Ugly Color

I'm thinking about adding some color to my blog.

Raise

I want a $10k/year raise for being a ham.

W9WSW: DMR for Beginners

A super-brief intro to DMR with a bunch of links to more info. https://t.co/YOWUDWvPoJ

— W9WSW (@w9wsw) June 9, 2016

Baofeng BF-F9: On Woot

At the end of May, Woot was selling the Baofeng BF-F9 for about $40. It generated quite a thread on the UV-5R Yahoo Group. There was some worry about unlicensed folks getting their hands on the radios, since they were promoted on Woot. I guess the thinking was that Woot has a diverse audience that might be interested in the cool toy/walkie talkie, but have no interest or knowledge of the licensing requirements to transmit. (Also, speculating here that this is different from Amazon or other web sites where people are more likely to be intentionally searching for radios instead of having one pop up on the page.)

k4rgn shared this note:

As someone who ordered a Baofeng from Woot yesterday before they sold out, I just received an email from Woot saying: 

"Dear Potential Hammie, So you bought the BaoFeng Ham Two-way Radio Transceiver from us very recently! Thank you! Listen to your hearts content! But we somehow forgot to offer a little reminder that HAM radio transmission requires a license! And if you send without it, you're gonna get in trouble with the FCC. Read here for more: http://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed http://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed . If you already knew all that, excellent! But if you didn't know that, we want to give you a chance to get a refund. Just email support@woot.com by June 3rd, 10 AM CST and say I CAN'T HAM-DLE IT! and we'll cancel the order and get you your money back, just like that. Or, of course, you could get that license and learn the wonderful and majestic world of HAM. Wouldn't that be fun? Huh? Wouldn't it? It's up to you, Woot.com" 

Congrats to whoever provoked Woot to send this.

I think it is nice that they sent the note, but I believe the obligation is with the buyer. I'm trying to think of analogies with cars or guns. I'm pretty sure I showed a license to purchase my last car, but that was more a piece of the financial transaction. It wasn't to prove I was permitted to drive. I'm pretty big on personal responsibility and since there is a real (however unlikely) case that the radio could be used as a receiver only, I have no problem with them being sold on Woot.

Hopefully, we'll add even more folks to the hobby.

Streaming DMR

Posting this again as it seems timely...

Hose Line:

"Hose line is an online streaming platform for the HAM radio Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) Brandmeister network. The project is still under heavy development, so if you encounter bugs, please try again at a later stage."

Via @PD0ZRY

Wouxun KG-UV9D: KD2KOG Review

Mike reviews the Wouxun KG-UV9D.

Wrenches - Standard vs. Metric

Now I can distinguish my metric and SAE wrenches at a glance. @JimmyDiResta @iliketomakestuf @donttrythis pic.twitter.com/DVhwD0uhVg

— Randy Cox (@randykcox) June 5, 2016

Via @roteno

This, of course, reminds me of the joke about the different measurement systems:

There are two types of the countries... those who use metric and those who have been to the moon.

Hytera NDP-950

Hytera NDP-950 professional Intelligent Interphone https://t.co/hZHpzir1W6 pic.twitter.com/m2b5UzR4iQ

— HAM-DMR.NL (@HamDMRNL) June 4, 2016

Via @TravisGoodspeed

No More Headphones?

Great, but I want this solved for when I'm running...

Could headphones become obsolete? Learn what’s possible with steered sound #tech: https://t.co/kqcyn3SqDk pic.twitter.com/fMpJUIASfn

— Cisco (@Cisco) June 1, 2016

VolNet DMR

Guess I need the UHF version of whatever radio I pickup... VolNet DMR Repeaters.