 Welcome to the RF elements analysis podcast. I'm Caleb and with always we've got Tossos over there right over there. So hi Tossos hi Tossos So here for another episode really excited. We got Johnny and the alien from faster Cajun Network So a lot of y'all know him He's been around a while a little bit infamous if you're on Facebook you've seen him around well at least when he's not been banned So anyways, you seem around occasionally, but uh, we're super excited about this conversation Real quick before we jump into it Tossos give the good people out there. They're called action Absolutely, don't forget to like listen or subscribe to our channel right here on YouTube or anywhere You download your audio podcast like Apple Google or Spotify All right, all right. Well, let's go ahead and hop to it Johnny man We really appreciate you being here when looking forward to this We got our editors with the beat buttons ready. So we're ready to get this done We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today and super excited to hear what you guys say Hey, thanks for having me guys For for those that don't know uh, everybody calls me Johnny. Oh, we run a company called Faster Cajun Network south of southwest Louisiana we we are Fixed wireless access company that that's moving into doing some fiber or whatnot, but Yeah, we've we've built out a pretty extensive tower infrastructure in this area We do a lot, you know, we're probably 80 percent residential 20 percent commercial That that percentage, you know is flipping out as as time goes on We've we've worked really hard to become you know, the primary provider in our coverage area competing against AT&T Cox sudden link vives You know all all of the other incumbent providers Pretty proud of you know, where we started know where we've come in four years and you know, our Our growth is, you know, settled on track to continue At a nice steady rate. I guess our biggest problem, you know, is keeping up with the demand So, uh, that's a little bit about us Okay, so like how did you get into this industry sort of where'd you come from? From lands unknown as we all know But like the fixed wireless industry like, you know, how'd you get your start into this and you know Where were the steps that brought you to where you are now? Uh, uh How far back you want to go? Far back as you want to go, man. We we got time You can leave out the blocks the government had you tied up. Don't worry about that. Yeah, they uh, hang on. Let me check the brushes they uh, but uh, either way I grew up with a father that was a uh, uh, uh, a senior rave art technician in the air force during the 60s Dad was always into, uh, ham radio, uh, cd radio So, you know, as a child, uh, you know, I've been around wireless and learning about propagation and communication and That that's really uh, where my interest started, you know, as far as radio goes Right out of high school. I went to work and managed radio shacks. Uh, in around the houston area um moved Moved into, uh, you know the it uh sector from there from 95 through 2001 Uh, I worked in the fiber optic industry building out along all fiber networks around the country As a contractor for uh, north tail and fugiz in north america After 9 11 happened, uh, you know the the telecom industry uh, the bubble uh, where every you know These companies actually had to make money. Uh, it completely burst Leaving hundreds of thousands of us, uh out of work um My wife and I decided to relocate back to louisiana At the time, uh atm t had not even rolled out residential dsl in our area and we started out with, uh the a small which To us at the time seemed uh rather significant, you know A $10,000 uh investment, uh, which which bought us uh our first, uh tower Which was uh An old cb tower that we installed some ingenious access points on cb3 baby Yeah, the cb3's You know we we had uh name of foreclosures uh external antennas I mean we we we built out the cp, you know with all the the various parts Uh, so so we actually were the first high speed provider, you know for residential services in this area uh, we ran that company until 2009 and When we started we had two kids and 2009 we had six so He had some free time at some point in the business You were you were busy Yeah, yeah, we we were very busy Even though the business I was doing well, uh financially, uh my wife and I you know with our our family expenses, uh I decided that I'd go back into the corporate world And so we shut down, uh that wireless company and uh I spent the last number of years up until the end of 2018, you know in the private sector um You know managing uh for, you know, large corporations Uh, they're it's and uh, you know wireless deployments in their warehouses and uh things like that so We started a faster cage and uh at the end of uh 2018 built our first hours and Did our first residential install, you know in uh may of 2019 So we're we're we're we're still a very young company with with where we're at and You know looking forward to the to the future Uh, there's there's a lot of uh evolution that's taking place and constantly taking place with uh You know your your your your points multi-point systems their capabilities But also on the infanticide you've got, you know, some real innovation from companies. Uh, that's Driven the growth that the industry has uh really uh been able to appreciate and uh hop on board with uh that Allows uh companies like ours to continue growth in areas where our densities uh becoming uh, you know an issue with noise uh, so they uh You know we we uh jump on board with uh rf elements Early on and uh, we haven't regretted it. We've got uh, we're mostly a cambium shop We do have some uh legacy towers from uh A recent uh acquisition, uh, you know that that does have ubiquity, uh, but we've ripped into place most with cambium Uh, just due to the capabilities, uh, you know of the epmp 3000 