Oct 25th, 2014

I went out and got Lowes to donate a couple sheets of 3/5" plywood for our forms! Very good of them!

I also ran into an old childhood friend. He owns a construction business. He's willing to supervise our work for free advertising! We now have a licensed and bonded contractor! Yay for Weatherall Construction!

It's good to have friends!

-Jon Cowie-

"Jon is a native of Helena, Montana. Jon is an industry professional with fourteen years experience in the field. He has worked in varying fields in construction giving him a broad background of extensive experience. Jon has also owns a decorative concrete business giving him a competitive edge in contracting, being able to provide quality specialty services at a fair price to his clientele. He comes from an artistic background using that experience to provide a unique custom home or project for each client no matter the budget." (from http://www.weatherallbuilders.com/)

We need a structural engineer to look at my plans and stamp them. I have personally created all of the AutoCAD drawings and the wind/stress calculations. All he needs to do is stamp it! I can't meet the engineer any more on his terms. We lack the money to properly pay a structural engineer. All I can offer is $400 and six months of daily advertising! What more is there?! How can I raise these funds?! We have everything else. We just need the tower stamp so we can get the city building permit! It seems we have steps 1-5 and steps 8-12 complete! The engineers just keep falling through!

1. Get written permission from a land owner to erect tower
2. Get FCC permission to use 107.9FM in our area
3. Get FAA permission to erect a tower within 10 miles of an airport.
4. Get FCC construction permit
5. Draw up tower plans
6. Get plans reviewed and stamped
7. Get Transmitter/EAS
8. Generate content
9. Gather at least $400/mo in sponsors and advertisers
10. Obtain the tower
11. Obtain the concrete/rebar/sand/forms for foundation
12. Find a Licensed and Insured contractor willing to fulfill the plans

Ghah! This wasn't supposed to be the hard part!

s

September 12th, 2014

I've got to move forward somehow. We need that ASR# from the FCC to put up our new tower!

Turns out we have to give "local notice"

Obligatory advert. in the paper:

Montana Advanced Robotics and Computer Science is proposing to install a lattice FM radio tower at Site Number MTHL31337, located at 30 S. Ewing St Helena Mt, 59601; 46 35 6 north 112 2 16 south. The height of the tower will be 30.0 feet (9.144 meters) above ground level (1281.2 feet or 390.5 meters above mean sea level). No marking or lighting is proposed for the tower. Interested persons may review the application for this project at www.fcc.gov/asr/applications by entering Antenna Structure Registration (Form 854) file no. XXXXXXX. Interested persons may raise environmental concerns about the project under the National Environmental Policy Act rules of the Federal Communications Commission, 47 CFR 1.1307, by notifying the FCC of the specific reasons that the action may have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment. Requests for Environmental Review must be filed within 30 days of the date that notice of the project is published on the FCC's website and may only raise environmental concerns. The FCC strongly encourages interested parties to file Requests for Environmental Review online at www.fcc.gov/asr/environmentalrequest, but they may be filed with a paper copy by mailing the Request to FCC Requests for Environmental Review, Attn: Ramon Williams, 445 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20554. A copy of the Request should be provided to Mike Santy at 30 South Ewing, Suite 200, Helena, MT 59601 orsaintmeh@gmail.com. Published Sept. 12, 11, 2014

Sept 8, 2014

The Kickstarter campaign wasn't even close to successful. I don't have thousands of friends and I didn't get anyone famous to post about it. This is a big setback... but I'm no stranger to winning in adverse conditions!

Excelsior!

August 28, 2014

Holy shit! Help from a couple Ninjas! The Ninja Network works!

Temtel, built us a J-Pole radio antenna. It's specially tuned to 107.9FM. We now only have to buy a 75W transmitter!

Temtel is awesome:

Temtel - for listening and for being one of the most decent and genuine people I know.

Pics or it didn't happen:

Hook later(at an undisclosed date) carted this all the way up from California to Montana! ^_^ He was "in the area". Never far apart those guys...

