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...

 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...

       For a few months there has buzz around Cape May NJ that Bob Dylan was coming to America's Oldest Seaside Resort. No he wasn't playing a concert at Convention Hall. For most of this weeks parts of 2024 Cape May,NJ was transformed into 1965 Newport, RI. A Complete Unknown is a new film about Dylan's conversion from acoustic  to electric guitar starring Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan is in production and the location scouting team decided that  Cape May today looked like Newport back in '65. Bob Dylan debuted  his hit song Like a Rolling Stone   at t he Newport Folk Festival. They even transformed Perry Street  into Belevedere Avenue. Shops along the Washington Mall were temporarily renamed to match shops up in Newport.  The Victorian Motel was baptized then Viking Motel for the film  Days prior I started seeing filming equipment  being transported into town.       Like most o f the town I was hopi...

I heard about the devasation of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore while I was in Florida. Once I realized this bridge repair would be a extended operation, it became my goal to record  the marine safety broadcast. Waiting for the conditions to be just right, I was su rprised when the scanner stopped on the broadcast and it was pretty clear. I have done a few records before but this remains one of  the hardest ones catches/ Not much more to say other then the victims of the collapse are definitely in m,y thoughts

Like millions around the world I'm mourning the passing of legendary singer Jimmy Buffet. Facebook is obviously filled with tributes to the Mayor of Margaritaville, some pretty funny memories out there. One stuck out particularly, Zak Brown called Jimmy Buffet an "American Poet", which  seems fitting. Buffet lived in Key West where another writer, Ernest Hemingway called home and did most of his writing. I think Jimmy toured the Hemingway house a few times  for inspiration and even wondered how he wrote. It makes me wonder about the conversations between Hemingway and Buffet are having right now. I can see Hemming smoking a pipe while Buffet toking on the finest marijuana ever created. They are talking about writing, their adventures on the sea and how they lives impacted their craft. Man would I love to be a fly on that wall. I wonder if their ghosts are going to wander the streets of Key West Florida together?? You never know what will happen. While Buffet was a beloved...

 Well history always seems to repeat itself. I obtained"justinmattes.com after I struggled to get " bergenscanner.com back. At the time I knew about website design but not website management. I started on Tripod, a free hosting services with ads with some frequencies which grew into a  then a radio associate who worked for a web hosting company offered to partner up with me, he host the site on one of his company's server and I would edit it. Well everything was all and dandy until the hosting company went out of business. Even though I had access to change the site, it wasn't always easy, the site went dark a few times./ Pretty soon the company went out of business and the website went with it Including the domain name which got scooped up by a company that waits for domains to expire and then pounces. It's very common, another lesson I learned on the fly. Another friend helped me get the domain back and switched the site to another server. I had the domain under...

Hope folks who attended the big show in Denver made it home alright, with a few new treasures. My sister-in-law, Sue had a ball and I want to thank everyone for making her feel so welcome. She even started her own collection with oneplate. Somehow she s already talking about Michigan I found some great plates and even managed to snag another 99 plate. . The Forney Museum was the perfect place to host the dinner this year. I still think Tiger Joe will still be in the motorcycle section if we didn't escort him out. Thursday night we saw the Rockies get destroyed by the Dodgers! Friday night was of course the auction and I'm glad to report I have another # 99 in my collection. The highlight of the business meeting was watching Scott Mitchell and Clark Wothe be inducted into the ALPCA Hall of Fame. They would both very surprised!!! Well it certainly was one for the books! I wasn't sure how I was going to pull it out since mom passssed away, but Sue helped me pull off a little m...

 It's every scanner listeners' goal, to increase his or her range of  monitoring!  Ever since we bu

I forgot to post these series of emails to the blog!! Below is a  I have since been to Knoxville and back! Since this was written before  the trip I decided to do a number of posts about the epic trip I took to the 65th ALPCA Convention in Knoxville, Tennessee. I will devote a few posts to include the road trip with Ed Butler, a fellow New Jersey ALPCA member, the convention itself and the achievements I had along the way. Ed and I joined  ALPCA around the same time so we grew in the club together. He knew I wanted to go to this convention because the next convention is in Tulsa Oklahoma, a lot harder to get to from Cape May!! Knoxville was hard enough!! Like in previous post about travel I will break this down into multiple posts Ed and I casually talked about driving to Knoxville together  dates back to early April! As he mentioned in his e-mail we did indeed do some sightseeing, but more about that later!!!1 Ed's Original E-mail:  Hi Justin,  ...

