#IT Infrastructure in Radio

[bookishscrolls]

Technical Aspects and Infrastructure for Running a Community Radio Station

Behind every captivating broadcast from a Community Radio Station (CRS) lies a complex and well-maintained technical setup. It’s not just about having the right equipment; it’s about creating a cohesive infrastructure that keeps your station running smoothly and your community engaged. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to upgrade your setup, this guide will walk you through the…

[istandonsnowpiles]

Hughes Memorial Tower

[aeolianblues]

pop stars aren't born in the 70s anymore like they used to be. These days they're born in a year uncomfortably close to my own which makes me clutch my chest and cry out

[dandelionsprout42]

My analysis of Greenland from a Norwegian perspective

I read Sermitsiaq's websites roughly monthly without needing translator tools, and have watched Danmark Radio's splendid documentary series Historien om Grønland og Danmark.

From my understanding, Greenland has never truly felt okay with Denmark. Until circa 1940, all trade with other nations was banned (and even then it only became allowed due to Greenland being in the Allies and cut off from Denmark); and at least 6 different approaches for Greenlandic society has been tried out (ranging from enforcing old hunting techniques, to building reasonably good apartment blocks with TVs, then-modern stoves, and everything).

However, and this is a very big however: Greenland's goal is independence. Not to become colonised by a second nation.

Pretty much the only thing left that hampers Greenlandic independence is that their land-based infrastructure is non-existent. There are no proper roads between any towns. A dirt trail between the old Kangerlussuaq airport and the town of Sisimiut was purportedly opened a year or 2 ago, but would be very impractical at best to carry large supplies through.

Greenland probably also needs a strategy for currency; they can't readily change to the Euro. Or at least I don't think they can. They also never really got momentum going with building a proper football stadium for CONCACAF; and they only have 1 proper locally based TV station, 1 newspaper, and AFAIK 1 radio station, partially owing to their not particularly large population (Digital TV is widespread, but a majority of those channels are Danish).

Their amounts of land-based farming is also not much to write home about, so outsiders' eyebrows will be raised even higher than before about whale hunting until they get better access to e.g. grains without import costs.

[makingcontact]

East Orosi's Struggle for Clean Drinking Water

A person holding a “Justicia para East Orosi” sign. Credit: Sandra Tsang East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the state capital to working with neighboring towns.  And they may finally have one. New…

[renarots]

The ability to evacuate is a privilege and I’m sick of people applying Florida logic to the Appalachians right now. Yes it is horrible for those who couldn’t in Florida but the people in the Appalachian’s had no warning. People still have “dial up” there, 55.9% of the population is under the poverty line. “I’ve been seeing warnings for a week” no you haven’t the warnings were for Florida and Georgia, even then it wasn’t supposed to hit the apps like this at most flooding but they would recover. When hurricane helene took that turn it was too late to even warn others before dams broke. The infrastructure is not meant to take this beating especially given the storm they had the week before causing all of the waterways to be full already. Towns are wiped out, towns that relied on tourism and coal mining to bring in revenue are gone. My great aunt and uncle lived in a trailer off a plot of land and were so happy they finally got a clean running water system hooked up two years ago. They have one tiny little old android that they have to travel about an hour in town to use so they can call us up. They lived off a fixed income because any sort of job was two hours away at least and they’re getting older they can’t just travel that much anymore. My great uncle can’t walk without his cane and my great aunt is getting there too. They always joked about taking me home with them and I would always say when I got older they would come live with me because I knew how rough it was for them but they couldn’t just leave. I haven’t been able to contact them in over 48 hours and the highways leading out after the one hour evacuation notice was given was shut down. Most places are air rescues only because there is no other way for them to be rescued. To add on as well that they deployed FEMA in many of the places affected but yet there is barely any coverage and radio silence from our government. No national guards are here to rescue them they are left to fend for themselves. People are drowning, being electrocuted, some didn’t even stand a chance. These are human beings who have been prayed on for generations the least you can do is show some fucking sympathy. I don’t care what you have to say family’s are being devastated. I wouldn’t wish anything like this to happen to anyone so if you find yourself in your bed at night I hope you know that out there, there are families who are grieving all they have lost and you are cozy at home with running water, electricity and a warm bed and you feel an ounce of guilt for even thinking that.