platform As opposed to the you know the prism radius. That's where we are. Well, cool I mean this is kind of a different view and we've done we've had several guests Have been doing this a long time and sort of started in those wild west days like you did, you know by 01 02 and so but You know, I don't think we've talked to anyone that that had a gap You know, you're talking about a 10 year gap between what you're doing them and then what you're doing now So, I mean, I gotta imagine, you know, we're aware of the changes that have happened But when you've been following it the whole time, I mean you you get, you know, kind of kind of numb to it Numb's not the right word, but you know, you can see it You know move evolutionary whereas when you came back in, I gotta imagine it was like, hey This is a little bit different than we used to do it back in the day for sure Yeah, you're you're 100% right You mean this radio comes with poe and like you just plug some stuff in this is amazing No assembly required Yes, exactly out the box when the tower or on the customer's house It was a night and day difference Shit even the price Yeah, you know, we we're still pulling down some of our original equipment from the early 2000s You know at these customer's places, whether it's cb3's and an enclosure or or the the state of the art transios that were $120 of radio, you know out of the box You know, we we've gone to some customer locations. This stuff's still powered up, you know 15 years later. It's unreal, you know But uh, there's there's gonna be cb3's out there the outlast the cockroach is like when the nukes. Yeah, like they are Slow, but I mean they were they were little bees for sure Yeah, well those those radios were uh much more hardy too with the lower modulation rates and stuff They weren't so sensitive to static and all the other things like these, you know higher-end radios are these days So yeah, it's not surprising to see it still out there to be quite honest, you know Yeah, I mean the radio tech and then like in terms of like billing systems Automation, you know, are you guys using a lot of that sort of stuff? Are you doing everything manually that you kind of spun up? No, we uh, so so we we're as far as our billing building system We we we retired him with some more in power code At this point, uh, you know all our billing is is automated As opposed to years past where I mean it was You sent a manual invoice, you know a person printed a person stuff the envelopes, uh, you know melt them out Then I had to wait for the checks to come in and then There was no way to send a quick email reminder back then, uh, you know, that there was but it would it would have had to been a manual process But uh, so our our billing system's 100 automated We we as a company we do not accept paper payments And uh, I would say probably 99.5 of our customer base, uh, you know, it's through e-check or our credit card So they uh, yeah, there there's that there's very little time spent on billing Which is something that I didn't want us to have to focus on I did not want to have to spend Employee payroll hours, you know on on something so simple as somebody paying their bill I I I see a lot of mixed reviews and uh feedback from people that are constantly having to chase money and I don't know if we're just blessed with really responsible and timely customer base or if the way we have it set up with the The payment due dates and the email reminders, but You know that that that's where we are with that No complaints at all. Sorry. You mentioned you mentioned So in our end power code. So you're running both. Why why is that or what's I usually hear it's one of the other right well one of one of the uh The company that we recently acquired was a power to chop Uh, we have a faster cage inside, you know, all of the new network and and we're slowly moving over Uh, the power code customers into sonor But at this point we're kind of at a standstill. We not sure which is the right direction to go um We we were really excited about sonor and we jumped on uh, you know with him early and uh, you know with Whatever, I mean power code uh recently has come back With a fresh and uh excitement and eagerness So we we've had great luck with both So we're we're really not sure uh where we're going to end up as far as the billing system You know yet you've got some options. Uh, you know a newcomer uh to the industry is uh, this Uh, there's there's a lot of options and flexibility. Uh, you know there um majority of our our our network is handled through sonor, but We use power code for all of our schedule It's uh, we there's there's pros and cons for both and and Fortunately, you know, we we have both because uh, We'll use one for this and and one for that. Uh, it's a bit of a pain Having two uh billing platforms, but you know, we've made it work Cool Cool. Cool. So the billing system advancements has really helped. I'm sure uh system monitoring, you know bandwidth management Getting bandwidth. I gotta imagine your your transport options were We're way easier to sort through now than what it was back in the day for sure I mean you came from that space. I'm sure that helped sort of understand what it took to get it done in the beginning but You know like with we're where you are in your location and stuff Do you have a lot of transport options you pretty limited your diversity options good? I'm always curious about that because you know one guy's like Getting the bandwidth in is one of their biggest problems and others are like no, I got 17 providers to pick from So what's it look like down there? Yeah, no, so we we have uh one major provider That uh, we we we do have a diverse path from from from our upstream Uh comes from uh two directions But actually where those two directions They ride the same dark fiber into our town. Uh, that's owned by another company So we have an unprotected