Emergency Power

Some interesting emergency power options from Portable Universal Power for the ham on the go. I need a yellow or red ReVolt to match my radios. Check on the pictures on that page of the ReVolt in the Molle pouch and charging the iPad.

Via SaysUncle

Too Much of A Good Thing

Running too fast or too much may be bad for you if you are too old. Go figure.

Baojie BJ-UV55: Mini-Review

A little bit lost in the Anytone and Wouxun mobile drama is the Baojie BJ-UV55. Nate had done a write-up about it in July. Dale commented on the post that he has one and really likes it so far:

"I recently purchased a Baojie BJ-UV55 and have been using it in my car. So far I must say I am really impressed. I was initially concerned with the lack of an internal speaker, and the use of a speaker mic so I had an external speaker ready. After trying this little radio out I put the external speaker away as the audio quality of the speaker mic, was far superior to the external. I used the cable and software method of programming the radio and found it to be quite easy compared to most of the radios I have programmed. I have also had the opportunity to program and use a BJ-271 (VHF) and have found it to be a great radio too. It is only recently that I have strayed from american and Japanese radios to try out some of these very reasonably priced radios from China. So far, I am starting to think these are the radios for me. Brand names are not important to me, and I think the value for the dollar is definitely here with these Chinese radios. I will update later once I have worked the BJ-UV55 more. 

Dale
Canada"

I hope we get to see more about this radio. You can order one from the 409Shop for $223 (USD). If you are in the US, order from Kight Radio for a few dollars less ($214.95. USD).

Puxing PX-888K: Follow-Up

Hans previewed the Puxing PX-888K and I linked to his post. I even made fun of the fact that you could get a free shirt or jacket if you bought them in bulk. Some how I missed his follow-up of the actual review - Review Puxing PX-888K Part I - First Impressions. (No Part II yet, but he did mention the PX-888K in August when talking about the MYT-Q2.) Here are some key parts from his review:

Good build quality, nice features (like CTSS, DCS, DTMF, 1750 Hz burst tone, ANI), easy programming and "pleasant" receive audio, but "TX audio is still muffled, and the lack of highs makes your transmission hard to listen to."

The lone review by KD8DVR on eHam.net gives the PX-888K a thumbs up. He seems happier with the transmit audio - just comments it is a little "bassy." He's also posted a more detailed review on epinions.com. He specifically mentions that he has no trouble with the muffled audio that is common to Puxing. He does wish the battery life was better.

As with most Chinese radios, everyone is unhappy with the scanning speed.

The PX-888K has Part 90 acceptance - FCC ID: AUJPXDZ888K001. If you go to the FCC site, and search for AUJ in the Grantee Code  field, you can see the documents submitted for approval including pictures, manuals, etc.

Surprise - there is a Yahoo Group for the PX-888K! Only 77 members and 131 posts as of right now.

Current price is $80.00 with speaker mic at 409Shop. Or $89.95 at Kight Radio if you want a US dealer.

One update, there is still no CHIRP support, but it is on the list.

Here is the usual unboxing video courtesy of the 409Shop.

Sex Sells! Sex Sells Ham Radios?

It's not just Baofeng... it is all the Chinese radio manufacturers.

Baofeng BF-666: Cheap, Fixes

Hans had taken a quick look at the BF-666S (aka the BF-777S aka the BF-888S) and found them to be decent, cheap ($23.50 USD) radios. He sold a couple of them to a fellow ham - after giving him fair warning of the short-comings. As no good dead goes unpunished, this transaction ultimately turned into a bit of detective work and a project to fix the distorted audio. Along with that modification, he also suggests checking the frequency accuracy if you have have access to the appropriate tools.

Job Posting - See the World, Meet & Kill Interesting People

Target Elimination Specialist opening with Britian's MI6.

AES Promotions

k9aes Check out the radio promotions currently at AES - ow.ly/fyzyfSun, Nov 25 13:23:19 from HootSuite

CheckMark

I'm going to try out CheckMark - an app for doing location based reminders. I use Siri all the time for time-based reminders - "check the laundry in ten minutes" or "replace the air filters at 6:00 PM on Saturday." I think the location based reminders would be nice as the GPS location acts as filter, so you only get the reminder when you can do something about it - "check for .22lr when at Wal-Mart." If the granularity is good, I might even use it to remind of tasks when I am in a specific building at work.

Two Years of Brick O'Lore

I missed the actual two year anniversary on the 14th, but this is close enough for government work.

Not too much has changed since last year's review.

I still don't have an AR (but I do have two lowers!) or an M&P9. I've not been shooting in a long time.

I rarely even turn on the ham radios - partly because my KG-UVD1P that I was using in the car has died. Anyone know anything about a good, cheap Chinese mobile radio I could buy? (HA!) I did spend a little time with WSPR, but would like to invest some more. I haven't even cracked the book for the Extra Class exam.

I ran a marathon this year. I'm just crazy enough to think about doing another one. The bad news is I would need to start training now for an April race. Ugh.

I'm also getting a lot more involved at church. One week, between services, meetings, and fellowship, we were there four days out of the week.

Between family, exercising, church, work, and blogging; my days tend to be pretty full.

The radio posts are still the most popular, but that doesn't stop me from posting about anything I find interesting or funny. The blog has had 539,362 page views since I started it - around 112,000 in 2011 and 427,000 in 2012. I posted less in 2012 - 727 vs 856 in 2011 for a total of 1,583. SaysUncle is still the single largest referring URL thanks to a story about ninjas (of all things!). Makes me think I should resell radios under a zombie ninja brand.

The most popular post (15,555 views) is about the software for the Baofeng UV-3R Software. Given the endless discussion on the Yahoo groups about how to get the software to work with your Baofeng/Wouxun KG-whatever or UV-xxx, this really isn't a surprise. I think almost all of this traffic is driven via searches.

Given so much of my traffic is via search, the biggest surprise for me this year has been the jump in my RSS subscribers. Last time I checked, I think there were about 8. I could even account for half of those - me, my wife, probably Linoge, etc. I looked and found I have 100 subscribers - wow! I was and am floored. Thanks so much for reading my ramblings. If any of my RSS subscribers would do me a favor, please leave a comment on this post - anonymous is fine. I'm just curious as to how many people actually follow and would read a long post like this one.

Goals for next year... I need to build at least one of the lowers in to an actual rifle. I want to get my Extra Class license. I'd like to run a sub 20 minute 5k.

I will close the same way as I did last year...

Thanks for reading!