Ok friends, tell me about the radio stations.

Edit: thanks friends, you never disappoint. I'll be reading if you need me.

my people.

Buy a Baofeng UV-5R, unlock the frequency band, and start scanning.

Eh, I guess. I've built a relationship with my AuDHD wife for more than 25 years. :) (Severe ADHD here. I hit high on some of the autism indicators, but zero on the texture/obsession stuff, so who the hell knows. heh)

For purely informational purposes, what are some examples of “illegal tools?” 🤔 👀

The Autistim guy I know can tell you US zip codes so you don't have to look them up

boring answer but probably something like security torx or apple's pentalobe bit

Or lockpicks. Legality is... varying, from fully legal to possession is a crime.

examples

North American Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame

Is the UV-5G mini ok? Or should I cancel my order and get the UV-5R?

Assuming you're just receiving, why not get an RTL-SDR? :-D

Even things like what you used to be able to find on Hiren’s Boot CD could be called “illegal” by the less knowledgeable. Software like Wire Shark. They’re just tools.

Flipper Zero

They're not illegal in themselves. They're perfectly legal to own but they can be used for illegal things.

I just need to use the bathroom. I will buy a… checks sign… clandestine radio station.

Iirc the flipper zero is specifically outlawed in a number of countries.

Dunno about the US though.

From what I can tell, it's only in Brazil there's an issu with them.

It should be ok - it's just that the UV-5R has sort of become the defacto budget amateur radio standard at this point so there's more documentation and software made for it.

I'm sure the UV-5G mini will work for your needs.

My dad got 2 of those and i tried to do cool things with it but in the end, all i was able to do was load in a list of specific frequencies around us and scan around until it connects to something. It wasn't particularly interesting stuff either XD

Fun fact - zip codes used to somewhat correspond with phone numbers until the late 90s - you could use the first 3 digits to narrow down a geographic location, the following 3 for a population center like a city or county, and the remaining 4 are independent. That's no longer the case nowadays though.

Not so fun fact - in the US the zip code eerily corresponds to your life expectancy, quality of life, and access to important services and quality education. Even if you leave after your developmental years, that starting location can impact your entire life.

Oh for sure - the knowledge comes in handy in times of emergency like natural disasters or infrastructure accidents though. Make sure to save your local emergency services frequency bands and see if any local hams have something allocated for those times as well.

Sometimes it just comes in handy for fun purposes as well - managed to snoop into the construction workers' radio frequency at my uni and had a conversation with one of them XD

Don't forget to download wikipedia fellas!

I have a different type of ND, but I learned all the local edible wildlife and shit. Forage life is delicious

Well, vacuum cleaners mented. Im the kind of a clean autist who are overly interested about vacuum cleaners.

no worries friend. our bathroom is open to all, not just our clandestine radio station customers.

now you are making me angry at my little brother. he moved, voluntarily, from a good QoL area to a moderate QoL area. Easiest measure to judge by, the average life expectancy for the towns he lived in, he went from 89 to 85. He did that over politics, not money. Little dipshit.

I just have a shitty vaccuum and have to tix it like every time I use it.

soda can. 14 inch shoelace. uh, FOOF probably

I'd recommend repeaterbook.com to find the local repeaters near you and potentially info on when the local radio clubs have their "nets."

You could also look at the arrl band plan to see what frequencies people would even ever talk on:

https://www.arrl.org/band-plan

You'd likely be interested in the 2 meter, 1.25 meter and 70 cm bands, and the gmrs frequencies.

"boring answer" = "interesting answer" under a cisvergent lense.

Lemmy has a vacuum cleaner person now?!

The internet is healing 🥰

Elaborate on the life expectancy thing, please?

Housing in the US tends to be separated out by class and ethnicity. US society is designed to perpetuate class and race relations with little social mobility, and to treat people primarily according to their class and race rather than by their individual differences. People try, but everybody tries so that cancels out.

So most of the variance in quality of life someone will lead is determined by their race and class which are accurately measured by ZIP code (plus birth year).

The cool thing is this proves capitalism is more about class warfare than about profit. Trump can bankrupt a casino but because he's upper class he kept getting offered money faster than he could waste it, while a lower class person who gets rich by chance is treated like an invader and gets systematically mistreated until their quality of life returns to the norm.

What Tiresia mentioned, along with other factors such as pollution and industry zoning as well (housing near industrial areas for example has higher rates of cancer)

Yes. But Im more interested in daily use rather than fixing it. Im obsessed with vacuum cleaners since 2020 or smth (or the peak year of my vacuum cleaner autism), I used to be scared of em before for sensory reasons.

One day, I will ask you for help and I trust you will be there for me :)

can see past your bullshit

The talkers out there even find that ability "uncanny".

HAM

This is an invitation to share more, if you'd like to 🙂

I just started screwing around with Meshtastic, build you a node or two. Or make nine of them like I did.

Legal in the US, looking at mine on my desk right now.

i forgot a lot of us

me too, friend. idk how to fix them, but i think they’re really cool and i like to use them.

done!

I'm starting to think autistic people are the normal ones, and everyone else is chronically sick/medicated.

I'm not autistic...

Reads post...

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.

I'm about to start with meshtastic. A few years ago, my wife bought some "illegal" FRS/GMRS radios, and it was cheaper and easier to get my GMRS license than it was to return the radios, and that whole process opened up a world of invisible bullshit I could get lost in.

POGO password cracker on a USB drive explicitly labeled as "Not for Export" since the encryption/decryption algorithm on it technically counts as munitions.

there's  a reason autism is still politely demonized, at least in the US. we are hard to govern