path of nine miles Which is highly unlikely. Uh, we we haven't experienced an event for years, but eventually, uh, you know Someone's gonna cut the fiber Hey Eventually, uh, you know, we'll experience an outage Uh, we're we're very fortunate because uh, we we we use canterra as our upstream Uh, they they are uh a small company in comparison to AT&T or you know level three or uh central ink When you call into the knock within the second ring somebody is answering the phone That person is actually that the person that's going to take care of you and and feed you information instantly Restoral times are very quick. We in four years. We've only had one issue and that was during uh uh the aftermath of uh hurricane laura Where the uh the the data center, uh, just the west of us Lost all three of their backup generators And uh, so we were down for about four hours, uh You know, you you they they had to find and uh get you know, some 500 kilowatt Generators in and so that wasn't an easy task, but definitely uh originally, uh, you know back in uh early 2000s, we had t ones And then we had two bonded t ones and four bonded t ones and then six bonded t ones, uh, you know, there there were no fiber options So we we we can get transport, you know to to anywhere from here But compared to guys that that are in a metro area where you know bandwidth is dirt cheap, uh You know, we we pay a premium for for what we have here but uh, you know, we we've got multiple 10 gig connections into our network, uh Which uh over the next year will will increase into you know, 40 gig as we grow, you know to support the forward growth Fortunately when you're buying bandwidth, uh as you scale, you know, you're able to enjoy the the economy of scale That has to start now with your first gig connection Uh bandwidth becomes so cheap once you get in your 10 25 you know 40 uh gig connections as opposed to That guy that's in bfp that's paying 1800 to 2400 dollars For you know a one gig connection, you know on a five-year term with build out cost and So they uh, no definitely a lot more options. Uh, you know today, uh in in in in band with availability Well, that's cool. That's cool. So, you know, everyone's region's a little bit different You know and you can talk 20 different with and they've got 20 different Regional issues. I might deal with a lot of its weather location You know, uh, I can't imagine you've got a lot of issues with snow down there No mountaintop issues, you know, no snow cats or helicopter rides to get up to your pops and stuff Um, I'm sure you got an ant hill there every now and then but um, you know Obviously with your location the the big one is the hurricanes that you guys have got to deal with so We talked about the hurricane stuff when we talked to spencer a bit We had a good chat about that. So one thing we definitely wanted to talk to you about Is, you know, dealing with the the hurricanes the the widespread damage What have you learned as an operator that has helped you would you learn that you flubbed up, you know, just What you know those of that that might be uh in those areas whether it be the part of the gulf I mean, there's a lot of stuff. I mean, we run into it here. I'm outside of charlotte I mean every now and then we'll get one that blows through and it's only a tropical storm at that point But I mean, you know, we're also not built for the infrastructure. So we've had some issues too. So what have you learned? Um, what what do you think others out there in these areas should really know in dealing with these kinds of issues? I've grown uh throughout my life uh with uh preparedness for these Hurricanes that hit You know every three to five to seven years, uh, we will get some major storms Uh, we we will be out of power two to four weeks of so Go going into hurricane laura. It was day four prior to the storm. I've seen the riding on the wall Didn't have a single backup generator Didn't have fuel didn't have expansion cords Like what the hell are we going to do? Everybody's buying everything up in the area But fortunately I I I had a a good friend, uh, gary-gidry uh senior That was working in, uh, Wisconsin and illinois area that was coming down A couple of days before the storm. So I had him he stopped off, you know, it four or five different tractor supplies And and showed up, you know with generators it So we we kind of knew what was coming. Yeah, we were preparing we were hoping for the best Uh, when the storms hit uh, we we actually my life wanted to kill us because Me and a couple of my boys we were firing up generators during the middle of the hurricane, you know 100 120 mile an hour sustained winds All in all when when we woke up, uh after the storm 80 of our our network What was still online? Uh from the sites that we had rolled out generators to now we had Piss poor uh back holes Uh from from antennas turning. Uh, we had sectors that were turned 99 of our customer base was offline You know, they uh, but I knew that you know in our area the people that left Probably 50 60 of our customer base already had generators And they were going to come online as soon as they got back to the house in the next day or so Uh, so we we we we went ahead and we had probably during hurricane laura 90 95 uh percent network restoration You know within the first 18 24 hours post storm We knew as a company and and we sacrificed a a lot of uh Preparation at our homes. Uh, you know our employees, uh, we kind of knew that We would be Uh a main source of information and communication, you know in these areas Phone lines were down cable was down DSL providers were down, uh, you know, everybody was down at except for us You know in the majority of these areas, uh Most of these companies, uh have aerial uh cable and fiber very little of it's in the ground and Toss us a visit I mean pictures You you're driving down the road And out of 100 telephone poles 