V689U = Kirisun S760/FP460 or V688

So that V689U I posted about yesterday... Hans put on his detective cap and thinks it may be the Kirisun S760/FP460. UHF only. Boo. Hiss.

UPDATE 14 MAR 2013: Or maybe it is a Kirsun V688. Thanks to tornadolaci for the tip. Title was V689U = Kirisun S760/FP460 - changed to V689U = Kirisun S760/FP460 or V688. The radio looks to be the V688, but the sample of the display matches what is on the FP460 page.

Google Reader Being Retired

To borrow a phrase from my wife... What the what?!?!

"We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader."

I don't want to move to one of those flashy RSS clients. I want fast, simple, clean.

Weather Apps

A good list of weather related apps for your smartphone.

Lego Game of Thrones

Scenes from The Game of Thrones in Legos.

Via Tower of the Hand

Hora HR-79D: Digital Mobile

More from Nate (with some notes from me in brackets):

A new mono-band (136-174MHZ) mobile VHF radio just got added to the 409Shop's plethora of radios, the Hora HR-79D ($296 USD). [Based on the picture of the box, I'm guessing the "V" in the part number is for VHF, but I don't see a UHF version.]

Some Specs:

- Analog mode, digital mode, mixed analog/digital mode

- FDMA modulation with 6.25K channels

- Super High security

- 999 channels with 20 Zones, each Zone with 50 channels

- More than 7 codes ID number

- Large programmable buttons

- Powerful, front-facing speaker

- Steps: 5/6.25/10/12.5/20/25/50/100 KHZ

- Output Power: 55W/15W/10W/5W

While the body of the radio reminds me of the Yaesu FTM-350, the most interesting feature is the FDMA modulation with 6.25K channels option.
 
I looked into it, and I suspect that since Chinese radios pretty much "borrow" everything Kenwood, these may be NXDN / Nexedge compatible.

Of-course if you would like a different brand on the same radio, there is the identical Luiton DG-78 and DG-79. [I was looking back to see what I had posted before about Luiton and note that Kight Radio had warned about "fake" FTM-350 radios being sold as Luiton FTM-350AR.]

Looks like the year of the Water Snake is going to be very interesting.

409Shop Teaser: V689U Digital Radio

The 409Shop has this picture on their site, but no information about the V689U. Grrrrr. I'm ready to see some of these Chinese digital radios hit the market.

Quansheng Electronics

Nate has been looking around and done some research on the Quansheng (QS) Electronics radios. We've talked about the Quansheng radios before - the TG-Q5 Lucky Stone and the TG-UV2 (that Hans likes). Following is Nate's research with some edits from me - so assume any mistakes are mine.

========= New radios by Quansheng Electronics Ltd =========

I've noticed few days ago a new dualband HT on 409Shop. The very cool looking TG-K4AT(UV) -  It costs $67.

Quansheng has updated their website recently.

*     TG-K4AT(UV) (as above): Looks like they borrowed some of the Baofeng UV-3R+ / UV-5R looks. No eHam.net reviews yet for the dual band - only the single band TG-K4AT mixed in with other Quansheng radios.

*     TG-620: Looks like a single display face lift for the old Quansheng TG-UV2, or if you will, the ham radio version of their commercial single band TG-360/860 - I wonder if the batteries are interchangeable, as the ham version is advertised with a 2000mAh battery and the commercial with a 3200mAh battery (they do promise a whooping 300 hours of work with these 3200mAh batteries). No eHam.net reviews. The Quansheng Alibaba page shows another version of the TG620 radio that they have yet to put on their main website: TG-620 (color). This one has red Up/Down buttons and yellow Menu and Exit buttons, while the rest are plain.

*     The old TG-UV2:  - Weird looking, very hard to program using the keypad (unlike the Baofeng UV-5R, which is relatively easy to program via the keypad). 47 eHam.net Reviews with an average score of 4.6/5.

*    TG-286/TG-486: Mono band mobile radios, 2m and 440MHz respectively (Also comes as the TG-386 for 350MHz). No eHam.net reviews.

(The following cute/weird radio - this hides under a different page where they keep their older models - mostly ham mono bander HTs.)


*     TG-R20:  - Dubbed "Cute radio" - has only 3 buttons on the radio where the (M)emory, (F)unction and Menu buttons are arranged to look like eyes and a nose of a cute small animal, (the large menu button even have painted nose and whiskers). - no specs, one picture shows it as having a single frequency display, while another shows a dual display. No eHam.net reviews.

Baofeng UV-5R: UV-5RAX 2M + 222

marksenk New Baofeng UV-5RAX covers 144 & 222 MHz ham bands - Available March 10 on Amazon for $49 #hamrTue, Mar 12 11:28:24 from The Visitor Widget

A Radio-Mart exclusive at Amazon: Baofeng UV-5RAX 144/220 Transceiver for $49.99 USD. I'd like for someone to try this out since people tend to have a strong opinion about Radio-Mart.

Baofeng UV-5R: Bad Batch?

Hans is hearing that some of the latest versions of the UV-5R are having problems. He's looking for data, so if anyone has done some measurements, please head over his way and let him know about your findings.

Hacking the Papal Election

Bruce evaluates the security of the Papal election process. So not very hackable, but I think they should add some drama to the vote counting.