Remington 1100 TAC4 Mini-Report

Well, now that I've settled in here a bit, I took a day off to do some gunnie stuff. I was curious to see how my new Remington 1100 TAC4 would pattern with the ammo I commonly keep on-hand. I've always admired the 1100, and I finally bought one. The fit and finish are nice, but it's a bit different to load than my 870, requiring you to push in on the carrier release before the carrier itself will swing up, and allow you to push the shells into the magazine. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but for the first time out with it, I was pretty fumbled fingered. This particular gun came with a Hi-Viz front sight, which snaps on just aft of the front bead sight, and has a colored transparent rod in it to give you a "Fiber Optic" effect. It comes with a bunch of different colored rods to suit your mood, I guess. It caught enough of the light in the dimly lit range to be more visible than the bead sight, but out in the shop area, under the store lights, it *really* lit up. It's 100% plastic, so I have my doubts about its durability, but it was a nice touch that Remington included it.
As far as the ammo I used goes, I have some Remington "Green and Yellow Box" ammo part #"12B00", some Federal "Power-Shok" part # "F12700", some Wolf "Power Buckshot" no part # on box, and some Winchester Supreme "High Velocity" part # "SB1200". I also tried some of the "Estate" brand birdshot that we train with at the range, as I'd heard it wouldn't cycle the gun properly. Out of the five Estate shells I fired, two of them stove-piped, and the other three cycled and ejected properly. Except for the birdshot, all ammo was off-the-shelf "00 Buck" loads purchased from Midway or Sportsman's Guide. Nothing special, just plain old "Double Aught Buck". The only surprise was the Winchester High Velocity loads. Man, did they ever KICK! Huge roar, big spout of flame out of the barrel, and the one other guy on the range came down and asked me what in the H3LL I was shooting. The first round of it really caught me off guard, and the barrel wound up at about a 45* angle!
Potent stuff, to say the least.
All targets were placed about "Halfway Down" the range, which is about 25 feet. Probably a bit far for a Home Defense distance, but I wanted them to spread a bit. Since the 1100 TAC4 has changeable choke tubes, I went with what the guys at the range recommended, which is the "Improved Cylinder" tube. I tried to keep my aimpoint at the center of the orange area, and I think I was pretty consistent. The tightest pattern (for THIS gun, on THIS day, with THIS lot number ammo!) was the Federal, which also gave the tightest pattern in my 870 Express. Not sure if that surprises me or not, as if I go back tomorrow, I might get different results. Whatever the case, I feel safe in saying that all the rounds I fired would be acceptable for home defense *as far as accuracy and spread goes*! I don't have a Box 'O Truth to test penetration with, but I *do* agree with him that's it's fun to shoot stuff.
As far as the new target hangers that my friend the Wandering Minstrel has commented about, I didn't have any problem with them. I duct-taped the top edge of the target to some cardboard, and put some duct-tape on the little binder clips (The Original "Bachelor's Chip Clip"!) that grab the target. I think the extra thickness of the cardboard allowed the clip to grab a little more securely, and I'm sure the duct-tape didn't hurt either. I understand why they changed the target hangers, as replacing one used to cost about $50, and now it costs one coat hanger and two small binder clips, but I agree with Minstrel, it just looks El Cheapo, and doesn't anchor the target very well without some kind of backing.

It Can't Happen Here

The SyFy channel was running a "V" marathon tonight, so in between unpacking stuff and moving boxes around, I caught a bunch of it. I really liked the two mini-series when the came out in the early 80's, so I checked out some of the history of the series. The writer of the series claims it was inspired by a 1935 book by Sinclair Lewis, of all people, called "It Can't Happen Here".
If you'd like to read a FREE e-book version of the original Lewis work, you can find it here.
I haven't read it yet, but it looks pretty interesting.
Makes me hope we'll see some of these appearing soon.
Sorry for the sloppy 'air brush' job, but I can't figure out how to make GIMP give me that runny spray-can look.

GROAN.....I'm Moved!

Thanks to the GF's son, Mike, and his buddy Steve, we got the last remnants of my stuff out of my old bachelor pad.
I'm trashed, and so's the GF.
Now to call DirecTV and have them install a new dish, call The Phone Company and have them terminate the service, and turn all my keys in on Monday.

In The "Home" Stretch!

GROAN....down to moving the last of my stuff out today. My landlord said it's OK to leave what old furniture I don't want, and he'll leave it up to the new tenant to decide if they want to keep it. I have the rest of my networking equipment to box up and move out, a box of books (UGH! Like moving a box of CONCRETE!), a case of "still good" MRE's, a big wire-frame storage rack that thankfully knocks down, and my laser printer.
I'll sure miss my little bachelor pad, but life progresses, and my GF is the best gal I've met in so long that it was worth the wait. Did I mention she loves going to the range, and can handle full-power 357 loads out of my S&W TRR8 without flinching?
And she's a great cook!
Oh well....back to moving. Next week I'm going to refurb my weather station and get it back on-the-air, refurb my HF vertical and get it mounted so *I* can get back on the air, and start photographing and listing on eBay all the collectible SciFi "Action Figures" her deceased hubby had been stockpiling for his "retirement fund".
We have almost ONE THOUSAND of said figures, from the little 6" ones, up to the full-size 12" ones. I swear we could restage The Battle of Stallingrad in the back yard!
And then there's the baseball cards, plastic model kits, pins, PEZ dispensers, and the FOUR THOUSAND comic books, all in nice little plastic sleeves, and indexed in an EXCEL spreadsheet.. It's gonna take six months to dispose of it all........

