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Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.
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No More Dots and Dashes
This week on Battle Born Tech we welcome Tom, Kirk and Ron.
Tom has been fighting YouTube ads the hard way for years. We hand him an easier trick, and one honest catch.
Kirk stops by for an interview, not a tech problem. Want to get on the air as a ham radio operator? One thing you used to need is gone, and it changes everything.
Ron asks who’s mapping his home Wi-Fi, and whether he can tell them to knock it off. The answer is yes, sort of.
On the Wi-Fi segment we braided three separate things into one. Here’s the clean version.
Two different Microsoft features, and one is long gone. Wi-Fi Sense, built into Windows 10 in 2015, let your contacts connect to your home Wi-Fi without you sharing the password. After heavy pushback, Microsoft removed it in 2016. The _optout tag people once added to a network name was aimed at Wi-Fi Sense, so today it does nothing. You can retire it.
The feature that’s still alive is Microsoft’s location database, built partly from routers’ hardware IDs (the MAC address). Microsoft still runs a web form where you submit your router’s MAC address to ask them to remove it. In fairness, many people report no visible result, so treat it as a principled request, not a lock on the door.
And Google’s _nomap, added to the end of your network name, is the tag that’s still honored as a courtesy today. Two companies, two tags, only one still doing anything.
We are often in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am and Sundays 7 pm to 9 pm Pacific. Have your smart phone or speaker remind you to call! Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
“Please don’t ask me to interrupt my programming.”
“You CAN pay them”
“They give you the questions and the answers to the test.”
“Is this a Good thing or a Creepy Thing?”
“Anytime you ask an AI question, it boils off yet another bathtub of water.”
“If Morse code was keeping you back from a ham radio license, good news: no more of that.”
“Anytime you ask an AI question, it boils off yet another bathtub of water.”
“It sounds like a sports league or a sports team.”
“Solidly both… kind of creepy and kind of lonely and sad all at the same time.”
“Got to tell them who you are to tell them not record who you are.”
“Keep me out of your database!”
“Not a privacy kind of thing but a principle kind of thing.”
“It’s almost always right to say no on those things.”
AI assisted to make us sound more human.
BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai
Cisco Certification
A credential proving you know how to set up and run Cisco networking equipment, the industrial-grade gear that routes data through big networks.
Duck Player
A video player built into the DuckDuckGo browser app. It opens YouTube videos in a clean, full-screen view and strips out most of the ads wrapped around a video.
Side loading
Installing a phone app directly, instead of through the official store. On Android, that means going around the Google Play Store. It gives you more freedom but skips the store’s safety checks, and Google keeps making it harder to do.
Google Play Store
The official app store on Android phones, run by Google. It’s where most people get their apps.
Hawk Fire
A wildfire that broke out August 2026 northwest of Reno, Nevada, and was still burning during this broadcast.
Morse Code
A way of sending messages as short and long signals, the dots and dashes you hear as beeps. Ham radio operators once had to pass a Morse code test; the FCC dropped that rule, so no license level requires it today.
ScanTron
The old paper answer sheet where you filled in bubbles with a pencil and a machine graded it. Ham radio exams used to work this way; now they’re taken on a computer.
Amateur Radio License
Government permission to operate a ham radio, issued by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission.
Heebie-Jeebies
A case of the creeps, that nervous, skin-crawling unease you can’t quite pin down.
SSID
The name of a Wi-Fi network, a router constantly broadcasts this name so nearby devices can find it and join.
GPS
The satellite system that tells a device where it is on Earth. It works poorly indoors.
WiFi Sense
A Microsoft feature that let your Skype, Facebook, and Outlook contacts connect to your Wi-Fi without you handing over the password. Removed in 2016. The _optout tag was meant for this retired feature.
_Nomap
A suffix on an WiFi SSD name meant to signal Google and others to keep the router’s location OUT of location databases.
_Optout
Meant to stop an access point from being part of the auto log in of Microsoft’s WiFi sense. Windows 10 feature. Removed in 2016.
War Driving
Driving around with a device to record the names and locations of Wi-Fi networks.
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Battle Born Tech is a
Registered Service Mark of Christy Ramsey
775-241-3571 or [email protected]
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