94 of them are gone. They're all You know, that's that that includes all the infrastructure what not our town was spared major damage, but just 10 miles 15 miles to to the west of us. I mean it was just completely devastated Uh, I believe we were 17 or 18 days for hurricane laura Uh out of power So logistics uh was a nightmare with fuel You know in in the initial uh week We were having to drive our vans out of the area 40 60 miles You know in that first week to fill up with gas and fill up gas cans and uh totes But uh, we we managed, um, we got a lot better at it quit because Thank god because the year after, you know, we we uh, we had uh almost 400 on-site service calls that we went through uh scheduled and uh did In the first 30 days at post laura turned antennas hunting for antennas Carports were going rooms were going houses were going Yeah, a lot of these people were rolling in the campers that we were setting up poles and whatnot to get them back online So we did a lot of the work Re-hardening, uh, you know, some of our installs We we learned the weak points and whatnot So the I guess the first step in preparedness for a hurricane is make sure your installations are very hardy and and done properly and uh overkill Go up a an extra size on your lag bolts Put in five lag bolts in a jr melt versus two where I see a lot of people in the country They'll put one at the top one at the bottom and then they call it good Yeah, so Yeah, they uh, we we we uh toss those uh, richard strittmatter Spencer uh pals erin rodriguez laren meds uh, mica desertale uh, there was uh ISP supplies was absolutely instrumental Uh toss those and richard rolled in here on uh day two post a storm But we had uh, they came with a trailer full of uh Equipment gear tower sections Anything that we needed uh these guys picked up in And and rolled into us, uh brought food brought, you know, a lot of uh positive uh vibes and uh encouragement Uh, they they were key and instrumental into getting through that This storm without the outside help, you know, we were really short on equipment with without the outside help of You know rf elements ISP supplies CTI We we we very possibly could have failed as a company um I believe that was really the uh, the big start and push of At least more than I'd ever seen uh of whisk coming in and helping each other uh since then uh, we've kind of uh grown out the brother brotherhood and we've Anytime anybody is in a bind anywhere. I believe uh Who was it in texas? Shortly after that they they had salatage on one of their towers Oh, that's uh, yeah brandon. He was on the show exactly. Yep Right. Yeah, so What we learned here really, uh translated into uh, you know helping him out You know after that Preparedness is You know, if I need seven generators and we're going into a storm and I have nine I mean, I'm picking up the phone. I'm letting uh our our neighbor whisk You know people that may be impacted as well know that hey, this is what I have. What do you have? Uh, a lot of us are communicating on a regular basis now Even during uh, just lightning strikes, which uh really plague our areas We've got some towers that are Extensively grounded. We've got some towers that are not grounded. We've got some towers that are isolated There is really no solid definitive answer of how to prevent against lightning damage So that's something that you know, we we uh, we we deal with here, but To be prepared, uh, most of us, uh, has gotten really good at Stocking the shelves Ahead You know, it's where we can weather these events or whatnot. We reach out to each other Provide climbers provide help, you know, whatever so yeah Being prepared is uh, very important in our neck of the woods. Uh that that year we uh sustained a direct hit from uh Hurricane laura We had a hurricane delton. We had Another hurricane that glanced us and then we had a tropical storm So we had four named storms that year And uh, you know, all within a period of uh, four and a half to five months No, we're still here But we wouldn't be Can't kill me Exactly I think uh, tossos Tossos and richard, I think stayed a couple extra days. I think they were a little concerned at me whenever I went and pulled up a lawn chair, you know Just here at the side of the house and have a conversation with uh, uh, the shiplap signing, you know Hey, uh, when they showed up I I was literally in shock, you know, uh, what In the aftermath for for a few days so That was a great experience eye-opening experience for me too to uh See not only how the community comes together But what it takes to kind of, you know, just really strap on your boots and just knock the shit out I mean you your kids your family Your community really pulled it together and did some amazing amazing things and uh, yeah Like I said, it was great to be part of it And you know, we're always here for the next one when it comes because we know what's going to happen And we hope that we can grow this again brotherhood of wisps that we have here on the uh the gulf coast To chip in and and help out even more and even beyond because again I mean a lot of the things that you've learned And that you're sharing now with other wisps and stuff like that, you know Do kind of translate to the other natural disasters that are out there, you know on the west coast We have huge wildfires, right, you know here in the central. Yes We have tornadoes, you know, and then you have blizzards and all sorts of other things that happen around the country So I think a lot of that, you know, kind of preparedness Is, you know somewhat Translatable to those different disasters and what you can do to kind of prepare and really the key I've learned two things a is communicate with your fellow wisps, right, you know build yourself A group of brothers and sisters that well you can lean on when it happens, you know and and fuel Really it's been fuel has been the thing, you