The AM Forum

It's not just copper that's being stolen.  Get a load of this.  Some wonderful example of humankind took a chunk out of an active railroad track causing a derailment. 

http://www.tauntongazette.com/news/business_news/x530602459/Police-investigate-theft-of-railroad-tracks-in-Taunton-today-train-derailed

Give them time and they'll steal a locomotive!

A few days ago, a would-be metal thief was turned into a crispy critter near Wilkes-Barre, PA. He was trying to steal power lines that he thought were abandoned, since they led to a closed factory. He hit a 13 kV primary!

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

No, it is not just copper getting stolen.  All metals are high in scrap value.   Part of the reason is emerging and rapidly maturing economies in India and China resulting in a very large demand there for domestic manufacturing and construction.   These two countries need a lot of metal and they have the money to pay for it.  The same is true for oil, but in the case of metal, steel and aluminum are high in scrap value also.   I've read reports of weird things happening like theft of road guard rails, and lamp poles in rural areas that are not covered much by police, aluminum siding... 

This is why the general cost of hardware is high and hams go into sticker shock over just about any antenna project, if they have not put anything up in a long time.   

Remember the story a couple of years ago someone stole a standing 120' tower from the site. The owner didn't know it till he came out to the property and the tower was missing. The remaining stubs of guy anchors looked like they had been cut with a torch.

They just arrested three ding dongs from New Jersey for stealing military cemetery markers and vases, 380 to be exact. The recycle center turned them in.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/South-Jersey-Women-Steal-Military-Grave-Markers-Cops-.html (http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/South-Jersey-Women-Steal-Military-Grave-Markers-Cops-.html)

Larry

I have heard the phrase "meth head recyclers".  I bet those three ladies qualify for the title.

Just a few days some turds stole the front panel off of our Emergency Management Repeater cabinet. That was the only thing taken.

They had to tresspass over 300 yards to a barn where the repeater was enclosed and cut very large bolts and padlocks.

Sheriff suspected methheads as well.

Phil - AC0OB

Around here a local heavy truck fleet (200+ units) became the target of our scrapping mud muffins.  When a mechanic went out to see why the rigs wouldn't start....all cables were missing from the batteries to the starters...they never seem to run out of ideas. :( :(

Ken--K2UPI

Yea but, you know the irony of it all is that those a$$holes will work harder to steal a buck than they would to make it honestly! ! ! ! ! !  It is really a shame what our society is becoming :o  ???

I would have compassion and understanding for a man who steals bread (or what ever) to feed his family, but none at all for someone who steals so they can get their next fix...

Most states don't allow lethal force in defense of personal property, maybe that should change.

Here in Luzerne County, PA, someone was stealing brass grave markers and flag holders from the graves of veterans. Nothing is lower than stealing from the dead, especially if the deceased died in service to the country. Some of those markers dated back to World War II.

A couple of years ago, someone stole the ground system under my folded unipole antenna in New Jersey. I fired up the station by remote control one night, saw grossly abnormal line current going into the ATU, and could barely hear my carrier. Upon visiting the site, I found some $350 worth of copper strap and radial wire missing. I replaced the missing radials with barbed wire and the system works well. Since barbed wire has no resale value, I have not had any more problems. WOR did that around 1972, when copper prices spiked and thieves stole $6,000 worth of copper wire from their transmitter site. The NJ State Police did catch my copper thief. The thief left a piece of strap behind and I gave that to the detective, who found out who was fencing it.

Last spring I took 850Lbs of scrap iron to the yard and got 5 cents/pound.
This spring cleaning yielded 662 lbs, mostly chain link fencing, and netted 9.5 cents/pound.
A doubling in prices brings out many!

Did you get any restitution or get your copper back?

They ought to make the guy pay for new copper at current prices, and then make him manually re-install the radials to your satisfaction under your supervision, before they tick the first day off his sentence.

No, no restitution. And the copper probably ended up somewhere in China or India. The thieves had been stealing copper plumbing from the outdoor showers of beach houses on Long Beach Island in the fall, when my copper was stolen.

I replaced the copper with barbed wire. It works quite well in a radial system and it has close to zero resale value.

So if the thieves didn't get off the hook with "pre-trial diversion", the taxpayers end up paying their room and board for the duration of their sentence, and the victim gets nothing, s.o.l. You could file a civil suit to recover damages, but you can't get blood out of a stone, and justice (lawyer and court fees) is a commodity that is bought and sold for a price for those who can afford it.