BUSY!

Been really busy getting moved, so that's why the EMCOMMS articles are on hold.
Almost done, though. We moved my big TV and all the other audio/video gear today, all the computer and Amateur Radio gear is moved, and all I have to do is pick up some odds and ends, and vacuum the old place out for the landlord.
I *told* the gf I had a LOT of stuff, but she didn't believe me until she started helping me box it up to move!
My bachelor pad was just one big room, a good-sized kitchen, and a bathroom. My son always described it as being a cross between an NSA listening post, and an explosion at a CompUSA! The building looks positively barren with all the antennas and weather monitoring stuff off the roof. One of my neighbors got the kitchen table and chairs, another got my nice big comfy leather sofa, and the rest I'm leaving for the next tenant.
GAWD I'll be glad when I'm finished! Next to plumbing, I hate moving the most!

EMCOMMS Wired or Wireless?

I'll post a bit more about wireline stuff if anybody wants. Otherwise, I'm working on the "Wireless" section since I understand radio a whole lot better, and I think it has more utility for local, regional, and CONUS applications.
Feel free to ask away, or point out any "errors" you think I've made.

And Now, For Something Completely Different....

Whoo-Hoo!
Channel 105 on Sirius is now "The Monty Python Channel"!
Wonder if they'll ever have a "Fawlty Towers Channel"?

Home-Made Electronic Components

In doing some research for the EMCOMMS articles, I ran across this fascinating page at MAKE about home-made electronic components.
I've seen several home-made vacuum tubes, and experimented a lot with various types of crystal detectors, I even made several "Fox Hole Radios" when I was young (see more here), but nothing like this stuff.
H/T to the Retrotechnologist for leading me there.

EMCOMMS -Wired Equipment-

Wired or Hard-Line Equipment

I'll start with some "Wired" equipment, since most people can relate to having wire between two or more locations. I'm not a "Telephone Guy", even though I did work for Western Electric out of college. I'd always wanted to work for AT&T Long Lines, but that's another story!
The military is (or was) fond of using "Field Telephones" for semi-permanent locations. Popular US equipment were the EE-8, TA-43, TA-312, and the later TA-838 units. Like most US military equipment, it was robust, well-designed, and easy to install and repair. If you can get these cheap (which I doubt!), then go ahead and use them. These units will require a battery to power them up, and some good old 'twisted pair' wire to connect them. Some of them even had a Ringing Generator to alert the person on the other end you were trying to call them. These were hand-cranked magnetos, and could put out one heck of a jolt if you got across the line while it was being cranked! Like most phone systems, the "Talk" circuit is D.C., and the "Ring" circuit uses A.C. There's nothing special about the wire used to connect the phones. As long as it has two conductors, and can withstand the environment, you should be good to go. Lamp cord (or zip cord), "Bell Wire" for doorbells, Thermostat Wire, or speaker wire can all be used. I've even seen people use electric fence wire since it's insulated from the posts by the stand-offs, and isn't *obviously* a telephone circuit. The gauge isn't that important, either. Anything 24 gauge or larger is fine. Stranded wire is preferred, as it unspools easier, and is more flexible. Telephones in the US generally use two colors for the wire that makes up a single "circuit" or "pair", red and green. The red wire goes to the "ring" connection, ("Red Right Ring" as they say), and the green goes to the tip connection. "Tip" and "Ring" come from the names of the parts of the plug the operator would push into the switchboard when they wanted to "connect" the calling party to the called party. They looked very similar to a modern stereo head phone plug. The 'tip' is the very end of the plug,, with the point on it, the 'ring' is the little band of metal further up the plug, and the body is called the 'sleeve'.
Since you don't want to pay "Collector's" prices for simple telephone equipment, two old desk phones can be wire up to make a perfectly serviceable comm-link. This guy has a good article on using an old desk phone as an extension to his working field phone, and there's tons of people with explanations of how to set up a simple phone system for very low cost.
Here's some Google hits to get you started with a wired system:
Farm Collector, Military Phones, Surplus Phones

And if you're interested in old phone stuff in general, try the Antique Telephone Webring.
The prc68 website also has a good list of military telephone stuff.

And if you're interested in the old Ma Bell stuff, here's the evolution of the American Dial Telephone.

EMCOMMS Overview

OK, as promised, here's general overview of what I plan on covering.
This is pretty rough, and not quite finished, but I'm pretty busy moving this weekend and wanted to get something posted.
Feel free to comment or ask for additional sections, and I'll try to get something posted.