A link to ways that you can help. Keep Appalachia in your minds do not look away.

[akwyz]

Siemens Launches Comprehensive Private 5G Solution for the Industrial Sector

Siemens, a leading global technology company, has introduced a groundbreaking private 5G infrastructure, marking a significant advancement in mobile communication standards for the industrial sector. This development is set to revolutionize how industrial companies approach automation applications and connected production. Innovative 5G InfrastructureSiemens has developed, for the first time, an…

[supplyside]

relay

[leohtttbriar]

i know that uhura’s role in tos was written to be like a radioman (the guy in wwii movies who carries the phone on his back sometimes) meaning that the “communications officer” role evolved from radioman to linguist in the time since tos aired. but that makes uhura in tos really interesting with a retrospective read of her character, applying things novels and later iterations of her have fleshed out, because she doesn’t do any visible linguistic work in any tos episode. she does security and navigation and piloting and engineering which sort of makes her seem like a valuably flexible sort of many-skilled officer.

it was probably both enterprise with hoshi and the 2009 movie that really cemented the idea of “communications officer means linguist or at the very least polyglot” instead of it just being an uhura-quirk. uhura in the 2009 movie does a lot of engineering/operating work of comm equipment and is implied to speak a lot of languages on top of be able to interpret subspace “noise,” so to speak (like, there’s no way it’s radio. it can’t be radio. star trek takes place across distances of lightyears—when they say “signal,” i’m assuming it’s not radio). and of course strange new worlds has run with the linguistics angle and made it even more explicit that yes she studies linguistics, linguistics is a core part of starfleet academic infrastructure, to the point where whole episode plots are written around the act of translation.

the retrospective addition of this expertise to uhura makes what she is in tos a character even more focused on leadership and, idk, becoming something like a captain, because she doesn’t seem all that specialized. she’s more of a kirk-like character, or janeway or sisko, characters that have a specialized skill but have set it aside mostly to pursue some sort of command. obviously this wasn’t the intention of her character. writers of uhura have mostly just stumbled on the idea of her as a polyglot (according to wikipedia, first introduced in the novel uhura’s song, so) and been like “neat idea! makes sense! explorers need to learn languages!” and kept doubling down on that idea until we get to an origin-story uhura in snw that (wildly) speaks 37 languages, for whatever definition of speak or language, i guess.

what all this overthinking on my part has generated is this idea of uhura very much like a futuristic-captain aubrey or a captain sisko not nailed down to one station, hanging off the shrouds of a solar-sail ship’s rigging, looking beyond, in the most romantic and idealized version of an explorer. i think a lot of people read/write female characters as being more down-to-earth than the whimsical leader-on-the-sea or more nurturing than than the hardened captain-of-a-ship, partly why janeway and burnham are so wonderful to me. but it’s fun to imagine tos uhura being the exploring-captain archetype, amongst the political structures of the 60s. like the additions to her character over the years have solidified that romantic adventurer portrait of her in tos, when the idea of her in command would be the least welcome.

and the fact that she was shown to be excited about a solar sailing ship in snw, like sisko was in ds9 for that one episode, i think emphasizes this read of her—and that her character-journey in snw is going to be how she goes from bookish linguist to “hanging-on-a-shroud-on-a-sunsail-ship” looking out to “sea”.

[jtmportland]

I know this post is long, but it’s important to read to understand what’s going on. A lot of people are asking, “Why is Trump just out golfing while things are falling apart?” It’s simple: the emergency isn’t something he’s reacting to — it’s something he’s building.

