Lifetime Amatuer License Proposal

FCC Seeks Comments on Petition to Grant Lifetime Amateur Radio Licenses:

"The FCC is seeking comments on a Petition for Rule Making (RM 11760) that asks the FCC to grant lifetime Amateur Radio licenses. Mark F. Krotz, N7MK, of Mesa, Arizona, filed his request with the FCC last November. He wants the FCC to revise § 97.25 of its rules to indicate that Amateur Radio licenses are granted for the holder’s lifetime, instead of for the current 10 year term."

Monster Cable Modem

Comcast sent me a new cable modem (XB3) - something about needing it for improved service or new functionality. I thought the old one was big, but the new one (right) is huge.

I did a little before and after testing. No obvious change and I'm clearly not getting 2 Gbps.

Before:


After:



The new cable modem also has 802.11ac support - which is an improvement over my 802.11n ASUS router. I've flipped my TV and phone over to the AC wireless to test and I saw the expected speed improvements.

And, of course, the new cable modem is not configured for bridge mode. I had resigned myself to making another couple of calls, but I noticed the bridge mode button is actually available from the web console. I need to put my phone and TV back on my wireless router before I can test - bridge mode disables the Comcast wi-fi.

Just Keep Running

Which Type of Exercise Is Best for the Brain?

"Just why distance running was so much more potent at promoting neurogenesis than the other workouts is not clear, although Dr. Nokia and her colleagues speculate that distance running stimulates the release of a particular substance in the brain known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor that is known to regulate neurogenesis. The more miles an animal runs, the more B.D.N.F. it produces."

But skip the doughnuts.

Baofeng Tech UV-2501: 220 Relay Noise

I was playing with the dual watch/TDR functionality and 220 on the UV-2501+220. I noticed this sound (video):

I made the connection with this post:

"Radio is sturdily constructed and amazingly small. Programmed it with the software from the miklor site and tried it out on my comet triband antenna on local repeaters in all 3 bands. Good audio reports although was noted as slightly muffled on highs. Power output is around 20 watts or a few under.

One odd behavior I did notice is TDR enabled or scanning from UHF/VHF to 220 results in relay noise.

Side a/side b noise (TDR on) 

Uhf/uhf no 

Vhf/vhf no 

Uhf/vhf no 

220/220 no 

Uhf/220 yes 

Vhf/220 yes"

And this explanation sounded reasonable to me:

"I suspect the 220 MHz band antenna lowpass filter is switched with a relay and the 2 meter lowpass filter and 70 cm highpass filters are switched with PIN diodes. A relay that completely isolated the 220 MHz RF filter is easier to do this than design a more complicated bandpass filter and the relay likely has less insertion loss and won't impact the RF performance of the 2 meter/70 cm bands. Based on that I would say the sound you are hearing is normal."

I e-mailed the Baofeng Tech guys and they confirmed this is normal behavior for the dual watch flipping between 440 or 2M and 220.

Hamfests and Gun Shows

Grapevine Amateur Radio will be setting up at a gun show. I'm surprised there isn't more overlap like this:

"You read that correctly - we will be at the Lewisville Gun Show on April 2.  Why?  Because we are new and innovative, and no one has done this before.  We do what other Ham Shops do not.  During the Belton Hamfest in 2014, when a Gun Show was happening in the other side of the Belton Expo Center, all you could hear on the local repeater was "Hamfest and Gun Show at the same place!  WOW!  I need to get back to the ATM!"  Hams were thrilled about a Gun Show right next door to the Belton Hamfest;  so guess what - we are bringing the Ham Radios to the Lewisville Gun Show, right here in our own backyard.  This will be a fun 2-day event.  Stop by the table and say hello, we will be the only ones there selling RADIOS and NEW TECHNICIAN books!"

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.