Monday, June 27, 2011

Baofeng UV-3R: Power Plug

Thanks to Lee, N9LO, for finding the power plug specs for the UV-3R. It is a DC male power supply Plug socket connector 2.5 x 0.7mm and is availible via eBay.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Maryville City

Since Uncle and others had posted about it, I thought I would skip posting the Maryville City rap by Hollywoood and Dirty D. However, since it has stuck in my head, I hope this will help get it out.



Maryville City. Country Boys. Blount County Boys.

How we warm up in the morning...

I like for the guys in my IT department to get things going in the morning by doing a little bit of physical activity. It looks something like this...


I.T.!
Fired Up!
I think winning programs have that level of excitement and enthusiasm in most of their practices.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Prepping

I've often though that one of the first things I should do as part of any "prepping" is to get in shape. Everyone talks about guns, food, flashlights, medicine, etc. I have to believe all these tools become a lot more valuable if the prepper has the energy to use them.

So, I went out and bought some running shoes. I haven't played indoor soccer for approaching two and a half years. It has been almost seven years since I was jogging on regular basis. I got home, changed, and took off running. I ran just under 3 miles in about 33 minutes. Not a bad start - all things considered.

Baofeng UV-3R: Review by Dave, N9EWO

Paul has pointed me to Dave's (N9EWO) review of the, as he call its, the VGC / Baofeng / Magiksun / Comtex / Zastone UV-3R "Micro" Dual Band Handheld Transceiver. You have to scroll half-way down to find the start of the UV-3R info, but it is worth a little mouse work. He has lots of good information.

First, he's found two other brands the radio is sold under - Comtex and Zastone.

Second, he's encountered a few problems with the radio and has some fixes like this one for :
"When we do PC uploads to the UV-3R transceiver using the "409shop's" Universal USB cable,the 5 Khz channel step appear like this [B. 4BK] on the LCD afterwards on some memory channels and/or each VFO . Software version used : 1.01.01.
We cured this bug by going to Menu # 9 after and just rotating through the loop of "steps" once to wash out the weird step entries (done after every upload ).
Needs to be done for both VHF/UHF VFO AND also for EVERY memory channel used to clear these weird entries out and for the display to show properly ."
He also mentions the slow scan times and loud receive audio, but comes to the same conclusion that we all do:
"Cheap, Fun and Useful."

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

La plus ça change

If Tam sees some strange hits on her old posts at View from the Porch, then that's from me walking through history. During my walk, I noticed that things haven't changed much.

2011 - Gas prices coming down.
2005 - Tam talks about gas prices.

2011 - Tam asks what is the difference between a SWAT team & Depart of Education federal agents?
2005 - Tam points out militarized police arresting a man for loitering.

2011 - Atlas Shrugged is an eye-opening read for me as the movie comes out.
2005 - Tam says Atlas Shrugged approaches philosophical scripture status.

I Pack

It might remove the element of surprise, but I must have... get yours here.



You can compliment it with some stickers.

Shirt via TNJeff.
Stickers via Linoge.

Dropbox - Even Worse

I posted that I shouldn't put sensitive information in my Dropbox, since there are tools being released to compromise your "secure" storage.

Apparently, you don't need a tool or even a correct password. Dropbox allowed any password to work with any account for 4 hours.

Via Slashdot.org