Wichita Falls Pundit
HOME PAGE - XITTER - BUY RADIOS - DIRECTORY
Wichita Falls, Texas: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We're home to the World's Littlest Skyscraper, a six-lane Farm to Market Road that doesn't lead to a farmers market, highway loops that don't loop, and a record for the city of five homicides in one day in 1982. Posts are in reverse chronological order.
BUY TWO-WAY RADIOS & SCANNERS!
COMING: International Space Station School Contact with Youth On The Air 2025, Denver, Colorado, direct via WØY (Nichole Ayers KJ5GWI) Contact is go for Option #1: Thu 2025-06-19 17:32:06 UTC 54 deg. Listen for the ISS side of the contact on your scanner radio at 145.800 MHz.
COMING: 06-20-2025 - International Space Station over Wichita Falls - Time: Thur, June 20, 5:17 AM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 71°, Appears: 21° WSW, Disappears: 10° NE. Listen on 145.800 & 437.800 MHz for possible Amateur (ham) Radio communications.
.....................................................................................................
06-19-2025 - A woman doesn't show up for work. Police are notified and begin a search. A cell phone ping leads them to her body in a field between Wichita Falls and Burkburnett. A man was arrested. His bond was set at $1 Million. Details will follow. Maybe not here, but you know where to find them.
06-19-2025 - 11:15 AM - I contacted a station in Juniper Creek State Game Land (US-6917) in North Carolina on 20 meters (14 MHz) CW (Morse code) in the Amateur (ham) Radio Parks on the Air® program. POTA hunter count: 539.
06-19-2025 - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing - National Current Ops / Monitoring – June 18-19, 2025
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• No new significant incidents / operations
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Thunderstorms – Northern Plains, Mid-Atlantic to Northeast
• Heavy Rain/Flash Flooding – Ohio Valley
• Critical Fire Weather – Central Great Basin, Southwest
• Tropical Activity
Eastern Pacific:
• Hurricane Erick (CAT-4)
• Disturbance 1: Low (20%)
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• Request: Major Disaster Declaration – KS
• FMAG Approval: Upper Applegate Road Fire – OR
Event Monitoring:
• No new significant events
06-19-2025 - From my Allred Unit consultant - The pay for Texas Correctional Officers has risen quite a bit over the last decade. While it's not a career move for everyone, I know more than a few people who say it's the best job they've ever had. One of the best features of the job is the "four on and four off" schedule. You have decent pay and four days in a row off for road trips. Once or twice a year, you can take four vacation days, couple that with the four days off on either side of those vacation days, and boom, you've got twelve days in a row off! How many other jobs offer that, on top of those other "state" benefits?
06-19-2025 - 5:00 AM - According to Water Data for Texas, Wichita Falls reservoirs are: Arrowhead: 100% Kemp: 100% Kickapoo: 100%. Monitored Water Supply Reservoirs are 100% full. The City of Wichita Falls uses combined levels of Arrowhead and Kickapoo (100%) to determine drought stage.
06-19-2025 - 5:00 AM - ERCOT (Texas) snapshot of grid conditions - ERCOT reports that conditions are normal and there is enough power for current demand with an operating reserve of 10,425 Megawatts.
06-19-2025 - 5:00 AM - NWS Forecast - Today: Sunny, with a high near 95. Heat index values as high as 103. South southeast wind 6 to 9 mph. Tonight: Clear, with a low around 76. South southeast wind around 10 mph.
06-19-2025 - 5:00 - Good Morning! It's Thursday. The Wichita Amateur Radio Society meets every third Thursday at 6:30 PM in the Professor Jackson Building behind the American Red Cross at 1809 5th Street in Wichita Falls. I'm sure they'd be happy to see you if you're interested in Amateur (ham) Radio. My Folgers Black Silk coffee is ready.
06-18-2025 - It's 5:30 PM and the Local Group - at least some of them - are active on CB Radio Channel 23. Tune in or join in!