Aug 14, 2014

So I sent an email to the Nerd Fighters--Hank and John Green.

I'm hoping they'll mention us to their fans... It would ensure the success of our Kickstarter campaign. We didn't get a response back.

Hi Hank and John,

I'm Jonny Santy and I'm an old-school nerdfighter:

I run a hackerspace and I'm a computer security adjunct for the UM branch in Helena MT. I only have crazy hair when I'm in a professional environment. The above pink spikes were due to a student making off-comments towards an effeminate man.

I believe in continually challenging our beliefs. In order to do that, I need to get our voice out there. My hackerspace, Montana Ethical Hackers(MEH), is making a radio station. We have approval from the FCC for the station and we have approval from the FAA for the tower location. I'm crowd-funding our project and I would be interested to know if you could support this awesomeness by either saying something about us, tweeting us, or even making a video regarding the difference between a cyber criminal and an ethical hacker. We have created a season of "Tick Tock Tech Talks", where we quickly explain technology in an exciting way. We'd love to have you guys on the show.

A little bit about MEH

We're a tongue in cheek hackspace which uses humor and our minds to fight world suck. We have 40 members, though only half of them are actually active. We also have a few thousand square feet of office space and a desire to do good in the world. We're the first hackerspace within 480+ miles of us and the first one within Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. We're to a point where we are vaguely stable.

Both you and my hackerspace were in the same publication of the Montana Journalism Review. I thought your article was extremely well written. I have to confess, it made me envy your writing skills. In fact, I hesitated to expose my own clumsy writing to you. Therefore, I will borrow other people's words when I can:

http://mjr.jour.umt.edu/?p=2296 <-- Your article

http://mjr.jour.umt.edu/?p=2398 <-- MEH's Story

What we need

Aside from publicity, we would like to play some of your songs. As an experiment, we're trying to run this radio station on nothing other than author permission and Creative Commons. I would only need your permission in an email. An email worded as simply as "Hey! Yeah, you could use my songs for up to two years." would be sufficient.

We're also looking for name drops. We have some from MC Chris, Dr. Demento, and MC Frontalot. It would be really cool if you could say something like "This is John/Hank Green Broadcasting from 107.9 in Helena MT. Don't Forget To Be Awesome." We will be broadcasting Nov. 15th.

Thank You Already

Regardless of your decision, I would like to thank you two for creating Nerfighteria and generally not forgetting to be awesome. I met my girlfriend on the Ning and, after two years, we could still not be more in love with each other.

Here is a link to my kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/992789024/1079fm-hacker-radio

I hope you can seriously consider helping us out.

DFTBA

Saint AKA Jonny Santy -- President of Montana Ethical Hackers

PS: I have attached a preview of our mini segment "False Advertising." This is a tiny sample of the content we have already produced for the station. We're still getting the hang of audio equipment, but it still sounds alright.

PPS: I sent a very similar copy of this email to Hank. I worry that it might have gotten buried in his inbox. I haven't found John's email address yet. If I can't find a suitable public announcement with his email, I will respect his privacy and not email him.

August 8th, 2014
We have what we need. We know what every bolt will cost. We even have the most-expensive item out of the way. Let's crowd fund!

The First Ethical Hacker FM Radio Station

We want to create a radio station for hackers and computer savvy people in Helena, MT. We will also stream our content and make it available online as an archive so that fans can access any episode whenever they want! All of the shows that we've generated will be entirely Creative Commons and copyright safe.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/992789024/1079fm-hacker-radio

August 7th, 2014

Ferret spent the morning and some of the afternoon calling different truckers and trucking companies who were headed through Florida. DHL managed to do a less than load and packed the tower in with some other stuff for $461

Mischief managed! Bill of Lading:

July 17th, 2014

We now have a 30' Rohn 25g Tower! Yay EBay! Now we just need to ship it from Florida to... Mon.. tan... uhh... shit. That's pricey.

Shipping and handling $0.00 USD Insurance - not offered ---- Total $247.00 USD Payment $247.00 USD Payment sent