The only folks who win in lawsuits are the lawyers...   People in jail ought to be put to work doing something, anything, to help earn their keep.  Who knows, maybe some good old fashioned hard work ethic would rub off and it'd reduce recidivism. 

Cruel and inhumane punishment, ED?
What's next.... water boarding...... bamboo sprouts under the fingernails...... NO MTV???

Being forced to eat Spam! !  ;D

Hey... some people LIKE Spam :o

spam egg sausage and spam?

That's not got much spam in it...
...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.  8)

I'll stick to good, old American food...Spam fried with eggs...although Taylor Ham (pork roll, a New Jersey specialty) is preferable to the Spam. Taylor Ham with eggs and cheese on a hard roll (kaiser roll), washed down with a cup of strong coffee...that is the ultimate Jersey breakfast. As for the other stuff: If I can't pronounce it, I don't want to eat it! No Blattes Frites avec Sauce au Vin et Beurre for me!

Scrap in Phoenix is a bit over $200/ton.  #1 copper brings around $3/lb.

I've been at a yard selling my junk and seen people drive in cars & trucks for scrap.  Yep, they drove it in under it's own power and sold it.

It is also causing all the neat old AZ rust-free iron to be hauled off, not much left for the restorers or rodders.

Some scrap yards here have flashing neon signs now to convince you to sell to them....

Crazy.

73DG

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/124790519.html


Blaine man burned in attempted 2009 copper theft charged

    * Article by: JOY POWELL , Star Tribune
    * Updated: July 1, 2011 - 1:07 AM

David P. Stachowiak, set on fire when allegedly trying to steal wiring from Eagan power substation, is one of three facing charges.

   
The power went out for about 15 seconds at the Eagan police station, and then the dispatchers got the report: A man was on fire.

Officers soon came upon a power outage just west of Pilot Knob Road and then a man in scorched clothes, in severe pain with burns. They got him to a hospital, then to jail.

Court papers say David P. Stachowiak, 34, of Blaine, had been trying to steal copper wiring at a power substation in December when he accidentally used himself to complete a circuit. He was thrown through the air and set on fire while knocking out power to homes and businesses, court documents say.

Charges filed this week in Dakota County District Court accuse Stachowiak and two other suspects of causing at least $80,000 in losses to a Dakota Electric substation just off Pilot Knob Road on Dec. 23, 2009.

Also charged were Brad J. Krekelberg, 33, and Alanna L. Magnuson, 30, both of St. Paul.

Magnuson later told police that she and the men had been involved in a string of such thefts. She said she sometimes served as a "scout" and would cash the checks from salvage yards where they'd sold the metal, a complaint says.

A St. Paul recycling plant employee to whom police showed photos of the suspects said they had sold more than 4,000 pounds of copper wire since 2008, the court papers say.

Magnuson told police that when Stachowiak had accidentally completed the circuit, he was launched 15 feet in the air, hit the ground, then ran 40 yards or so to the corner of the fence. He climbed 10 feet and fell back to the ground, still on fire.

She also told police that some copper in the trunk of the vehicle was from a prior theft that night at a cellphone tower.

The trio face three felony counts: theft or damage to telecommunications or energy transmission equipment, first-degree criminal damage to property and possession of burglary tools.

Joy Powell • 952-882-9017

Hey I'll make that one morning for breakfast!!!!!!!!!!

" ... he was launched 15 feet in the air, hit the ground, then ran 40 yards or so to the corner of the fence. He climbed 10 feet and fell back to the ground, still on fire. "

I always like stories around the campfire.


klc

Barf!

I'll just take my usual. Whole grain cereal or pastry, or toast with jam or peanut butter (but not both mixed together-yuck), o.j., small serving of yogurt, and strong coffee with no milk or sugar.

We've had a problem in NM with Toyota catalytic converters, for the platinum catalysts. A 'good' thief could crawl under a Tacoma or Four Runner along the street, and have the thing cut off in less than 10 minutes with a portable metal saw. After numerous incidences, the law caught up with several of the thieves who are now locked up.

Hey John- Did the fire over there affect you? Did you need to evacuate? You OK?
My bro-in-law works for the lab and lives in town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

What, no ham, sausage and gravy, eggs, and grits with red eye gravy? The gang down there in 4-land will think you're either a closet Yankee...or some kind of Communist! ;) I can bust my budget just eating a good Southern breakfast at the local Waffle House...yes, we have those in Pennsylvania now.