As I( mentioned before t he scanning in Cape May is difference than the scanning in Bergen County. Fist of all Bergen County is divided into seventy towns, each, expect Teterboro has their own fire department and they have about 20 separate dispatch frequencies while Cape May has a countywide dispatch with a few notable exceptions, namely Upper Township. I haven't managed to memorize all the stations so I have a quick cheat sheet. Sadly some of the towns have gone to newer NJICS statewide system, When I first moved my two base scanners down here. Let's do the simpler scanner first I originally wanted to use the BCT-15 just for scanning Cape May City and marine traffic only but then I remembered I had the NY, Boston and DC Air Traffic Control Centers in there from up north. It became clear that the public safety and marine traffic might be limited so I decided to keep the Centers in there,, I added the local airports. Which is all I need. When something happens in Cap...

T o break up  the winter in Cape May  this year my mother planned a trip to Florida to visit my uncle in Jacksonville a few weeks ago! It was a different kind of trip; in that we didn't stay in one place we explored to entire East Coast of Florida. We spent the weekend with my Uncle Chuck who moved down to Jacksonville a few years ago for work. He has been back up north quite a few times but this year it was time to repay the visit. We spent a total of ten days in  Florida and spent most of the time at his house with a road trip to Palm Beach and then onto Key West in between. One of the unexpected excursion of the trip was a detour to the  Fort Clinch located on the St. Mary's River..  They have character reenactments and other demonstrations. I took the scooter all over t he grounds and explored the different buildings! The weather wasn't the greatest but it didn't interfere with my pictures too much as you can see above The major goal of the ...

Moving to Cape May has been quite an adjustment after 38+ years of living in Woodcliff Lake.  Even though I have adjusted well, made new friends, become a "local" I still every now and then think about what's happening up north. Even though getting around on my scooter is considerably easier, I still long for the drives to Fusco's for a root beer and chips or into Park Ridge to Park Pizza for a slice of pizza. Though now it's Westside Market in West Cape May and down to Jojo's or Mario's Pizza to satisfy my  craving. It's time I leave my final permanent connection behind, Bergenscanner.com. I listed on RadioReference that I wanted someone either However before I leave I want to take a trip[ down memory lane Listening to police scanners has given  me many many hours of pleasure. My first police scanner was a 10-channel Bearcat scanner I bought from Service Merchandise and I have been hooked ever since! When I first got the scanner I bought the big B...

Usually when I write about scanner related activity it has to do with a working fire or interesting police activity, but in Cape May the two biggest things are marine and aviation scanning. I'll address the marine scanning in another post maybne during the summer months when there's more activity on those frequencies, but it seems air scanning is always active. The planes are high in the sky so the signal goes a LOT further and Cape MaY has a lot less  RF interference than Bergen County so I can pick up signals way into Central Virginia on VHF air so I have tried programming the frequencies for all the ATCC down into Virginia. I listed the frequencies from north to south and have had a lot of success. I can still get a lot of the New York  ATCC as well! I also  have been doing some scanning via the Internet using the website LiveATC.net  which has almost all the ATCC frequencies across the country. I usually switch between the different centers but seem to listen to ...

Well here it is October in Cape May  and this month I'm all over the map, literally I e. Let's step back a few days into September, a lot was going on so there wasn't time to write it all on the blog piece by piece but here it is all together, a end of summer, beginning of fall wrap up. It's also a warm up to a winter of writing, including something coming up the beginning of next year which I'll introduce shortly. First right after Labor Day is the annual firemen's convention in Wi=ldwood ( I was going to say down but Wildwood is north of Cape May). It was a little extra special because Jason, a fellow license pllate collector and fir buff took me to the parade on Saturday. Unfortunately for me the backup camera batteries didn't last but I got some good shots in the mean time and have my spot picked out for next   My mom had another doctor's appointment  in North Jersey, one of her last for awhile. So my dad offered to bring my scooter so I would hav...

