Highlights:

• Nerds Abroad received several desktop computer donations over the last several months.
• Desktops are usually hard to re-home due to their size and lack of portability. Most of our donations and placements are laptops.
• Through a connection in the firefighting community, we refurbished one of these desktops and it’s now in service as a Public Scanner through Broadcastify.com (click here to listen in!)

The Story:

One of the best museum complexes in the Pacific Northwest is Powerland Heritage Park in Brooks, Oregon, just north of Salem. One of our partner organizations is the Pacific Northwest Truck Museum located in this complex, and across the street is the Oregon Fire Service Museum that preserves, restores, and displays fire apparatus, and just finished the first phase of their new building project. During a conversation in Summer 2022 at the annual Great Oregon Steam Up, we connected with Greg Musil – the Vice President of the museum and a Captain at Toledo Fire Department. A need was discovered to broadcast the public emergency frequencies for several fire departments in Lincoln Country over the internet. Since we had several desktops in our inventory, we were able to find a perfect desktop setup with the correct sound card outputs in order to make this happen.

Today, Toledo Fire Department, Depoe Bay Department, Newport Department, Siletz Department, Seal Rock Department, Central Coast Department, Yachats Department, and Pacific West Ambulance, around Lincoln County, Oregon, now have their frequencies broadcasted over the Internet for increased public access to emergency information.

Special thanks to our local companies in Albany, Oregon, who continue to donate equipment to Nerds Abroad!

If you have older technology hanging around your home or office, consider donating it to Nerds Abroad today! We will securely remove your hard drive (and with it, all the data), and give it to you in the process to ensure your information is safe. Contact us today to learn more!