Praise the Lard!

You know they've already come up with technology to make the railroad tracks invisible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCRDWjavBrM&feature=player_detailpage#t=39s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCRDWjavBrM&feature=player_detailpage#t=39s)

Oh, man! I recently made it from 195 to 180 lbs. Dr. was impressed...
I LOVE that artery-clogging stuff! Many years ago when I lived in Chicago I was working on the south side and ate at a local soul-southern food restaurant with the local factory workers.

Man, that's some good stuff!

Now out West here, I have to put up with the most incredible biscuits, scabled eggs and sausage gravy at a nearby truck stop on I-25.

Look at their breakfast menu and get destroyed, Phil.

(My wife is a granolahead so we don't go there very often. We do oatmeal, yogurt and/or grits for breakfast )

http://johnsonscorner.com/Pages/LunchMenu.php
























i

whats a grit???

klc

Grit is a newspaper. Make big money, sell Grit.

I'm impressed. Good show. Dropping 15 isn't easy. Your body will thank you even if your taste buds don't.  :D

Grits for eating is a thick off-white paste of ground corn, served hot and usually with eggs & meat.

Very popular at Cracker Barrel restaurants.

I am not a fan of grits, regardless of consistency. :P

73DG

Paste? Maybe at Cracker Barrel. Good grits aren't anything like paste. But it is hard to get good grits at many restaurants. They often are too runny or too thick (like paste). Be like Goldielocks and hold out for the ones that are “just right!”

My wife lived in Florida Keys and knows good "Grunts and Grits". They're not supposed to be pasty or runny like Steve says.

Me, I like mine with a dab of butter and maple syrup.

Terrific with scabled eggs.

You know...A traditional American breakfast used to be cold cereal, maybe toast..Dinner was the big meal..Then in the 1930s, Hormel came into the act with advertisements promoting bacon, ham, sausage and eggs for a manly breakfast. Regrettably, we don't work with horses in the fields or in mines with pick axes any more..But we do have chlorestorol meds...

Yep, almost every comic book had a small ad in the back about making BIG $$ selling Grit. The Greatest Family Newspaper!

What's hard to find is cornbread done right.   Especially in the North.  Yankees think cornbread is this sweet cake.   :P  Yech!!

Real Southern cornbread is made with good mill ground cornmeal, whole buttermilk (almost impossible to find now), egg, a bit of salt and baking soda.  THERE IS NO SUGAR IN IT AT ALL.     Now, the key thing:  You have to have a cast iron skillet that is seasoned (that's a whole topic on its own) and you put veg. oil in it, just enough to make a layer of oil in the bottom about the thickness of a pencil lead.  Roll the oil around the skillet and put it in the oven at about 350 400 degrees and leave it there for at least 15 minutes.  I used to leave it in while I was mixing the batter.   When you done with the batter, you haul out the skillet.  You need a big oven mitt it is hot as hell and you roll the oil around it again and dump that batter in it kabam it will sizzle and you put the whole thing back in and let it bake.  Been over 20 years since I baked any so I forget how long--20 minutes maybe 30 IIRC, but when it is done, it will be crispy around the skillet and the whole thing will fall out of the skillet onto a plate and you slice it and put a lot of butter on it and with black coffee you are in heaven.  but there ain't no @#$%^ sugar in it!  (feel like I'm back in Mississippi now).   If it weren't so hot out, I'd think about getting out my old skillet and getting back into it again.   Oh yeah, this is where most yankees screw up:  when you done, you just wipe the skillet with a paper towel and put it away.    Northerners all say, eeeew, it is dirty.   What you gonna use it for, Jello?   Nothing gonna survive in there if all you ever do is heat it to 400 degrees.  they go at it with steel wool and soap.   ???  Then they wonder, "what's this seasoning you talking about?"

Our folks are Yankees from the Upper Penninsula , MI (But my father is from Commerce Georgia) . We never put sugar in cornbread and the buttermilk was made at home.  Now, if I could just go down south and get tea that isn't already polluted with sugar .....

  Still, no patents on the "right way" to make any dish, how boring if there were. ;)

My mother never cleaned this way and she's from the North¹. Gotta watch those generalizations, except for the fact that all slopbuckets are evil.  :P

"


1 - A generalization in and of itself.

