Amazon Free Shipping

I have usually taken the slow boat option when ordering from Amazon, since it saves me a few dollars. Amazon is raising the threshold for free shipping from $35 to $49. I feel like this is a move to push more people to Amazon Prime.

Baofeng Tech UV-2501+220: A wee tiny radio with a lot of capability

Some initial impressions from someone that's picked up the UV-2501+220:

"a wee tiny radio with a lot of capability"

I agree with several of the comments there - especially about the size. It is small, but I didn't feel like the buttons were too hard to access. Using the mic to program in a repeater was not especially painful as those things go - I don't think manually programming 100 repeaters would be high on anyone's list. Getting the programming cable will make life much easier.

Magic Smoke

Sometimes the magic smoke escapes via the antenna...


Via reddit /r/amateurradio

The First Mile

The first mile always sucks. That's true for me. Even for longer races, I need a significant warm-up. I'm better off running the warm-up instead of "saving" my legs for the race. My current PR for a half-marathon (13.1 miles) was after a five mile warm-up before the race.

Baofeng Tech: Antenna Connections

A commenter wanted "to know if that antenna has any kind of O-ring or seal between the antenna and NMO adapter." Here are some close-ups of all the connectors for both the Nagoya TB-320A tri-band antenna and the Nagoya RB-35 5/8 NMO Mount. I don't see any o-rings/seals - just the insulators, but the fit was very good on everything and all the connections locked up nice and tight.

Ground Plane - Old PC Side Panels

I've appropriated cookie sheets from the kitchen in the past, but that always gets me in trouble. When I was going to recycle some old computers, I realized I could keep the side panels to be my ground plan. Here I've connected up the UV-2501+220 using the Nagoya TB-320A tri-band antenna and the Nagoya RB-35 5/8 NMO Mount.

Baofeng UV-2501: It's alive!

Powering up the UV-2501+220... it barely moves the meter.

(It's nice to have the cigarette lighter plug for quickly getting these radios going.)

The display looks better than these pictures show - it's very bright and overwhelms the camera.

Baofeng UV-2501+220: Unboxing pictures.

A few pictures of the UV-2501+220 unboxing... initial impressions of the build quality are favorable. For example, the mic feels substantial in my hand. I know you can't tell everything by holding a radio, but it is a good start.

Happy Valentine's Day

I've spent mine repairing a leaky toilet. My favorite thing is to fix one problem only to create another. Oh well, I'm sure the hardware store staff missed me.

Mad Magazine Fold-ins

I'm dating myself by confessing to remembering the Mad Magazine fold-ins. Although, in my defense, many of the magazines were my dad's.


Via @Caterina