Trump recently declared a national economic emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) — granting himself sweeping authority over international trade by labeling foreign economic practices an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

But here’s the real play: by declaring a national emergency, Trump didn’t just respond to a crisis — he created one. And in doing so, he unlocked access to over 120 statutory powers scattered throughout federal law. Many of these powers have nothing to do with trade — and everything to do with expanding presidential authority inside the U.S.

What This Move Enables: Expanded Domestic Powers

1. Control of Domestic Communications

- 47 U.S.C. §606(c): Allows the president to take control of, shut down, or regulate wire and radio communications — including the internet, social media platforms, broadcast networks, and telecom infrastructure — in the name of national defense. Originally intended for wartime, this Cold War-era law remains on the books.

2. Asset Freezing and Financial Surveillance

- Under IEEPA and related laws, the president can freeze the assets and bank accounts of individuals or organizations accused of aiding foreign threats. These powers are vague and can be stretched to include domestic political groups, journalists, or activists — especially if they’re perceived as having foreign ties or influence.

3. Domestic Military Deployment

- Under the Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. §§ 251–255), the president can deploy active-duty U.S. military to enforce laws or suppress civil unrest within the country. In certain scenarios, this can be done without state governor consent — especially if the president claims state authorities are failing to uphold federal law.

4. Emergency Detention Powers (Non-Citizens)

- The Alien Enemies Act (50 U.S.C. §21) — a law dating back to 1798 — allows the president to detain or restrict the movement of non-citizens from nations deemed hostile. The criteria for “hostile” can be broad and undefined during a declared emergency.

5. Control of Energy and Transportation

- Under laws like 42 U.S.C. §6272 and others, the president can redirect or restrict domestic fuel production, electricity usage, or energy transportation. Additionally, 49 U.S.C. §40106(b) allows the president to limit, reroute, or suspend civil aviation, giving the executive branch near-total control over U.S. airspace in a crisis.

6. Suspension of Labor Regulations

- During a declared emergency, the president can waive federal labor regulations and override contract protections. This includes removing limits on hours, wages, and workplace safety for federal contractors and any industries deemed vital to national security.

7. National Security Letters & Warrantless Surveillance

- Emergency declarations expand the reach and use of National Security Letters (NSLs) — tools that let federal agencies demand financial, telecom, and internet records without a warrant. These also come with gag orders, preventing the recipient (e.g., Google or a bank) from disclosing that they’re under surveillance.

Why it Matters?

Even when legal domestic powers are limited, a national emergency lets the president:

- Frame the issue as a national security crisis, justifying aggressive action

- Bypass Congress and the courts by acting unilaterally

- Sway public opinion using fear, urgency, and patriotic rhetoric

Bottom Line

IEEPA is focused on foreign threats — but once the emergency is declared, the president taps into a hidden arsenal of domestic control powers. What began as a trade issue could quickly shift into civil liberties restrictions, mass surveillance, or even crackdowns under the legal shield of an “emergency.”

This isn’t just about tariffs. It’s about redefining the boundaries of executive power. Imagine if this economic crisis keeps getting worse — the amount of power he will gain.

[probablyasocialecologist]

“The Israeli military has a history of attacks on media structures,” Carlos Martinez de la Serna explained. In May 2021, a tower housing the Qatari media organization Al Jazeera and the American news agency The Associated Press (AP) was destroyed by three missiles, on the basis, the Israeli military claimed, of an imminent threat posed by Hamas’s presence in the building. When questioned publicly, Israel provided no evidence to support this claim. Since October 7, 2023, the phenomenon has taken on unprecedented proportions. In response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli soil, the Israeli military has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip, a 365-square-kilometer territory barely larger than Malta. News coverage in the Gaza Strip has become extremely limited. “When you look at the conflicts around the world … you would usually have the international media on the ground,” said Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “None of them have been allowed access. Or they’re embedded within the IDF.” Only Gazan journalists can report on what is happening in the Gaza Strip. They struggle daily to survive and find places to take refuge. In many cases, their places of work no longer exist. According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), around 70 press organizations, including local radio stations, news agencies, transmission towers, and journalist training institutes, have been partially or completely destroyed since the start of the war. Forbidden Stories has carried out this investigation in collaboration with AFP, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, Le Monde, Paper Trail Media and other international media outlets as part of the Gaza Project. Supported by the analyses of experts in ballistics and audio, it illustrates one of the many strategies used by the Israeli military to stifle information in Gaza: the destruction of press infrastructure.