know of all the things Fuel is always the Achilles heel and we learned that with Aaron, right? When that Hurricane came through no lo is the same thing. It's just like damn it, you know We need to get a fuel truck or something like that to because that solves a lot of the problems Well, we we rolled in many jokes Yeah, you know the dangerous Well, you know, but you know, we we dealt with a hurricane Laura with 50 gas cans You know, we're like, you know looking on marketplace. Here's these Thanks to cove it you had hundreds of totes in the area that had been filled with a hand sanitizer And you know for 50 bucks like, you know 50 bucks for the tote and A hundred dollars worth of stuff and you've got it set up to where you fill it up and you can gravity feed out of it Aaron was very fortunate because there's no way we could have handled The amount of gas cans that it was going to take With with no fuel in the area, you know available for I'd say, you know, 96 hours at all, but They, uh, yeah, you're right. They fuel fuel lots of fuel They uh, you may need it. You may not, you know, you you you can uh You can burn it in your vans, uh, if you don't need it, but uh, exactly When you need it, you know, you you drive in two three guys out of an area in an even and they've already worked 18 hours Now you out of fuel for the next day. The generators need fuel Well, now you got to drive these guys. They've got to spend another Hour and a half to an half hours, you know, go and pick up fuel fuel is important In in our area of the country, you know, so but uh, yeah, no, they I I I think tosses. I think I think the experience Not only grew us professionally, but I think it taught us a lot, uh, personally You know on the preparedness side and the resilience of people in these communities You know in these types of situations We saw some people that I've never even heard speak or do anything in 20 years Step up into limelight and and those were the people in the community that were dug in And you know helping everybody, uh, you know, but uh Yeah, we we've we've built quite the brotherhood and uh, uh As far as helping us out, uh, each of us as companies, uh, you know, we we've grown uh together in our relationships as well Got a kiddie pool full of gas in the back of the truck and some tacos ready to help out Lots of tacos lots of tacos man. Maybe maybe we need a disaster recovery taco truck. That's We're talking never talking remember. I have I have that uh satellite uplink truck and we we can And we've talked we've talked about it. Uh, you know that that thing that uh, can sleep four people And have a small kitchen area, uh, but yeah, that that's that light uplink truck would would be a perfect You know gulf coast uh disaster, uh vehicle My primary question is does it have a c inside? So Good little swampy down there. It has two for you. Uh, cava. All right. Now we're talking now. We're talking. You're on board now I'm on board now. So Do this Yeah, I keep my core temperatures low. Yeah, you know immediately after hurricane, uh Yeah, it's really humid for for weeks. I mean everything is just housed You know and the mosquitoes are like like like box out there. It's crazy They're aggressive as hell I mean jesus christ, uh, I've never seen such a thing Yeah, so there there's like a hundred species of uh mosquitoes They uh, but what happens to your hurricane is all those marsh mosquitoes We we call them the ski the demon mosquitoes. These things come straight from hell They have a reddish tint to them And when they bite you when they when they sting you I mean they they literally will I mean it's not like you're common mosquitoes. These things are they're mean Yeah, they are I don't like them Not a fan at all It does bring up a good point though. I mean because you're like, all right Well, the power's out so we'll get some fuel and whatever else But I mean like the physical toll that takes on people because you're working long day is trying to recover But it's hot it's humid. There's no relief The food is sketched the bugs are out and there's just you know It's really hard to be able to just get out of that situation. So physically and mentally so You know the more that you can be paired the more you can You know be ready for this. I mean no one's a hundred percent ready But the more that you can do in advance really saves you a lot of pain down the road for sure We've got an excess of the extension cords an excess of the small generators now We've got propane generators. So I've got a stockpile of 30 35 propane tanks that I've got enough to get us by without us having to leave the area You know for a week The delta we were out of power, you know for I think 16 days You know that the next storm that that comes in you know, we're Two weeks it doesn't matter if it's uh 1971 or 2022 When they come in and repair this infrastructure, they repair it just enough to Get customers back power So you may have had In a string you may have had 40 poles that survived They don't replace those those are on the verge of stopping the next time So, you know, yeah, you know, but uh, yeah being better prepared being better prepared people in tornado areas, I think more isolated areas Their disasters are a little bit different a little bit less predictable You don't know when a tornado is going to crop up and rip through the area But if you live in a tornado area, you should prepare like one's coming tomorrow Yeah They uh, if you live in an area where you've got ice storms that's going to collapse trees Uh telephone poles power lines You should prepare like it's going to happen this year, you know, they uh And I think as an industry you see a lot of people that Would just be hesitant to, you know, spend any money on preparation that your customers, I mean, they they want their internet Yeah, you know but aside from streaming netflix and uh, you know doing instagram and