Seveneves

Neal Stephenson has a new book: Seveneves: A Novel. I obviously like his stuff as he made the cut when I purged books a while back. I've only started reading the sample of this one, but I came across this in the first little bit:

"Rufus, a die-hard ham radio enthusiast who still communicated in Morse code with a dwindling circle of old friends all over the world, had pointed out that radio transmission between the ground and Izzy was actually rather easy, given that it was line-of-sight (at least when Izzy happened to be passing overhead) and that the distance was nothing by ham radio standards. Since Dinah lived and worked in a robot workshop, surrounded by soldering gear and electronics workbenches, it had been a simple matter for her to assemble a small transceiver following specifications provided by her dad."

Izzy = The International Space Station. Guess I'll be forking over the money for the full book soon.

The Danger of the IoT

Got to be careful with that IoT.

 

The Martian: Movie

So they are making The Martian into a movie.

Baofeng UV-3R: Wireless Charging

It's been a while since I've done a UV-3R post, but this is a cool project.

More pic from #baofeng uv-3r wireless charging modification.. @brickolore pic.twitter.com/GaJgaeZ1mJ

— Ondrej Kolonicny (@ok1cdj) June 4, 2015

QYT KT8900: Now in Red

Because we all know red puts out more power...

Radio Mart Discontinues Sales of Chinese Radios

Martyn announces via the TYT TH9800 Yahoo Group that he will no longer be selling Chinese radios:

"We here at Radio Mart no longer carry ANY Chinese radios

The reason is very simple,, as we were the first to introduce this rig in to the country we enjoyed excellent sales for some time, then with eBay and Amazon came falling prices to below even our landed cost.

10 to 15 calls a day every single day and night asking for help from users who had not purchased the rig from our company gets a little old,,, so it’s no skin off my nose that I no longer carry the TH-9800

Support from TYT,, good luck with that and support from whoever you purchased it from through Amazon or eBay,, good luck with that too.

IF USA hams had supported a USA company then this would be an exceptional radio for the money however this never happened,, shame really.

I set up this self help group to cover any of the consumers who purchased this radio elsewhere so they could at least get some support of sorts.

Thank you to all those hams who have been very patent and helpful to those in need of assistance.

I will be keeping this help group open for now as it is part of my contribution to the hobby but PLEASE DO NOT CALL me asking for help when you went elsewhere and purchased this radio.

Thanks
Best 73s
Martyn
K4TEC
Radio-Mart, Ham Radio Products, Yaesu,Icom, Kenwood,Heil,LDG,TYT, Baofeng"

Debt in 2015

A random fact I found interesting... Debt:

"According to the Federal Reserve and other government statistics, our penchant for indebtedness means that the average household now owes $7,281 in credit card debt alone. 

But here’s the thing – that average includes even those who carry no debt at all. So when you take out the households and families that don’t carry a balance on any of their credit cards, the average outstanding balance surges to $15,609."

Juentai JT-6188: Unboxing

Juentai JT-6188 (aka QYT KT8900) unboxing video from Jason (KC5HWB) of Grapevine Amateur Radio.com:



He confirms no 2.5 steps. Also, power out is pretty consistent at about 20 watts for both 2m and 440.

Juentai JT-6188: AR-15.com Forum

I'm getting a lot of my info on the Juentai JT-6188 (aka QYT KT8900) from the posts on the AR-15 Ham Radio forum, so this is a note to acknowledge the work those guys are doing.

Thanks folks!

Juentai JT-6188: Manual

Here is the manual/quick start guide for the Juentai JT-6188 (aka QYT KT8900)... sorry, they are just image files.