25 June 2024

[reasonsforhope]

"Clothing tags, travel cards, hotel room key cards, parcel labels … a whole host of components in supply chains of everything from cars to clothes. What do they have in common? RFID tags.  

Every RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag contains a microchip and a tiny metal strip of an antenna. A cool 18bn of these are made – and disposed of – each year. And with demands for product traceability increasing, ironically in part because of concerns for the social and environmental health of the supply chain, that’s set to soar. 

And guess where most of these tags end up? Yup, landfill – adding to the burgeoning volumes of e-waste polluting our soils, rivers and skies. It’s a sorry tale, but it’s one in which two young graduates of Imperial College London and Royal College of Art are putting a great big green twist. Under the name of PulpaTronics, Chloe So and Barna Soma Biro reckon they’ve hit on a beguilingly simple sounding solution: make the tags out of paper. No plastic, no chips, no metal strips. Just paper, pure and … simple … ? Well, not quite, as we shall see. 

The apparent simplicity is achieved by some pretty cutting-edge technical innovation, aimed at stripping away both the metal antennae and the chips. If you can get rid of those, as Biro explains, you solve the e-waste problem at a stroke. But getting rid of things isn’t the typical approach to technical solutions, he adds. “I read a paper in Nature that set out how humans have a bias for solving problems through addition – by adding something new, rather than removing complexity, even if that’s the best approach.”   

And adding stuff to a world already stuffed, as it were, can create more problems than it solves. “So that became one of the guiding principles of PulpaTronics”, he says: stripping things down “to the bare minimum, where they are still functional, but have as low an environmental impact as possible”.  

...how did they achieve this magical simplification? The answer lies in lasers: these turn the paper into a conductive material, Biro explains, printing a pattern on the surface that can be ‘read’ by a scanner, rather like a QR code. It sounds like frontier technology, but it works, and PulpaTronics have patents pending to protect it. 

The resulting tag comes in two forms: in one, there is still a microchip, so that it can be read by existing scanners of the sort common within retailers, for example. The more advanced version does away with the chip altogether. This will need a different kind of scanner, currently in development, which PulpaTronics envisages issuing licences for others to manufacture. 

Crucially, the cost of both versions is significantly cheaper than existing RFID kit – making this a highly viable proposition. Then there are the carbon savings: up to 70% for the chipless version – so a no-brainer from a sustainability viewpoint too. All the same, industry interest was slow to start with but when PulpaTronics won a coveted Dezeen magazine award in late 2023, it snowballed, says So. Big brands such as UPS, DHL, Marks & Spencer and Decathlon came calling. “We were just bombarded.” Brands were fascinated by the innovation, she says, but even more by the price point, “because, like any business, they knew that green products can’t come with a premium”."

-via Positive.News, April 29, 2024

--

Note: I know it's still in the very early stages, but this is such a relief to see in the context of the environmental and human rights catastrophes associated with lithium mining and mining for rare earth metals, and the way that EVs and other green infrastructure are massively increasing the demand for those materials.

I'll take a future with paper-based, more humane alternatives for sure! Fingers crossed this keeps developing and develops well (and quickly).

[unsolicited-opinions]

Okay, this is funny.

That's Moshe Rubin.

