The Genesis Radio Amateur Society(N1ZIZ) has a new repeater at their installation in Plymouth.  The repeater is on 2 meters.  It features a fantastic signal which is blanketing almost all of the area south of Boston.  The repeater can be heard with a good signal throughout Plymouth, Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, and Norfolk counties. People from Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyards have checked into the club’s nets on Tuesdays.

I am a member of the Society.  They are good bunch of guys.  The repeater can be found on the frequency of 146.685 at pl 82.5.  If you do not hear me on clearly on .685 while in the city of Quincy, then you radio might be desensing as I am carried by the Quincy repeater on 146.670.  The repeater has trouble with users checking in from the city of Quincy.

Anyways, this is the only repeater that really covers all of the Plymouth county area.  I do not think that any of the other repeaters in Plymouth County cover places like Hull, MA.

N1EY

AL7GD and I were testing the Yeasu FT-7800 in the mobile installation, today.  My FT-7800 is not producing full power out of the finals.  We tested it with a wattmeter at the so-239 connector on the radio body.  It is only producing approximately 40 watts on 2 meters.  The power level is also down on 440 Mhz.  The swr to the Diamond 2/440 whip on the comet mount is just fine.  It is is very low on 2 meters and it peaks up to 1.5 on 440.

Additionally, one of the other guys gave up on his Diamond mount as well.  I do not recommend Diamond lip mounts to anyone.  I had incredible luck with the Comet mount.  I have discovered that I am not alone in the Diamond lip-mounts failing with the bolts missing.

N1EY

I have been involved in town politics. The public has to understand that the levy is the levy. The 2-1/2 cap is on the entire levy. The key to maintaining Abington’s growing budget has been to over-assess the new condos such as the Gables. Would you like to have a condo for which you paid $225,000 and owe $4,000 in taxes annually? I have a friend that is in such a situation. The only way to add onto the levy in excess of the 2-1/2 is by “new growth.” We have been very lucky to have all of the condos being built and the “suckers” paying tax bills higher than many of the smaller homes throughout Abington.

A split rate would not increase the levy. The levy would remain the same. It would not resolve the issue of overspending. The levy is only a portion of the overall budget. Expect the budget as planned by the selectmen to fall short, as they are not accounting for lackluster car sales and declining auto excise taxes. I would also expect that inspection fees to fall. There will be some other shortfalls. The FY 2008 budget is approximately $43M. Only half of the budget comes from the levy. The selectmen are assuming that the remainder of the budget is going to remain roughly the same, but it shall fall sharply in several places.

The full time building inspector is almost revenue-neutral. Has anyone seen how much they charge for an inspection? The schools are the chief over spender. Everyone may review the facts at the DLS and the DOE. I would point out to you that we actually have MORE roads than Rockland. We have an equivalent budget and our highway department performs a much better level of service than Rockland’s Highway group.

The school consumes $17M of the budget. It consumes half of the debt payments made annually. It consumes approximately 1.75M of the health insurance costs. It consumes approximately $700K each year in regards to making pension payments. Remember these folks work the equivalent of 30 hour weeks to your 50 hour weeks. They retire at 62 and collect 80% of their pay as a pension.

We would be able to reduce our costs regarding the South Shore Vo-Tech in HALF. How? The funding formula favors school systems such as whitman-hanson; they send the same amount of students to the Vo-Tech as Abington. However, they pay HALF of our COST. If we allowed HOLBROOK to PAY US for their students to come to OUR high school, then we SAVE money and EARN money. Our Selectmen do not even know how to WORK THE SYSTEM FOR US.

The salaries of our teachers and administrators are too HIGH. The average teacher salary in Rockland is $52,725. The average salary in Abington is $57,314. This is a difference of $4,589. We currently have 146 teachers, which is twelve more than the amount of teachers in 2004(134; remember the lies about the lay-offs; WE HAVE MORE TEACHERS). If you multiply the excess per teacher by the amount of teachers then we realize that our salary budget is $669,994 TOO HIGH.

Think about it.