Mattes's Musings by KC2GIK

 Over the years the City of C ape May has hosted training events for  numerous police departments on the eastern seaboard. One of my favorite times is when mounted patrols come into town. They usually set up along Beach Avenue twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. Usually t he horses patrol the promenade onto  the beach itself.  My house is on the route from the Parkway down to the beach front and today I want paying close enough attention to the radio that I figured out they were doing a photo  shoot at  the Cape May Point Lighthouse. So I quickly grabbed my phone and snapped some pictures right from my front porch, of course I was in bare feet.  A couple of radio tidbits for  the radio enthusiasts who read the blog. All of the departments were using the Jersey Shore Region talkgroup 4 (4187) on the NJICS system . There are three other talkgroups but this is the only one I've heard acti ce since I started  listening to the system a f...

The release of the Epstein files have dominated the news since President  Trump, his AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, took office. In classic Trump fashion he dangled the nugget of releasing the  files since he first started his third run for the Oval Office. Now that he's back as President the people that backed him are wanted him to keep that promise while Trump's enemies, yes he has enemies=, are hoping whatever is in the files will bring Trump down once and for all. A few major things have happened, including two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign.  There's also the problem of  President Trump never gets the benefit of the doubt. Whether it's the Russiagate Hoax,which I will get to in a second, Ukraine phone call "scandal" or the bogus charges brought  by biased DA's Letitia James or Fanni Willis, it only works out when the weak cases crumble! By then the damage is done, Trump's die hard supporters once again  circle the wagon...

 My father wanted to get out of the Cape May winter so he purchased a house in Murrells Inlet  this past June. We have friends nearby and it's closer than Florida. So I looked the trunked system up on Radioreference.com and of course programmed the entire system by hand into my trusty Bearcat BCD-396T! After a few sessions I got the system up and running! Thankfully Horry County (I  later found out the "H" is silent) is still on a Phase I system, I am crossing my fingers it stays that way for a long while. It is quite active and I have been  getting use to the southern accents over the digital airwaves.  I also am plugging away at the aviation frequencies as well. I have the Myrtle  Beach Airport programmed in which includes the ground frequencies as the Jacksonville  and Atlanta ARTCC Center frequencies.  It's a bit tricky to gauge the range of the scanner but I figure if I  dump all of South Carolina, the southern part of North Carolina a...

As I have written before  about losing hosting for various reasons, mainly because the hosting fees get jacked up and I wasn't using half the services they provided.  After much consideration I decide to move the entire site onto Blogger/Blogspot., This includes both my license plate trading list . links to other websites.  Although I'm divided on whether to put actual license blog entries on the new site or leave them here!  There might be a little cross-posting in the near future, stay tuned!!! Justin Mattes License Plates

   A soggy Saturday in October didn't stop 74 people (70 members, 4 guests) from attending the annual ALPCA Garden State Region meet at the Pennington Fire Company in Pennington NJ. People traveled from 13 states, including as far away as Arizona to exchange plates and renew friendships. As usual bagels and coffee were served to get everyone's day started off. Every year members bring some amazing displays, this year did not disappoint. Congratulations to Allan Attanasio for taking home the best display award for his very detailed display of the history of NJ Motor Vehicle Inspector plates & memorabilia. Best single plate went to a Pennsylvania We The People plate owned by Marco Sordi. Once again Kerry Weishaar traveled from sunny Arizona picked up the Long Distance Award Thanks to all the volunteers that help keep this meet running. We anticipate on having our fall meet next year on the 2 nd  Saturday in October. Stay tuned to Plates Magazine for details!!!! Submitte...

 A lot of tributes have been pouring in for Ch arlie Kirk the last few days, as well as some harsh words for his tactics. The Turning Point USA founder was gunned down last week right before he hosted one of his events hosted on a college campus in  Colorado. The tragic death marked the latest in a series of horrific political violence events that has scarred our nation for far too long. We have been warned to tone down the heated rhetoric. T hat words that travel the speed of the Internet seem to have twice the impact usually in a negative way which pushes people away from your point of view instead of pulling them closer. The impact can be so  great it can cause people to want to silence their opponents, sometimes in the most extreme ways! We have seen it play out in schools, theaters, political e vents and other gatherings. We all want it to stop, however we are unwillingly to do the work. We as a society have lost respect for opposing views. The people that don't like...