, a lot of the HF gear stuff, there was a big, unless you were building it yourself, there was a lot of, a lot of big investment in money that you, that you had to make. And the one thing that has happened is that it's kind of democratized now, right? You don't have to spend nearly the money that once did, that you once did to be able to communicate. Is that a fair assessment? There's so many countries that are making products, the radio products. I mean, the bullfung that we sell is $40, well, we sell it by donation, and we actually put in our IVARC programming, which is approximately 120 channels that are local fire and emergency, police, all the local channels you'd want to listen to.

And one other thing, too, Bill, on this radio thing. is these bofangs now are so high-tech. I mean, you can buy yourself a Yesu or a high-end radio for $500, but these bofangs are actually 10 watts. They're very powerful. They're not a toy. They're a really nice radio for 40 bucks. And like I was saying, 35 for the license for under $100, you're in.

And no test. Off you go. No test required. All right. Well, I'll tell you, we're going to get your information up. Websites IVARC.org, right? Yes. Okay.

And our email is ivark.org at protown. We have a YouTube page, IVARC Communication Hub. Go check it out. We have some videos from purchasing to installing all the new products to finishing. So go check it out and see what we're doing. And come see us at Labor Day Festival. We'll be there for three days. The video on YouTube.

Yes, we have lots of videos. Well, I'll get your links up there. And once again, Judy, Dave, we appreciate you coming on. 73s from K7QWN. Okay, MKMED. You, Bill. Thank you. Okay.

We'll see you later. It's 856 and change. Good stuff going on in. The Illinois Valley. Hey, appreciate you haven't been here today, and I'm going to be wrapping up. I'm going to go blow a little stink off myself over the coast for the next few days, and have a good time, and then I'll be back after Labor Day. Chris Stagall Show will be filling in for me, okay?

finally Todd writes in on the tribal ceremonies bill I dealt with Kashia Indians while working as a part ranger at Fort Ross State Park in California distinctive vision in the tribe as whether or not to share in ceremonies with non-native peoples mostly they were very private when they visited important sites in the park however they could not deny access to others been camping at Medicine Lake east of Shasta for years for longer than I can remember the NFS campground is closed for the entire month in the summer for a Modoc

tribal gathering, no outsiders. Appreciate your writing there. Todd, we'll talk a little while. Okay.