Word of the Day

Malaise.

Must Have Feature

My wife's car is in for service. I'm driving a seven year newer version of her car as a loaner. It has lots of fancy features - rear camera, radio mutes when the car is in reverse, a button to engage the parking brake, etc. Of all the changes, the one thing I wish I had the most - the cup holders. The cup holder in our car is horrible - basically unusable.

Source of Cheap Radios

I have found the source of some of the cheap radios - the US Marshals.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Citizens arrest! Citizens arrest!

Sign me up.

Editing for a Quote

Hans says about me:

"He’s running one of the best blogs on earth"

Don't click his link. Just stop right there. Nothing to see. Move along.

Baofeng UV-B5: Miklor Reference

John (K3NXU) started with the UV-5R information. He added the UV-82. And now, you can get information on the UV-B5.

QTH Bathtub

That explains the rash of new Chinese radios that meet the MIL-STD-810 standard or the like for waterproofing.

AnyTone Intellectual Property and TYT

Ed (Import Communications) passed along the following:

To Whom this may Concern:

Please be aware that our Company, Qixiang Electron Science & Technology Co., Ltd., is the manufacturer and designer of the industry leading AT-588 mobile transceiver. We are sending you this notice as where we wish to inform you that our intellectual property has been stolen by a competitive manufacturer from Quanzhou City, China, TYT Electronics Co., Ltd.. 

They sold worldwide a copy of our radio, which they called the TH9000.

Based on the evidence presented to the courts,  the Intermediate People's Court of Quanzhou City announced after trial on June 17,2013, the following verdict:

1) It was found where TYT illegally obtained the technical files of the Model AT-588 (single band mobile radio) from Qixiang and used this information to produce a copy and sold their copied model TH-9000 to the industry. 

2)TYT was ordered to stop the production and sales of the TH9000 

3) TYT was fined 4 million RMB ($650,000 USD) for its tort and illegal activity as damages to Qixiang.

The decision of the courts was fair and just, and brings another level of integrity to the radio manufacturing sector in China.

It  also reminds all professional radio manufacturers in China to the intellectual property of others and this decision reminds of them what they cannot do.

We remind all TYT resellers and users of the TYT Model  TH9000 about this court decision and advise all TYT customers or others to cease from advertising, selling, or supporting  the TH-9000 model transceiver. Qixiang Electron Science & Technology Co., Ltd., will protect its intellectual property and will prosecute to the fullest worldwide anyone found to sell the products in question.
Meanwhile, we hope our customers will support our original designed products, this will be lead us to stable and continued long-term business.
2013-07-19
----------Best regards,EchoQixiang Electron Science & Technology CO., Ltd.
Website: <http://www.qx-tele.com>www.qx-tele.com

Wow.  I wonder if this will have any impact to all the other "clones" we see. I suspect many of the clones are sold by the original manufacturer and re-branded, but there are probably others out there that are not. And will they start protecting the intellectual property of non-Chinese companies? That has long been a concern of taking tech to China to be built.

Xiegu X1M: Platinum Edition Update

Some more about the Xiegu X1M Platinum Edition on the HelloCQ.net forum. Images are via the forum and text is via the forum by way of Google Translate.

X1M Platinum Edition (Overseas customized), is in the country X1M version, based on the appearance of the display, buttons, part of the circuit is optimized for a version, mainly to comply with EU mandatory technical requirements of relevant laws and regulations, as well as relevant FCC requirements.

The improved version of the following areas:

1, for a chip with a new, lower numerical part of the receiver;
2, for a solid OLED screen, to meet the sun observation, as well as the use of cold regions;
3, the replacement of the button improved touch feel;
4, significantly reducing the use of plug-ins that will replace most of the capacitor chip capacitors;
5, will be replaced by a capacitor LPF section COG chip capacitors, filter characteristics significantly improved;
6, the power amplifier section redesigned, converted to all-MOS amplifier, all using Mitsubishi RF power transistors, high gain RF specifications can be protected, each section were 4.5W maximum power over part of the band reaches 6.5W;
7, the control software for the rewritten and revised the CW portion of the bug, is zoned separation standards;
8, carried out on the machine EMC focus rectification, effectively inhibited the machine's various crosstalk;
9, to meet the requirements of domestic and foreign regulations and inspection machine, the software inside, on the amateur bands made ​​shield band emission (in the Project menu to open);
10, to increase the reliability of keys, key board uses a PCB gold plating.

To meet the needs of my friends and thank you for your continued support and concern that this X1M Platinum Edition Domestic sales are as follows: Price: 1180 yuan / Taiwan (only mainland China and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) including a full : Host a microphone in hand a power plug a 3.5 key plug an updated record: 2013.07.17: X1M Platinum Edition Quick Start Guide first release

Rotary Encoder

I got the rotary encoder in the mail today. Now, I need to carve out a little time to see if I can fix this thing.