uh facebook and things like that, uh Having the internet and capabilities where sell the cellular infrastructure is down This is where, you know, uh fixed wireless companies, uh excel And i'm not talking about fixed wireless on the cellular side, you know, which is being given all the praise in the world regardless of the The the millions that the whisk industry has serviced and uh Provided for, you know, for for 20 something odd years You're not going to get crews in to a cellular site until a week or so after they send in a team Does that state pictures Then they it goes through the corporate stuff I mean within a week and a half to two weeks You'll start seeing some repairs on damaged towers or or cows rolling in, you know, within a week or so But it's really critical To get these communications, you know, the internet, uh, you know, they make calls They they can do everything via the internet, but without it, you know it's it's uh It would be pretty hard for some of these areas to rebound as quickly as they are uh, we service a lot of uh uh volunteer fire departments city halls police departments in our area, so That's why we're out in the middle of the storm rolled firing at these generators. We know power is going out You know, so if we go roll 10 generators and two of them die out And then we'll go back in the morning, you know, or or you know after the storm passes, but Our reputation For how we care for our customer base You know, we was was was well, uh notice prior to the hurricanes and Thanks to everybody that came in and you know our team. I mean, we've really shined I mean, we've built a lot of loyalty into our customer base You know by being able to get these people back online That's I think that's something that's overlooked too in the industry and you know think about that you know how How you handle yourself here, you know can actually help your business, you know And how people see you perceive you and and potential new business that that you can get from government agencies and stuff like that Uh, you know further down the line too. Yeah, they uh, you know, you've got All the counties around the country. He's got an office. An office now, but it's called ovp I'm not sure what it is in other states, but that's what it is here office Office of emergency up dirtiness Uh, it's through either female homeland security But there's actually a local person on the ground that's uh Coordinated and has uh Access to you know rapid access to uh financial fuel Generators things like that that you know five years ago wasn't available Yeah, us and other west in these areas, you know, you shouldn't at least make contact You know with these these organizations a government organizations because uh, you know, they they may be able to help Yeah, you know in times like that. So very cool, miss tosses Uh went on a couple of drives with me and you know The first few days he saw just the stuff in our town which You know, it it was pretty bad in our town But it was not like You know 15 miles west 20 miles west 30 miles west 50 miles west where they saw 200 mile an hour winds The tosses got to witness a train that was four miles long that was laid over on its side Crazy Well, what really surprised me was like I I expected to see the the wood telephone poles Cracked like like a toothpicks no big deal But the first time you took me down a road and I saw one of those huge concrete Poles, you know, just snapped like nothing. I was just blown away by that. I was like how I mean these things are like Foot plus in diameter. They're huge. They weren't even bigger. Just snapped like it was nothing I was like, holy cow that that blew my mind. I was just like wow, that's crazy stuff, man Yeah, and then I mean just miles and miles. I mean as far as you drive That the entire infrastructure is on the ground, you know, it's just it was crazy And I think all these like different natural disasters and stuff like, you know, tornadoes fires and And the other things you have to deal with I think, you know, the thing about the hurricanes is it's such a wider swath of destruction Right where of course a tornado can come through and it destroys a lot But it's kind of localized in a way, you know, and it's a path that it goes through where, you know, you don't have You know 50 miles of coastline just disappearing, you know, as you do in her exact so There's a huge huge difference in the preparedness for that. But again, it's there's a lot of similarities of just being prepared Knowing the the the different government agencies who are there to help you, you know, you know One minute after the storm so to speak and and get things going and then again, you know, having some communications with You know your fellow whists and people in the area and trying to prepare all that stuff So it's a really good checklist of things to to look at and think about for the future. So, yeah, yeah, no definitely but Yeah, they you know these other disasters Although it's more focused to you it's like you're saying, you know a tornado a tornado comes to an area in a path You know, you've got a couple of miles on each side of it but I mean the destruction and tornado brings Look at the companies up in the The northwest and on the on the west coast, you know, over the last number of years It's lost all their infrastructure. Uh, due to these fires Yeah I mean It's really hard to be prepared, you know for for stuff like that I think these companies or or learning, you know, as time goes on. I mean You're you're not immune, you know in in in any part of the country Uh, the the guys in the desert, you're not used to lightning and rain You know, you get these uh, the small excursion that comes in and They'll end up with 80 120 Mile an hour winds, you know that comes through their area. Well, they're like, yeah, I live in the desert What the hell's all this lightning and rain from, you know