To be clear- the person in this photo is the young engineer Moshe Rubin (a very Jewish palestina resident), transmitting the special broadcast during the opening of the Palestina Broadcasting Service in Ramallah, March 30 - British radio station that was established during the British mandate regime here as “palestina”. Funny enough the Jews were the ones to initiate it, create it and operate it but It was broadcasting in the 3 formal languages here back then (Hebrew, Arabic and English). The most interesting part is that since 1948 the Arabic broadcasting and infrastructure in Ramallah was transferred to… Jordan - the new state of the Arabs that were in British Palestina… They gave no idea what the word Palestina means and where it came from and how it’s stolen so they use this BS deception on the ignorant masses.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Stay out of the woods

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

The greatest regret General Kemrak had was setting foot on the human world of Tenvus III.

At first things had gone well for his forces. Organized resistance was scarce as the planet was on the outer reaches of human controlled space which meant it had a fraction of a defense force a normal human world would have.  They were easily swept away in the opening phase of the invasion.

Clustered around the largest city on the planet, the humans held out for little under a day before Kemrak’s forces overran them and secured the capital. The official government of the planet surrendered and a token garrison force was left behind under the new military rule of Kemrak while the rest of the invasion fleet continued onward into human territory.

Though a temporary position until a civilian Geminite official could be brought in, Kemrak took the position seriously and began laying the foundation for Tenvus III’s introduction as the latest conquest to empire territory.

New habitation zones were cleared out, the space port was expanded to handle larger craft, and the capital was further reinforced into a true stronghold that would take months if not years to dislodge Geminite forces from. All made possible via the use of human labor for mere rations as compensation.

Things began taking a downhill turn when Kemrak began to spread his control to other communities. Given the planets lack of infrastructure, many smaller human communities existed deep within the dense forests and were only accessible either by air or by rugged and unreliable beat path roads.

None of these communities had strategic value so were ignored during initial stages, but now with preparing the world for annexation they too needed to be subdued. To that end Kemrak dispatched multiple squads via captured maps the general had planned to hear back from them by week’s end that they had achieved their goals.

A week came and went and to the general’s surprise no word came.

Radio transmissions were silent and not a single warrior returned from the dispatched squads to give an update. So the general dispatched more squads this time with the objective of finding the lost squads and subduing the human settlements.

Another week came and went and still silence.

The garrison forces were now becoming anxious at the disappearance of so many of their comrades. Unease crept into their hearts and the human captives were all too keen to see the sudden loss of heart of their conquerors.

Labor riots broke out, small scale sabotage acts increased by 17%, isolated groups of Geminite warriors were attacked and left crippled by human mobs. While control of the major planetary arteries was still within the general’s grasp, he was no fool to see that if left unchecked he would be facing a full-fledged uprising.

Seeking to quell the human’s newfound sense of defiance and calm the hearts of his men, the general took the majority of his forces to secure the nearest listed settlement while leaving behind a token force that was still capable of managing the humans.

Row upon row of armor vehicles and troop carries filed out of the capital city and made west towards what was known as “Hangman’s Gulch”; a remote town stead situated deep in the forests along a deep ravine that seemingly had no bottom.

With each passing hour General Kemrak noted how the roads began losing their maintenance and began degrading into nothing more than dirt path amongst the trees. By the four hour mark the trees had become so dense that the armored vehicles had been forced into the front to slowly continue plowing through the trees.

As the daylight began to dwindle the general lamented that he would not reach the settlement before nightfall and so ordered a halt to the advance. A small area was cleared out and a camp was established for the night. His last orders for the night before heading to his own tent were ensuring the sentries and patrols provided maximum coverage.

The next morning when the general awoke he was greeted by the sight of a human knife wedged into the pillow next to his head. He fell backwards as he pushed himself out of bed and called for his guards who came rushing into his tent.

He demanded to know how such a would-be assassin had bypassed the sentries and patrols. To his horror his guards informed him that during the night every patrol and sentry had gone missing. Their all clear signals had been set to repeat.

