Mattes's Musings by KC2GIK

I convinced my folks to drive out to my brother Chris's   house by Trenton to meet Ed instead of having Ed drive down to Cape May! As I said in the previous entry , Ed explained  in an email he wanted to do some sightseeing on the way down to Knoxville. I was a b it concerned ' a long four day car ride wouldn't be good for my back, but I figured I would give it a try.  Some of the members of the license plate group are also members of the Extra Miler Club which is a group of folks that try to visit every county in the United States. There's a website called mob-rule.com which allows you to keep track of how many counties you visited.  I have been trying to keep up and remember all of my travels. Ed mapped out our route to maximize the number of counties we could complete between New Jersey and Tennessee. That's why you see we dipped into Ohio and Indiana which were also two new states under my belt.  The back roads were windy  but ...

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 ...

During the last few days everyone has been taking sides over the standoff between Nick- Sandmann and  Nathan Phillips at the March for Life protest over the weekend. I have seen more footage =than most and my conclusion is Nathan Phillips, a supposed "elder" of an Indian tribe for whatever reason starting harassing Pro-Life high school students, some of them wearing Donald Trump hats. The students of course tried to ignore him but when it was obvious he wasn't budging, an "incident" occurred. I label it an "incident" because it seems to me Nathan Phillips went up to the students, started beating his drum and the students reacted. The actual interaction is up for debate, some called it an argument, while others said it was a scuffle.All I saw was Nick Sandmanmn just standing there while Nathan Phillips Truth of the matter is even with over an hour of video floating out there on the Internet, the "meeting" is still up for debate. Adding to the ...

I sent t he following e-mail to a select friends, then I realized I haven't written an entry in quite awhile!! Talk about killing two birds with one stone. It takes the place of about ten entries so if you're reading it have a happy and safe 2019! Justin Friends, Happy New Year-- 2019!! First and foremost this IS NOT a chain email! I'm not promising a million dollars for every time you forward this e-mail. Just want to wish all of you a happy new year and highlight what I have been up to in 2018. From getting my first article published about a fire here in Cape May, celebrating my 40th birthday with my dad, brothers, uncle and a handful of friends,to travelling with the family to Italy, it has been a wonder 2018. I won't dwell on each one too much but need to express both my gratitude  for th e past and hopes for the future As I turned 40 I realized I need to get into the 21st century so I traded in my LG SLIDE PHONE for an  Iphone 5S!! Yes ladies and gentleman ...

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...