Uh, but uh, so I don't think anybody anywhere is immune. I think uh each region's, uh, you know, got its own challenges with weather and ice and snow, uh so they uh I'm more comfortable with dealing with lightning and rain and you know, the 89 mile an hour thunderstorms that I am with uh snow and ice My guys are gonna know how to drive on that, you know, yeah So long story short, you need fuel. You need extension cords. You need generators That's that's the the big part for sure But the planning for it's so tricky too because you know, you know the hurricane's coming But I mean, it's also the gamble of do I stop everything I'm doing for the storm that might come through and go into prep mode Versus oh, you know, it looks light. We're good. We're good. And then it turns It turns not just on you, but your whole customer base too because You know, if they're all still stuck because it was a light prediction and then they got heavy quick You know, your reaction has got to be a lot different where Versus people are all out of town and then, you know, no one they'll be back in a couple of days So it definitely adds a fudge factor to it for sure. No, we uh, we weren't sure If Laura was coming to us may uh I told the guys that were actually uh A few weeks prior to that that one that glanced us, you know, my guys hated me I mean, we we spent three days prepping only to have to put everything back up into the fuel out the generators You know the ones that we had but that's when we learned that we didn't have enough was right prior to uh, Laura so No You run the drill and you're going to get better at it. It's going to take you a lot less work You know, we have things staged uh Yeah in our office And at a storage facility ready to go uh, but very little time uh Have to put into it and we've now got fuel totes where we can stock up a thousand gallons You know within a couple of hours something that we had no capability of before So, yeah, it's uh Yeah, you run a drill and guess what man I promise you after going through these storms and the amount of work we've had We will gladly do that go far drill uh Actually put anything in place you know That's that's a very fair point. So I guess in terms of generators I see this question people go back and forth gas versus diesel versus propane Um, and it's different because you know when your cold conditions obviously really plays into it You don't really do it there, but you know, you're you're you're diesel gelling up and stuff So you got to run different fuels. I mean for for oaks out there that are getting started They're looking to stock up on these uh, you know fuel sources or generators and stuff I mean, what are your inputs there? Which what works out best you just try to stick with gas Just so you can also fuel your vans and stuff or you know, what are you where are you at now? What are you thinking about in the future with that? We have dual fuel, but what what we learned is what the option of dual fuel Most of wisp power sites are actually going to pull a load of five amps or less So these little 22 24 2500 uh wide generators. They're really economical They'll run for eight to 12 hours on a gallon of gas But if you hook them up to a Which is a five gallon brook, you can take a standard 20 gallon 20 pound tank You can run it for 24 28 30 hours. Yes, it's a lot more expensive to run them off the propane But you also don't have to have a guy that's running around eight to 12 hours for these tower sites Uh stockpile and propane is easy. It lasts forever Yeah Yeah, we we've got some larger sites now that you know, we do have these mobile uh light plants We you know that that have the diesel uh engines generators on That that you know, we have now We don't have to go to those. You know every four or five days And 30 gallons will last You know two and a half three four or five days Depending on the load. Um, yeah Gasoline Old nasty stinky gasoline For for somebody that needs to do it on a budget, you know, that that's the way to go These generators are five hundred dollars a piece You change the oil, you know every every second fill up every third fill up There's a big difference I mean uh diesel is ideal in our area because it's There's a surplus of diesel everywhere You know, we're we're we're informing country rice country crawfish country So we've got a number of co-ops. It's got you know 10 20 000 gallons, uh, you know stockpiled If if they run out, you know, you you go to one of your customers who's a former and say Hey, man, I need four gallons of diesel or whatnot, but yeah It's safer too Uh, it is safer. Uh, you know, we we we were talking about that uh for erin and uh You know, uh, no broadband in uh new orleans I mean, we're sending guys with uh 250 gallons of gasoline sloshing around and it took Scared me like I said Luckily it's not hot or anything so Hopefully you have your grounding right on your trailer That's just gas it off anywhere. Hey, you know, hey christ josey, do me a favor. Why don't you drive this? fuel bomb Giant Molotov cocktail. Hey, hey, hey christ Scott. Hey, do me a favor. Why don't you haul this 300 gallons of uh gasoline? Oh Sloshes around. I don't know man. Let's find out, you know I Guys, I feel a little loosey. I don't know. Yeah, we need to get them on the show We need to get both christs is on the show and and uh talk about that stuff Then you've got uh erin and tom and uh in and nola that uh, you know Bless their hearts. You know, they they they they're not as uh And this is in no way a negative towards them But you you've got a lot of guys working the whisk industry That may not have experience with gravity feeding from a tank or whatnot Um, you know, and and you're gonna have spills on the ground So and that is that yeah gas lanes the absolute worst choice because and once that stuff He was off gasoline sit from the ground and spreads out, but We we're all