EMCOMM OVERVIEW

I. Purpose and Background
The purpose of these articles is to guide the new user, non-radio geek, into the world of maintaining communications when the normal system breaks down. I'm hoping you've provided water, food, medicine, shelter, and other items for you and your loved ones, so I'm not going to cover that.
If there's a natural disaster (Earthquake, Fire, Flood, etc) of some sort, or a man-made disaster (Riots, Terrorist Attack, Civil Breakdown, "TSHTF"), you can bet your rear-end that most 'regular' means of communications will be unavailable. The cell phone system will be overloaded, and even if you have a land-line available to you, it, too, will most likely be an unreliable means of communicating during the duration of the communications outage.
The reasons are many, but a lot of it boils down to the fact that while Ma Bell designed the system to be very robust, it was never designed for 7 million people in one area to all pick up the phone at once and dial out. In The Old Days, one of the things we were taught was that after some disaster, if you saw a pay phone with the handset dangling, please hang it back up, as an off-hook handset will request a dial tone, and enough of them off-hook would overload the system. In some cases (think 9/11 or Katrina), a major switching center might have been taken out, and all telephone and Internet communications in the affected area would be knocked out. Of course, there's always the possibility that The Government will deliberately shut things down, but I won't go there, either.

II. Scope
I'll be taking a few liberties here in an effort to make this as simple as I can, as I'm intending this for my fellow gunnies, and I'm going to assume that most of them don't have a background in communications. If you do, fine, and bear with me. If you don't, that's fine, too, and hopefully you'll at least absorb some of the basics. Most of this will cover voice communications, as that's what people are most comfortable with, and it's fairly easy to train people to use.
If you know Morse Code, and can use it, or you're an Amateur Radio operator, then these articles are probably too basic for you.
Keep in mind that NO communications system that you'll likely have available will be 100% reliable. We also won't go into secure or scrambled/encrypted communications, as if you have the gear capable of doing it, you're also far beyond the audience these articles are directed at. If you need a somewhat secure system, then work out a code with your group members ahead of time.

III. Equipment
I'm breaking the equipment down into two areas; “Wired”, and “Wireless”. I'll expand each of the areas, and give some reasons why you might want to use one over the other, depending on your requirements.

IIIb. Wired
"Wired", or "Hard Line", communications are those that rely on an actual physical connection. Whether it's a piece of copper wire between two field phones, a fiber-optic link between two computers, a hollow 'speaking tube' on a ship, or two tin cans and a piece of string, they all share the property of having an actual, physical connection from Point A to Point B. They can be very simple, to very complex. The simple systems are easy to deploy, troubleshoot, and keep running. Some don't even require a power source, although their distance is limited. Wired communications are fine for fixed station and point-to-point use.
IIIc. Wireless
“Wireless” communications are those which do not rely on an actual physical connection. Smoke signals, Semaphores, Heliographs and pocket mirrors, and even shouting at each other fall into this category, as does Radio. Since I'm a “Radio Guy”, I'll focus more on the radio aspects, as that's what I do best.

IV. Protocols for Communications
1. Analog
Analog systems are the oldest and 'simplest' systems in use. They use a signal which varies in level to represent the human voice. The louder you talk, the bigger the signal is, and the louder it sounds on the other end. The various frequencies in the voice are transmitted pretty much “As Is”, although the design of the equipment typically limits the bandwidth to about 2.7 kHz, with the frequencies from 300 Hz to 3000 Hz being sent mostly unaltered. These frequencies correspond to what's called “Communications Quality” audio, and contain the frequencies required for understandable communications. Not “HiFi” by any means, but more than adequate to do the job, and usually recognize the person talking. The original telephone system was all analog, and actually connected the pair of wires running from your telephone, to another pair of wires running to another another telephone, forming a complete “circuit”. A working system can be made with two old telephones, some wire, and a couple of batteries. Some systems are entirely 'Sound Powered', and don't even require the batteries.
2. Digital
Digital systems are much more complex, in that they take the analog signal, and convert it into a series of ones and zeroes, and then reconstruct the analog signal on the other end. This takes a lot of “stuff” to do, and is pretty hard to build from scratch. The telephone system has gone almost 100% digital in the Central Office, although the line to the subscriber is still analog. Even though you might have DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), the “bits” in the digital part of DSL are still sent using various discreet frequencies, but at much higher frequencies than voice uses.

Emergency Comms (EMCOMM) For All

Well, when I first started this blog I said that I'd be doing a few pieces on Emergency Communications, and I've been working diligently on that. I'll be breaking it down into several sections so it doesn't get too long-winded in any one article. I'll *try* not to get too technical, but if I do, you can always ask me for explanations. And since this is on the Web, I'll sprinkle the articles with hyperlinks so you can do further study on your own.
I doubt if I'll wind up with a Web Opus like "Absolved", but if I can help bridge the gap between my fellow gunnies and my fellow radio geeks, then it will have been worth the effort.