I have been listening to police scanners for over twenty five years,When the fire whistle blew I would grab my scanner and race down to the firehouse often when the trucks were just leaving and kwait until the trucks returned. Over the years I got to know all of them pretty well. I saw folks my age join as juniors at 16 and go through the training firefighters need. At times I tried tor give them some encouragement or just be around them. I went to all of the wetdowns and even showed up at a few calls when I knew I could observe at a safe distance. They all  smile when I show up  at the firehouse I watched kids my  age first become juniour firefighters and then regular firefighters. I wanted to be with them as m uch as I could!! One of my dreams was to make it to the Chief's Dinner at least once, but it was for memberrs, family and special guests like the Mayor. As soon as my parents bought  the house in  Cape May I knew the clock was ticking. It was always th...

Congress Street Command One of the most exciting things about moving to Cape May was getting a new desk and shelves. My room in Cape May is smaller than the one in Woodcliff Lake, so that has made me get rid of most of the junk, which makes mom very  happy. It all has made me setup my scanners better than sliding all over a shelf when I go to change a setting or two. The mount was purchased from Scanner Master and is designed perfectly to fit that corner of my desk. My old desk required me to take my eyes totally off the computer screen to see who was talking which usually meant my hands off the keyboard. Now a quick glimpse is simple and I have even perfected my touch typing even more. Those two white wires are going to an antenna splitter on top of the shevling  Everything is in a hands reach even the switch to the overhead lamp  just out of view of the picture!! The top scanner is my workhorse, the BCD99T which I loaded with 90% of the Cape May County frequencie...

As a writer you would think I'd have some profound words to express my deepest gratitude, I will try to do my best The whole night I had firefighters I've known for 10,15, 20+ years shake my hand including former fire chiefs! People who have laughed with me cried with me, shared a beer or two or three with me. Who have ALWAYS treated me as one of their own ! I also need to mention both Chief Joe Higgins and Honorary Chief George J. Fusco, both of whom I know are sitting up  there looking down and just smiling! To be made an Honorary Member of the Woodcliff Lake Fire Department by a fire chief who I went to school with as well as one of the most recognizable firefighting names in the Pascack Valley area is something I will ALWAYS treasure. I again want to thank Chief George Lucia Jr. and ALL the members of the Woodcliff Lake Fire Department for this incredible honor. I am PROUD to call all of you brothers! THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART P.S. To answer a personal question...

Well last Monday  night there was another  good thunderstorm down here in Cape May and  lightning hit two houses over on the other side of town. Of course the famous Cape May fire horns w ere going full blast however it was the thunder bthat woke me up! I grabbed the scanner tuned it to Cape May fire and boy was it busy. Lightning DID strike more than  once because a row of houses caught fire. Pretty soon trucks  from Lower Township and even Wildwood were racing into the city I was still half asleep but knew this was going to b e big!The radio traffic bounced between the main Cape May Fire frequency and their fireground. Since Lower Township is just north of Cape May they got dispatched to the scene first but stayed on their own frequency while their chief talked to Cape May directly.   The Coast Guard has \a base down in Cape May and hey're very active in the community! So when Cape May has a fire they call the Coast Guard for mutual aid. Cape May Cou...

A year ago I wrote an entry entitled Justin's Internet Reading List Part I    where I highlighted the blogs I read on a regular basis and comment often. Two of the people I have known even before I starting blogging so I really feel like reading their blogs is  like catching up with old friends, a way to stay in touch. Many bloggers on the Internet, whether they be blogging about politics, relationships, children growing up or more specialized, license plate collecting or raising a child with a disability or having a disability yourself usually do a lot of reading about topics that would write on their own blogs. For instance Ellen Seidman ( Love That Max )  often highlights other issues surrounding kids with disabilities in general, not just CP, I can tell based on her profile she's written for a number of parent magazines as well and has attended blogging conferences. David Schoenberger (DC Scanning ) uses his blog to supplement his website  to quickly post ...

Sitting here during this latest bout of bad weather I tried to come up with an entry.  Well nothing came to mind until I started reading other people's blogs. Then the light bulb went offf, why don't I share the blogs I read with other people? I picked five blogs  I read on a regular basis. Meaning whenever they post, I read. While I was at it I sent a blanket to them describing what I was doing. The Back Bumper by Jon Upton- Jon is a fellow license plate collector from Ontario Canada who composes in-dept posts about different aspects of the hobby. From collecting in general to more technical aspects like restoration. I like his humor and thoroughly enjoy  his take on the hobby. Being from Canada I have to get used to the spelling. I have been reading his blog the longest Love That Max by Ellen Seideman--  While searching for people with Cerebral Palsy who blog, I came across Love That Max written from a mom's point-of-view about her son Max with CP. What dr...