Feel Good Friday

Via Rachel Lucas

Baofeng UV-5R: Officially Old News

Roberta X has a Baofeng UV-5R, so we can now officially say that it is well past the cutting edge phase and is quickly moving toward whatever the modern equivalent of a boat anchor is.

;)

Tanks

But can you find ammo for them?

"The good news is that they report that prices have recently dropped or flattened. So if you can’t find an AR at your local gun shop, you may be able to find a slightly discounted tank."

Not Wearing Any Pants

Funny captions on news broadcasts. The "not wearing any pants" story must be about Rob's pants free lifestyle.

Poor Man's System Status

Some companies have a fancy dashboard where you can view the status of a particular system. For companies that don't, I find that a quick visit to their Facebook page can often give you the same information. Not because the company has posted an update, but rather by looking for complaints of other users. This morning I could not make a mobile deposit to my bank. Turns out I wasn't the only one.

Busy

Sorry for the lack of posting the last few days... life is happening. Nate did send me some interesting stuff about some radios that I hope to post soon.

What Do You Mean If?

George RR Martin is a slow writer. There is now a race between him finishing the books and the HBO series based on his books catching up. This article asks if the show will catch the books. I don't think it is a question. The show will catch the books because George is a writer first and a business man second. The creative process will not be rushed.

Much to my disappointment.

Via Winter is Coming

Draw a Stickman

Just what it says... http://www.drawastickman.com. It is a neat little time waster.

Leap Motion Controller

If I wasn't such a cheapskate, I would spend $80 to try the Leap Motion Controller. I use the keyboard a lot more than the mouse (short-cuts are king!), so I don't think I would want to move my hands off the keyboard for the Leap anymore than I would for the mouse.



Via Robb

Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse & Ham Radio

Recently, I read Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse* as an apparent attempt to push myself into a state of depression. I've seen it billed as a how to manual for preppers with a story slapped on top of it. (It made me think of The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement* - a story about a plant manager who implements several changes related to the Theory of Constraints.) It is not a manual for preparedness by any stretch, but it does try to present various scenarios for one to consider. One of the more interesting parts for me was toward the end when a character was getting a lesson in Communications Security from Edgar, the communications expert:

"My goal today is to first let you know what sort of equipment is out there -- friendly, enemy, captured enemy, and to teach you ComSec in a nutshell, so you won't get yourself killed or give the enemy valuable intelligence."

Edgar covers a lot of ground over the next few pages:

• HF
• VHF
• signals propagating, bouncing off the ionosphere
• sunspot cycle
• sky wave
• ground wave
• direction finding
• near vertical incidence
• line of sight
• 2M HTs
• modifying radios that could transmit 118 to 180 megahertz, but limited by FCC to 144 to 148, so they opened them up to 140 - 170
• frequency agile radios
• mods to CBs
• SWR
• antennas

He recommends trying to find a particular radio:

"Speaking of CBs, you should try to and locate a Uniden President HR2510. This is a ham radio that you can modify to transmit and receive in the citizen's band range. You can open this model up all the way from 26 to 30 megs. It has a frequency counter that you can finetune down to 10 kilohertz."

He then continues the lesson talking about:

• modifying cellular telephones
• working split
• Kenwood TH-79A
• cross-band operating
• operating AM on typical FM frequencies

As a ham, it was a fun chapter to read. It also made me interested in the Uniden President HR2510, so I had to look it up. I found this site with a long list of tip and tricks for modifying the HR2510.

* Links via my Amazon Associate account. You don't pay any extra, but I get "rich" if you buy through the link.