Underemployed and Overqualified

When you put it that way, maybe I will just start saying I am employment-challenged. Some choice quotes:

“There’s no such thing as overqualified, only ‘I can find a job I prefer more’.”

First of all the word “overqualified” should be stricken from the dictionary. Overqualified implies a person with one set of skills is inherently too awesome to do a job which relies on a different (subjectively lesser) set of skills. If you’ve got your head in the clouds it makes sense. If you’ve lived in the real world you know it’s utterly untrue. 

“Overqualified” is an idea which should be killed with fire. It’s a failure of reasoning that crawled from the gaping maws of pinheads who should know better. Nitwits that tend to confuse “someone who can make more money doing something else” with “radioactive”. They also confuse “we treat employees like scum and they crawl on their hands and knees to escape us” with “all those employees that ran screaming from our little hellhole were overqualified”.

So, I'm still looking for a job and I have in my mind what that job should look like. I've struggled with the whole idea of being overqualified - part of the problem is ego (which is basically what the Adaptive Curmudgen is talking about), but on the flip side, I have been passed over for a job because the employer thought I was overqualified and would bolt for greener pastures. They came to that decision after three face-to-face interviews and having at least a couple of unsolicited references provided on my behalf. (Speaking of opposites, there are a lot of jobs where I am underqualified despite twenty years of experience, two masters degrees, and several certifications as I'm not as hands-on as I once was.)

I find there is much less stress when I think in terms of what will make me happy regardless of being under or overqualified:

- staying in Knoxville
- interesting work
- being surrounded by nice people
- not a sweat shop
- opportunity for growth and development
- a good salary and benefits

My desire to stay in Knoxville is the biggest hurdle in finding the right job. Fingers crossed that I will find the job here for which I am qualified and will give me a chance at being happy.

Ham Radios for Dummies - Kindle Version $1.99

You can get the Kindle version of Ham Radios for Dummies for $1.99 on Amazon.com.

There are several other inexpensive titles covering the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc. that hams might find interesting as well.

(As usual, if you purchase using my link, I will get paid something through the Amazon Affiliate program. So if about 100,000,000 of you would purchase the book through my link, I could retire. Thanks in advance!)

Via Lifehacker

Game of Thrones OpSec

An isolated computer - no network connectivity. I wonder how many WordStar 4.0 viruses there are out there?

Baofeng UV-5R: Change Requests

Mike (W9MDB) is talking with the factory and asking for several changes on behalf of the user community. I always like to see how the manufacturers respond. I don't expect them to meet every demand, but when they do share the reasoning behind making the change or not, it helps me understand their technical abilities and business perspective better:

#1 Bug – The [Exit] key sends DTMF "0" instead of "D".

#2 Bug -- The mic jacks seem to be a very common problem.  The contacts will stay open preventing the internal mic from working.  Apparently due to some material around the jacks which melts in heat and will clog up the contacts.

#3 New -- Need to the ability to disable the VFO/MR button so the radio can be truly Part 90 compliant.

#4 New -- The ability to turn off the lower display (2nd VFO) completely -- and the A/B switch – for simple Part 90 operation scenarios

#5 New -- Get the “real” firmware revision level – maybe using the “9” key during power on?

#6 Bug – When scanning MR channels that have R-CTCS tones there is not enough time allotted to allow them to lock on the lower frequency R-CTCS tones

.#7 New – Allow the alarm to be completely disabled 

#8 Bug – When SAVE is not OFF and ABR > 8, the broadcast FM radio will have a pulsing noise after returning from being interrupted by a received signal.

#9 Bug – The enable/disable VHF TX and UHF TX features do not work#10 New – MDF-AB – OFF,FREQ,NAME – OFF means the display is left alone, FREQ means selecting a channel with [A/B] will force the selected channel to display FREQ and the other channel to display NAME.  NAME forces the selected channel to NAME and the other channel to FREQ.

Antennas

First, from Roberta X's trip to Dayton, I love the models in this picture. But wait there is more... they are functional for 2 meters! Check that link for other pictures from her trip. Also, hop over to her other blog for a look at some of her "key" findings at the hamvention.

Another antenna seen via @gregmalcolm on Twitter. Unfortunately, I don't have the infrastructure for a hair-tenna.