06-18-2025 - According to a story on Texoma's Home Page (KFDX), the City of Wichita Falls is seeking input from the public concerning a proposed increase in the price of tickets for the city transit buses. The ticket price has been $1.50 for a one-way trip for the last 13 years. That's a long time without a price increase. The City is proposing an increase to $3.50 for a 24-hour pass. This increase sounds like a good deal. However, I've never taken a ride on a Wichita Falls bus, so I shouldn't comment. On the other hand, I always said I wanted to ride all the bus routes to say I did it. I could knock that out with a $3.50 24-hour pass!
06-18-2025 - 12:10 PM - The 20-meter Amateur (ham) Radio band has been a little sleepy today, but I was listening anyway. A station in a park in Massachusetts was making contacts, but I could barely hear him. Surfing the Internet with an ice cream in one hand and the mouse in the other, the park station suddenly boomed in. No problem, I just dropped the mouse, grabbed the Morse key, made a quick contact, jotted down the particulars to log later, and returned to my ice cream and the Internet! See the post below.
06-18-2025 - 11:56 AM - I contacted a station in H.O. Cook State Forest (US-4761) in Massachusetts on 20 meters (14 MHz) CW (Morse code) in the Amateur (ham) Radio Parks on the Air® program. POTA hunter count: 538.
06-18-2025 - Living in Wichita Falls, I decided to listen to"As Falls Wichita, so Falls Wichita Falls." It's been popping up on "X," formerly known as Twitter, for years, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It took me three attempts to get through it. I was totally underwhelmed. In the interest of disclosure, I'm a mid-range boomer, and I like the 60s and 70s "Top 40" stuff and classic rock. Well, I can say I tried to like "As Falls Wichita," but it didn't happen.
06-18-2025 - From my law enforcement consultant - Sometimes, when I shop at the United Supermarket at 2522 Iowa Park Road, I am reminded of the fire at the small apartment building that once stood at this address. In August of 1983, the apartment building caught fire in the early morning hours. The smoke was so intense you couldn't tell what was on fire. When firefighters extinguished the fire, a man was found dead in the bathtub in one of the apartments. He was fully clothed. Was he trapped in that location and intended to get wet as a defense against the flames? It appeared that the smoke got to him before he could take any other action.
06-18-2025 - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing - National Current Ops / Monitoring – June 17-18, 2025
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• No new significant incidents / operations
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Weather – Southern Plains to the Great Lakes
• Excessive Rainfall - Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes
• Critical Fire Weather - Southwest and Utah
• Tropical Activity
Eastern Pacific:
• Tropical Storm Erick
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• No new declaration activity
Event Monitoring:
• No new significant events
06-18-2025 - Several years ago, I removed the vertical element from my 10-40 meter Zero Five ground plane antenna to adjust the length. That day, I had been monitoring CB Radio Channel 19. When I went inside to get a tool, I heard that well-known truck stop ad booming in. Conditions must have been beyond excellent to get a performance like that from just the 6-inch piece of wire still connected to the matching transformer.
06-18-2025 - From my law enforcement consultant - Have you noticed reflective tape on the windows of some Wichita Falls businesses in your late-night driving adventures? I don't know what the practice is today, but back in the 1970s and '80s, police officers would, with permission from the business owner, put small pieces of reflective tape in the center of the windows. This made it easy for officers on the night shift to tell if the window was intact by shining a spotlight on the building as they drove by. Dirty windows could be seen easily, but clean ones could disappear. The cleaner the window, the more valuable the tape. It's unknown if this is still a thing.
06-18-2025 - 5:00 AM - According to Water Data for Texas, Wichita Falls reservoirs are: Arrowhead: 100% Kemp: 100% Kickapoo: 100%. Monitored Water Supply Reservoirs are 100% full. The City of Wichita Falls uses combined levels of Arrowhead and Kickapoo (100%) to determine drought stage.