here. Caleb, you know Everybody's got all there Yeah, they they still got their eyebrows and hair and nose hairs, you know Everybody survives Yeah, yeah All right, that's good stuff now ton of good information there for sure And it's something you got to think about you got to do the maintenance Like you said a lot of people buy their fancy new generator They'll fire it up once or twice to play with it and then surprise surprise They gotta fire it up when they actually need it and damn thing don't work And it's like, oh, it's amazing. I can't imagine why so that's that's a story as old as time Kind of like your batteries when you actually need the ups your batteries are flat or you know, they won't take a charge and You know all all the hits, right? So, you know a preparedness plan is super important But all of them have to come with some sort of maintenance. So this has been the Boy Scout hour. So Yeah, don't don't store your generators with gas and you know, yeah burn it out empty it out and run it out, you know because Like you said, you know, we we had some generators that had been stored Well, I mean, you know went to farm up. We ended up having the carburetors. Yeah, we turned into some small engine mechanics. Uh, my whole need You've got one generator. You got it's gonna fail You know, you need two more because the second one just failed You're not getting a generator technician out after the storm Dawson's enriched for there when when when the large generator in our home that that powers the home and The tower site, uh, I think we had five or six people staying with us at the home that generator failed Five o'clock in the evening, you know, we uh, we didn't have full AC in the house did get wrong, you know, but I mean We were comfortable with a smaller generator My point is is you're not gonna get parts. You're not gonna get service, you know, so have a backup to your backup Yep, definitely. Well, johnny, uh, that's some super helpful information. Hopefully everyone can learn from this You know, you got to think about your preparedness You got to think about the things that can happen the things you can't think of that will happen Uh, get fuel if you gotta learn anything get a fool and have a plan to manage it So but just think you know and you think hey, it can't happen to you I'm far away from the coast or you know, you don't have to worry about this But I mean it could be an earthquake could be a fire could be anything, you know It could be a tower getting knocked down Like we had with Brandon. I mean it could be sabotage ice storm A lot of different ways for things to go sideways. So definitely work when you're prepared in us, but Um, yeah, this super great info johnny. You got any closing words anybody anybody looking for you How they can find you to get some more information or uh, like I said, we can find y'all facebook Sometimes when you're when you're not when you're not in facebook jail Or bill or in the doghouse or using a profile name or or or I'm around. I want most of the list. Uh, anybody can uh, you know, uh Reach out to me directly at any time More than willing to help Uh, you know as as as I received daily from, you know, industry pairs Constantly I'm constantly reaching out with questions about this or that or what not You know, if if there's anything that I could share with anybody or ever help I mean we Not only me as an individual but it's part of our culture And our attitude here is is we are willing to help So yeah, we we've received a ton of it tons of it and you know, we try to pay it forward as much as possible So they uh, yeah, absolutely That anyone can reach out to the city anytime Very cool tosses working people find us They can find us all over on social media again on facebook and all the wisp talk type groups instagram Of course, they can find us on our website our forum or simply just by emailing us You can email me tossos at rf elements dot com or kaleb at rf elements dot com But before we go I have to ask, you know, because you know, I like cooking and all the other stuff I don't know if you're teasing me, but is that occasion networks cutting board behind you johnny? What is that because that looks like That's a gift from one of my customers It's engraved and then filled with epoxy. Yes. It is a faster cajun networks cutting board Oh my god, I need one of those. I need one of those They uh, yeah, we we've we've got a lot of local talent, you know in our customer base and uh Occasionally, they'll bless us with a gift. No, that that was my christmas present from a customer. Uh, this guy That is totally badass, man. I totally dig it. Totally dig it. Well, awesome. Hey johnny. Thanks, uh, thanks for joining us Again, a shout out to everybody who's watching this podcast. We want to have uh more more people on here So if you're interested in joining our podcast, please reach out to myself or kaleb and uh, let us know We'd love to have you on here and I'd love to have you share your story and again Kind of be part of this brotherhood We're trying in sisterhood that we're trying to build within the wisp industry Get everybody to know everybody on a personal basis, you know, when you communicate on social media You know, there's a huge disconnect. I mean a lot of times her profile picture isn't even the person So you don't really know who these people are and and you know as much as i'm on social media I really hate talking on social media because when you're typing things out and having conversations with people It's it's nothing like when you can see their face You can you know, you can see what they're saying and you can have a much more dynamic, uh, you know Conversation based on body language and a lot of things So there's a lot of really great people out there and we hope to get a lot a lot more of you wisps on this show Sharing your story. So I guess until next time Stay horny everybody. Thanks