Rob,

You missed one thing :)  Forget the vegetable oil, it has to be bacon grease.   My favorite southern cookbook makes it clear that you reserve one cast iron pan for cornbread and never use it for anything else.

My grandmother was from the hills of TN and was an incredible cook.  Several years ago I gave up trying to even come close to her ability.  One of my favorite childhood memories was the smell of Christmas candy.  One spare bedroom in her house was reserved for all of the Christmas candy/cookie storage and the combined aroma from that room was absolutely incredible.   One of my elementary school teachers later told me that teachers who had one of the Singley kids in class could trade part of the box of candy they received for just about anything any of the other teachers got for Christmas.

Of course BACON GREASE what was I thinking  :o  mama would keep a jar of it under the sink.  She used it in pie crust.

the hell with the pie crust!! Use lard for pie crust!  I want some good ol' southern fried chicken cooked in a cast iron skillet and fried in bacon grease! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

YUM...................YUM..................... ;D  ;D

GRITS!!

Yesterday's (or this morning's) left over grits fried up into little cakes (like potato cakes) and doused in syrup! ! !  ;)  :D  :D

Bill
I live in the Rio Grande valley so home was spared. The fire is huge, like 130,000 acres last count. Its cleared Los Alamos now, and burning slowing to the north. The gov't threw everything at it, and the fire complied, a little. Yesterday we went back to work after 6 days of paid time off plus holiday. A big flare up occurred on the mountain above, so I was wondering... But its back under control. Today its just smoky and burns my eyes, and the wind is whipping it up again.

That fire there is something else.

Well, If you ever have to evacuate family in the future, you're welcome here a few hours drive north.

We've had our own share of wildfires in the past, I know how it goes. It sucks.

This early summer has been mild here, with lots of rain. Perfect WX. Not out of the upper 70s here today, and afternoon rains almost every day.

"   Praise the Lard!   "

The way we  make it is very similar to what Rob described, but no yeggs. No wheat flour or sugar either. Cast iron skillet just as Rob described. The original recipe probably used lard, but we use vegetable oil, which was heated in the skillet and then poured and mixed into the batter leaving the oily residue at bottom of the skillet. But now we use that no-stick spray stuff in the skillet and just mix the oil  directly in with the batter.  For some reason, after we moved  down here, doing it the old fashioned way with the oil makes it tend to stick to the pan  - even a "seasoned" skillet. Rob is correct. You want one skillet dedicated to use only for corn bread.

Batter is made from 1 cup of buttermilk, mixed with 1 cup + a little extra of white stone-ground, whole grain corn meal. Avoid the self-rising stuff. Add 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of baking soda, and 1/4 tsp of baking powder. Mix it all together and pour into the skillet, and place in pre-heated oven @ 350 degrees.  Let cook for 20-30 minutes, until it turns a light brown.

When  done, take it out of the oven (don't forget the oven mitt), turn the skillet upside down and dump the whole thing into a plate. Cut into six pieces, like you would cut a pizza.  The crust should be a nice, smooth golden brown. Good sliced and buttered.  Also good  for sopping up the juice from turnip greens, collard greens, swiss chard or cabbage. Delicious for breakfast, served like pancakes, smeared with home-made wild blackberry jam.

It's an old southern recipe, but interestingly, we originally started making it while living in Cambridge, MA, using ingredients from a local health food store.  We purchased whole grain white corn and manually ground up our own meal with a hand-grinder. It always came out perfectly.  When we moved down here, using the same recipe, it would always stick to the pan; that's why we started using that Baker's Joy crap in the skillet instead of hot oil. The crust doesn't come out quite so well, but at least the bread doesn't fall to pieces as we try to scrape it loose to get it out of the pan.

We probably still make it 2-3 times per month.

I forgot about dumping the oil into the batter but that's right; I remember doing it that way.   Thanks Don.  Back when I was making it regularly I never bothered measuring anything.  I remember that I had to make it regularly.  If for some reason I didn't (I think I took a break from it in the hottest part of summer) it would take a couple of tries to get it right again.   Mom always said biscuits have to be made regularly (every day) for them to be good.  Her mother made them regularly but mom did not.  I am no biscuit expert but I know a good one when I eat it.   That is not very often at all.

Any of you have the Southern cookbook that was given away as a promotion by the makers of Pebeco toothpaste?