Kemrak ordered the entire camp awoken and place on high alert and for every inch to be search for any lurking intruders. His guards complied and exited the tent just as the beads of sweat began to run down the general’s face. He was under no illusion of the message his would be killers had given him. That despite everything he had, every ounce of power he wielded, they could kill him at any time.

Within the hour the entire camp was torn apart by the search parties as well as the surrounding area, but nothing could be found of the attackers. Of the missing sentries and patrols however, the search parties found the grizzly remains of pools of blood and blood trails going off deeper into the woods. The troops were once more becoming enthralled with fear and the general quickly got them moving to the settlement.

Another four hours of marching and Kemrak had finally reached the settlement. It was just as the map described, perched alongside a deep ravine with no visible bottom and comprising of two dozen small homes and stores.

Surrounding the town, Kemrak issued the command for his warriors to charge in and take any human they found captive for questioning. He sat in his command vehicle as the town was soon engulfed with Geminite warriors, yet not a single shot was fired. The general pondered this when his radio transmitter chimed and a report from the warriors came in.

The entire town was empty.

Not a single human, adult or child, was present.

Frustration mounted within the general as he realized he had been led on a wild goose chase. In a fit of rage he told his warriors to burn down the settlement and take whatever they wanted, and that tomorrow they would head back to the capital. His warriors cheered his name as they sacked and looted the settlement long into the night and danced around the fires of burning buildings in celebration.

Quietly, the general had also redoubled the sentries and pulled the patrols closer as the flames continued into the night. He would not be caught unaware again and sat inside his command vehicle with his command staff as the revelries slowly faded into the night.

When the general fell asleep he did not know; but as he roused himself he felt that he was still inside the command vehicle. As he rubbed his eyes to shrug off the morning drowsiness he felt something cold and pasty touch his eyelids.

Wiping away whatever the liquid was with his sleeve he looked down at his hand to see it was blood.

His hands were drenched in blood, but as he opened his mouth to cry out he took in the rest of his command vehicle and the cry shriveled in his throat.

All around him were the mutilated bodies of his command team. Some spread across the decking like rag dolls, while others still sat at their posts as if waiting for his next command as if the gashes in their throats were a minor inconvenience.

He scrambled with the release hatch and fell out of the vehicle with a loud thud drawing the attention of nearby guards. They rushed over to their general but froze in horror as they saw the contents of the command vehicle.

Orders for status reports from the sentries had to be beaten into the guards by Kemral as hey locked up in shock. The orders were relayed and answered in short fashion but not with a desired outcome.

Once again, all sentries and patrols had gone missing sometime in the night.

By now the rest of the force was waking up. Despite the best efforts of Kemrak’s officers the news of yet another enemy attack spread like wild fire dousing the confidence the previously nights sackings had ignited. Worse yet was the loud commotion coming from the front of their encampment that was drawing more and more warriors.

Kemrak stormed to the front of his camp to find a lone warrior shambling from the tree line back to them. They dragged a broken leg behind them as they stumbled closer but known of the watching warriors would go to help them. For the lone warrior was as terrifying as the nightmare they had seen in the command vehicle.

The warrior’s hands were gone; all that was left were two bloody stumps that had been singed closed. Clumps of their tattered uniform clung to their body and fluttered in the breeze to reveal the mauled and bloodied chest of the warrior. Chunks of skin had been peeled away to reveal raw muscle twitching with every movement.

Kemrak stood at the front of his warriors as the lone survivor finally came before them.

“They say…..” the warrior stuttered through bloody lips, “we’ll all die…..tonight….unless we give them…” The lone survivor pointed at Kemrak.  The warriors behind Kemrak murmured amongst themselves but a quick glare from the general silenced them.

“We do that…” the warrior continued as they spat out a thick glob of blood and took several deep gasps, “…and they let us go….and give us back….everyone…missing..”

With their message delivered, the warrior collapsed to the ground like a puppet’s whose strings had finally been cut.