Just saw this at Dayton #hamvention. That's an actual working antenna! pic.twitter.com/UpOUGBtkrJ
— KD8QGM (@gregmalcolm) May 17, 2014

Wouxun KG-UV8D

First and foremost, thanks again to the guys at BuyTwoWayRadios for loaning the KG-UV8D to me.

For the TLDR crowd, I'll sum up by saying that I think this radio is the next step in the evolution of the Chinese handheld transceivers. I say this for a few reasons. First, I think we will start to see a lot more color displays. The true dual receive is a step forward as well. While I don't believe that cross-band repeat will now be available on every new radio, it does demonstrate the potential capabilities coming out of China. And little things like the blinking phone icon for activity (that I discuss next) also add up to make this an great evolutionary step.

As I mentioned, I'll start with a small thing that makes a huge difference and makes me wish all my radios had this feature - the blinking phone icon to indicate which frequency had the most recent activity. Such a simple thing, but when you aren't staring at the screen and are monitoring two repeaters owned by the same ham, it eliminates any confusion about where the activity was.

And for what it's worth, I do like green for the "A/B" and "EXIT" buttons. It just makes navigating a little easier. I don't know why the new radios have all black buttons - saving a penny in the manufacturing cost?

From a subjective perspective, I really like how the radio feels in my hand. It isn't that much thinner than the KG-UV1DP, but it feels better. I also like the feel better than the Baofeng UV-5R.

The dual receive works perfectly. While my brain/CPU can't always follow two conversations at once, it allows me to hear both and then easily pick one to monitor using the RPT button to switch to the single frequency mode.

As for the cross-band repeat, I did not encounter any problems using it. I think it is a great feature/option to have, but not something I will use all the time. For temporary usage I think it is perfect, but I cringe anytime I read about someone trying to make this a "permanent" repeater.

Speaking of options, the KG-UV8D lets you customize the functions of some of the keys, so you can tailor it a bit to meet your preferences.

People always ask about the S meter on these radios. Between my good QTH and mostly listening to some great repeaters, I don't see much besides a full meter. Here is a short video here showing something besides zero and full strength.

Scanning is fine for my use, but by others' standards it is still too slow. A sample is here, so you can decide for yourself.

John has a mini-review on the Yahoo Group:

"Receive sensitivity is very good- about 0.25 microvolt.
Transmit power- 5W VHF, 4W UHF
True Dual Band Rx- you hear both upper and lower simultaneously
Easy to setup XBand repeat
Nice large multi-color display 

Annoyances:
Back light stays on during scan- same as other Wouxuns. Seems it should be OFF during scan and ON when it stops on an active channel.
Scan is still not professional- scan stops when any button is pressed. As a result, if you think you are scanning but bump any button, scan stops and you don't know it. The scan button should start and stop scan period, unless it is in SE mode where it automatically stops on any active channel.
The 8D is a very nice radio and it will replace my aging (but still working) 4 year old KG-UVD1P."

My test unit would do 135 to 174.995 and 400 to 479.995 out of the box. Miklor has the software to expand the frequencies (134 to 174 and 400 to 519), but you do so at your own risk.

Hans has the KG-UV8D on his test bench (along with the Puxing PX-UV973) and reports that harmonic suppression and sensitivity measurements are where they should be expected. He goes on to say:

"preventing both oscillators of interfering with each other
Here both radios fail miserably. For some reason both manufacturers weren’t able to to get this right, resulting in an awful lot of spurious emissions up and down the carrier. 

The problem is most evident when you’re receiving around the third harmonics of your transmit frequency."

His post indicates more information will follow.

Resume or Eulogy

The TED talk below is a little dry, but the premise is an interesting one... are you building your resume or working on your Eulogy?

4096

Forget 2048... 4096!

AnyTone AT-5888UV III: Tri-band Mobile

Thanks to Nate for sending this to me!

Ed at Import Communications has posted a Dayton sneak peak - the AnyTone AT-5888UV III, a tri-band (144, 220, 440) mobile. No pricing yet. Ed says more details coming after Dayton, but it should be available in July or August.

True Detective Season 2

Something about this doesn't seem right to me.