Killing us with dishonesty

It is a nice bright and beautiful day in my SKB, up here on the hillside overlooking Port Zante and the Basseterre Bay. I am under lockdown and I have only seen the City when Social Security says my old age pension is ready.  This is one serious lockdown, but I am enjoying it because I have many things to occupy my time, and some days I even need more than 24-hours. My hobbies of Amateur Radio and Photography keep my mind and time gainfully employed, and I waste no time in watching TV and covid-19 the world over. All I need is a few minutes of BBC and Aljazeera to get an update, then it is back to channels 41 and 66, Cinemax and HBO.

Many of us do not seem to understand the importance of our mind and the need to respect it, and treat it the proper way. The Doctors managing the pandemic know about this but many are caught between a rock and a hard place, and  cannot use their expertise to ensure that we get the maximum benefit of that expertise, the correct “mind” treatment, so that we can deal with this pandemic properly. Our outlook on life is extremely important, as many of us will realize after covid-19, when we have to reorganize our life and style. I believe that life as we know it, and knew it, will never be the same again. Now is the time that people need to think straight, make the right decisions, so that they can hit the ground running after covid-19, 18 months or so down the road.

The future will take care of itself, but we need to take care of TODAY.  Here is where we live, we eat, we sleep and we visit the bathroom. These routines we must do every day, even when we are fasting. I get the impression that many of us are not attending to these functions as properly as we should, even under lockdown. Nothing just disappears. It is like  a computer, nothing gets deleted. Take a leaf from the US President’s hopeful book, where some skeleton always seem to find its way onto the stage. Every skeleton seem to have a connection to some aspect of dishonesty. This is nothing new and covid-19 seem to be fair game for people to not speak the truth all the time.  As a matter of fact in some places this covid-19 may be used as a screen, for may nefarious  activities, just watch the global media channels, and read between the news lines.

At home here in SKN I heard of people talking under their breath, and hinting on Facebook that we are being taken for a covid-19 ride. I am not surprised, as dishonesty is a new norm in SKB. I say SKB because I do not know if it happens in Nevis as well. Over the year I have had times to scribble a blog or two, highlighting dishonest practices that affect the general public, but we are a people that only bawl out when it drop hard on our big toe, otherwise than that we stop up our ear hole. But GOD does not sleep and in time all dishonest practices will be out in the open, and the BIBLE says that, some you will find, and some you will not find.

I do not have a problem whether you believe in GOD or not, because a day will come for all of us to know the truth for ourselves, not family, friends, husband, or wife. Just make sure you are on the right side. Dishonest people can get on the right side, by forsaking their dishonesty, but that is a hard thing for many of us, letting go of what does not matter, because we are trying to impress someone in this life, someone who does not really care about us, or our well being more than their own. At the end of days we leave all this behind, as it is worth nothing where we are going. However this is not an important issue for many of us, we live like we will live here forever, tomorrow will never come for us, we don’t care who we sock it to, so long as it is not ourselves.

In recent time I have seen where a dishonest practice is becoming law in SKB, and nobody can do anything about it, and that landscape will change forever. The conspiracy theorist are on the 5G matter, but this is no conspiracy theory it is fact, and illegal, but nobody can fix it. A few years ago the utility company introduced smart meters to SKB. When the system was switched on it was discovered that this new system generated signals on the radio bands that blocked frequencies and caused interference with licensed radio services. This affected the legally licensed amateur radio service in Saint Kitts. The amateur radio society in Saint Kitts informed and negotiated with the utility company to stop the illegal interference, and four years down the road nothing has been done by the utility company to stop the illegal radio transmissions from their equipment.

Fortunately for the amateur radio society there is a Telecommunications Regulator in Saint Kitts and the amateur radio society raised a complaint with them, the NTRC. On October 7th 2019 the NTRC issued the utility company with an order to stop the illegal transmission of radio signals that was interfering with other licensed radio services.  At time of this writing  on May 7th, seven [7] months have passed and the utility company has not  stopped transmitting the illegal signals on the HF frequencies which interfere with other licensed radio services. It is like the utility company has told the NTRC to go to hell, you don’t run any show here.  This would never happen in the USA, Canada, or UK where entities are law abiding and would seek to uphold the law of the land.

But it even gets worse and people get upset, and red in the face, when I talk about this,  even though it is the TRUTH. Amateur radio in SKB attracts amateur radio operators from the USA, Canada, UK, Japan and other countries. Recently visiting amateur radio operators noticed the utility generated interference on their amateur radio systems, and complained to the utility company.  I am told that the utility company had the smart meter equipment which was causing the interference to be removed from the locations and premises used by the visitors.

I am happy that the visitors do not have any interference with their amateur radio systems anymore, since October 7th, 2019, when the NTRC issued the stop order to the utility company. But that order  to the utility company to stop generating the radio frequency interference, only applied to the handful of visitors and not to the local indigenous amateur radio operators, some 50 or more. And then people want to say that I should not speak about this “dishonesty”, that is happening in our country before our very eyes. We are back where we started, and the utility is responsible for perpetrating this heinous crime against our people. This should never happen in our country, in these days.

I suspect that the powers that be will try to use this covid-19 as an excuse to NOT address this matter.  That is no excuse, since 2017, the utility company could be 3 million dollars richer, while the local amateur radio operators are deprived of the use of critical radio frequencies. To date I have not received any communication from the NTRC or the amateur radio society informing that the utility company has complied with the NTRC order, to stop the illegal transmitting on the radio frequencies. There is a lot of dishonesty going around and when you talk about it some people want you to say that the TRUTH does not exist. This is the beginning of the end for our Saint Kitts, as we once knew it.

Why is this bothersome to me? I have been an amateur radio operator since January 31, 1968, and there has never been any illegal radio frequency transmissions and interference until the utility company introduced smart meters into Saint Kitts.  I am not getting into who was right or wrong, who did not contact the NTRC, we know that an illegal matter exist and it should have been fixed since 2017.  Now I hear that the utility company is rolling out a pay-as-you-go system to help to better cope with the covid-19. I hear this system run on the same system that is generating the illegal radio frequencies that jam and interfere with legally licensed services in Saint Kitts. It is all about making money, nobody cares whether the law is broken in a million pieces or not, as long as they are making money from the poor people of Saint Kitts.

In other news, it is a bright and beautiful day in our country, a great day for tourists, but since they can’t be here, we have to enjoy all of it for them and us.  Watch for the opening of the borders, more dishonesty in that and covid-19 wave 2, be safe, look out for your neighbour, social distancing, and have a wonderful day.