As the medics finally went forward Kemrak’s eyes passed over his men. Where once was unshaken loyalty, now lay the tendrils of betrayal. He could not look a moment more at them and turned back to look at the surrounding woods and try to figure some way out of this nightmare.

It was at that moment he felt his hearts stop.

There was something moving amongst the trees.

[shithowdy]

New Vegas Divide and Big MT Locations

A lot of discussions I find on the matter tend to ultimately be met with the answer of, "It's a fake place somewhere in Death Valley, it doesn't matter exactly where". I can understand not needing this information to enjoy the story, but unfortunately, I'm roleplaying a prequel set in 2276 so I want some goddamn specifics 💅

SO. My own speculation on The Divide's more precise location below the cut. Apologies if anyone has supplied this theory before, I got a little tired of browsing reddit threads full of incurious wiki-thumpers.

(tl;dr it's a developed Fort Irwin)

The Divide and the named places in it obviously don't correlate as directly with real locations like the rest of the game, but this makes sense. In a differing timeline where the nuclear arms race seems to have only shifted in players, not ethics, it's easy to imagine that the area surrounding desert military operations and nuclear development sites would grow in importance (I similarly have mentioned Los Alamos being a much bigger city in our RP for the same reason). The Mojave was a hub for nuclear R&D and even today houses one of our warheads, of course it would boom (pun unavoidable). So the first thing I did was ignore cities, even "Ashton". A location named Ashton does exist further north beyond the Nevada border, but nothing about it geographically matches what we interact with in game.

Instead, I thought about the geography itself. What we know about the Divide is that the detonations there made CA-127 unusable, forcing NCR supply chains trying to reach Hoover Dam to enter via the 15 and Mojave Outpost.

We also know it was east of established NCR territory, west of the main NV game map, and north of the 15.

This means its radius is limited to something like this.

Looking at the overlay, and knowing that the "default story" courier had been for some time delivering supplies between the established NCR and Ashton/Hopeville, their route taking them from The Hub (formerly Lancaster), the industrial and trade center of New California, and this new city makes the most sense.

(As an aside, I have to say that I'm very sorry to classic players upset about the map retcon, because that damn geography doesn't even match what the text implies. The Necropolis is Barstow, not Bakersfield?? Anyway.)

Further evidence that the courier's route brought them from the Hub is a note by a merchant from there who appears to have found their old route after the bombs...

... and Nash explaining that the Courier was initially hired at The Hub in the first place, indicating an established presence there.

So we have the general radius. How do we get more specific? What I think a lot of people ignore when trying to pinpoint the area are the quakes set off by the subterranean bombs and the effect they had on the landscape: gaping geological scars that run East-West, indicating a sensitive fault line at this angle.

The immediately clear answer to this was the Ridgecrest fault.

Okay, so we have a good candidate for a fault line. What sits below it? In our timeline, the remote Fort Irwin and its surrounding military desert combat training sites (complete with simulated villages), and the Goldstone site satellite complex. If you were going to use existing infrastructure as building blocks for new and grander development in this region, the roads, electricity, water treatment, and radio towers here would be the ideal choice. Let's see if it lines up.

You know what? I'll take it. A circular central interchange that branches out through mountainous areas situated just below the Ridgecrest fault. So where does that place Big MT? We know it's south of Hopeville, but it can't interfere with I-15. This necessitates an area of (currently) high elevation with caves below surrounded by darker soil, canyon networks, but an otherwise flat landscape somewhere just south of the Divide radius.

Wouldn't you know, there just happens to be a lone mountain that sits atop an opal mine, which in a different timeline could have very easily been converted into a different excavation project. Opal Mountain, or the Black Mountain Wilderness (unrelated), is a perfect match.

So! This is obviously pure speculation based on me having the specific flavor of autism that brews when one grows up having their own brain fried by 120f weather and residual nuclear fallout. I did this for the purpose of RP, but if anyone finds it useful, yippee etc.