Hoaxing?

No doubt one would seemingly want to get as far into the bush as possible to fire up their research on the subject we all want to learn about yet seem to know little about. Yup, our hairy friend. Why do we think it is drawn into the depths of the forest and that we have no other choice but to follow behind and find it in this habitat?

Well we do have a choice. And it certainly does not live in the middle of nowhere. We are getting sighting reports from all around the world of these things moving about  - many reports occurring during the daytime, which begs the question, is this thing nocturnal?
Some of the activity we have heard about, whether it happened recently or long ago, has taken place during the night time. I can tell you that if I were a hoaxer, I would do the same - I would carry forward activities during the evening which would conceal my identity. So lets back up a moment - of all these reports we have received, happening during the daylight, why do we continually believe that Sasquatch may be a nocturnal being?

I do not think it is. I think that opportunity exists during the evening hours but our friend is well adapted to life abroad during the daylight hours.
But getting back to the hoaxing thing - where do we stand with this? Are we spending the time looking at photos or videos to observe this species, or are we simply dispelling it from the get-go and saying to ourselves "lets find the flaw in this and send it on to others".

Yeah I'm sure that happens every day.
Then you have one fellow come by (as it has happened in the past) who saw something - it moved, wasn't a bear - and video or photos were taken. GREAT!!!
That poor fellow; He already became stereotyped as a hoaxer the moment he clicked SEND in his email. What a shame.


There is stuff out there that is meant to be shared. Please have the strength and wherewithal to come forward with it. Those who laugh or dispel your information are shallow, if you are indeed sincere and honest. Share with us and reap the benefits of your discovery and knowledge.

Connected

Being connected nowadays is a pretty easy thing to do. From social networking sites to cell phones, text messaging, email, VOIP & cheap long distance, we really have no excuse for not being connected.

Of course, we still need to respect the privacy of those who feel the need to stand back from all of this connectivity. It seems to be the baby boomer generation but I have also noticed that some of the younger groups, albeit only a few that I personally know, are stepping back from the stage and taking a deep breath.

It can be a tiring and time consuming process to stay connected. Some even go as far as losing focus on things that are more important than sending that twitter or writing on someone’s wall. It all adds up to what you actually want to achieve. If you are simply doing it just to gain status and make more friends, well maybe you should go back to the basics. Making a phonecall or sending a simple email then meeting up for a coffee or beer, or whatever you may have done in the past before this technology swooped down upon us, but now, we are letting it control our lives and literally mandate our decision making process and associated actions.

For those who take it all in stride and can control their exposure and adaptation of such new technologies, maybe even leverage them to their benefit while still "being yourself” – well my friends, kudos to you.

And for those who take all this technology and really look at it with a microscope, methodically breaking it down and seeing how you can make it work in ways that would really be beneficial or unique – that’s great too. I guess in the end, all I am saying is, don’t let it run your life. Your still an individual. You are unique. You are one.

I was encouraged to write this blog post by a situation that caught me off guard a little while ago. You see, I had been experimenting with urban WiFi radio links to try and get a better understanding of the concept of low power communications in an environment that offered some challenges. These challenges included localized interference, lack of line of site communications. Speed degradation due to link latency. My ultimate goal was to create a WiFi audio / video link between my home and my boat which is about 900 meters away – but in a location that has LOADS of wireless access points and routers, man-made and natural interference and of course, it’s close to being line of site but not exactly.

Now you may ask why? Well, if you work the common demons out during your testing such as those described above, transplanting your operations to the field – in the middle of nowhere, will certainly see a system that will perform extremely well in an ideal environment. No local WiFi, noise or other sources of interference. Nailing a solid radio link for 1km + should be quite simple. And I am happy to say that I have indeed achieved reasonable streaming performance over a link of that distance – in the city. So to imagine what I can do in the field, well, those wireless cam’s and data links to other camps might not be a pipe dream.

The next test is the LOS (Line of Sight) test where I will orientate the directional antenna towards the Niagara Escarpment, to the north of me, clearly visible and without any obstructions, to see if I can launch a signal via a 10dBi bi-polarized antenna with 600mw of power to a monitoring post that measures out to be roughly 18km or approx. 11 miles.

Now for those of you who have followed some of my work and perhaps Simply Sasquatch radio, you may recall that we did a radio test with some FRS / GMRS radios from my home to the same location (the escarpment) using Hi, Medium and FRS Low (500 mw max power). I was in communication with a fellow who drove around the escarpment to dispel the myth that manufacturer’s claims about range on FRS/ GMRS are over-stated. Nope – they are not – as long as you are line of sight (or literally line of sight). We could hear eachother perfectly on all power ranges and channels.

So given the fact that the walkie talkies are driving very inefficient rubber antennas that are not directional, we did pretty good with that test. Now, we are moving to a directional antenna system that offers gain – 10dBi – and a power outage that is slightly higher than FRS (500mw); We are going to be using 600mw – which would give us an ERP (Effective radiated power) of 3.6 watts or 5.63 dBW or an EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) of 6 watts or 7.78 dBW.

Mind you, we are operating at a higher frequency which is something we need to consider because the radio wave does not travel, penetrate and bend like the lower frequency walkie talkie, but it is certainly worth the test – and if we are successful, it brings a whole new world of opportunity to field research and remote viewing / surveillance and communications.

Connected. Now this is to our benefit. This is something that will be neat to try and even better to implement as part of our research arsenal.