Harsh

Too cold & wet for greedy children to come out for free candy. Weather should be similar Tuesday. Democrats will have poor turnout.
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) October 31, 2014

The Radios

I've updated the "The Radios" page. I'm sure I've missed some, but it is still a good list.

Xiegu X108: VE3FAL First Impressions

Fred has his hands on an Xiegu X108.

Xiegu X108: Owner's Manual

Ed (Import Communications) has posted an Owner's Manual for the Xiegu X108 (PDF).

Alinco DR-438H: Review by Hans

Hans takes a look at the Alinco DR-438 monoband UHF mobile. This is the radio that looks like a rebranded Anytone AT-588. Read his article for the details, but it sounds like Alinco took the time and effort to make sure their version had several improvements. The bottom line for Hans is a) that it is worth the extra money over an AT-588 and b) he likes it well enough that he's going to buy it.

Watching the Watchers

Target Blu Eye:

"The £999 system (plus £100-£200 for installation) monitors the frequencies of emergency services’ Tetra and Airwave radios and, according to the manufacturer, listens for the distinctive regular pulses sent by the radios every four seconds. These could be emitted by marked or unmarked vehicles; by radios worn by beat officers or mobile speed camera operators; or by radios in police helicopters. When a transmission is detected, the driver is alerted."

And I agree they really wouldn't like this if someone created a network of dectors and publicized their locations.

Via Slashdot

Dropbox Personal and Business

I had this in my queue before I just posted about the OneDrive unlimited space. I will note that I am already running my personal OneDrive account side by side with my OneDrive for Business.

Tip of the week: Connect your personal & work @Dropbox accts to keep everything in its place http://t.co/90RUzB8Kp7 pic.twitter.com/YseDKimq7E
— Dropbox for Business (@dropboxatwork) October 24, 2014

OneDrive - Unlimited Cloud Storage

Wow... Microsoft is going unlimited on its Office 365 OneDrive cloud storage.

G4ILO SK

One Foot in the Grave: 25 October Sad message:

"Julian died yesterday on 24 October in the presence of his wife Olga and two Hospice nurses at home at 19-45 peacefully and painlessly. He will be always loved and always remembered."

Julian was the first ham radio blogger that I started following. I remember reading his article about antennas in April of 2011. It was only a couple of months later that I read about his tumor. Prayers for all that will miss him, but especially his wife, Olga.

I'm not alone in offering condolences...

W2LJ
PA2OLD
G3XBM
PD0AC
PC4T
G4VXE

Bricking FTDI Driver Pulled

So the driver that bricks the fake chips is being pulled from Windows Update:

"As you are probably aware, the semiconductor industry is increasingly blighted by the issue of counterfeit chips and all semiconductor vendors are taking measures to protect their IP and the investment they make in developing innovative new technology. FTDI will continue to follow an active approach to deterring the counterfeiting of our devices, in order to ensure that our customers receive genuine FTDI product. Though our intentions were honourable, we acknowledge that our recent driver update has caused concern amongst our genuine customer base. I assure you, we value our customers highly and do not in any way wish to cause distress to them.

The recently release driver release has now been removed from Windows Update so that on-the-fly updating cannot occur. The driver is in the process of being updated and will be released next week. This will still uphold our stance against devices that are not genuine, but do so in a non-invasive way that means that there is no risk of end user’s hardware being directly affected."

Via Slashdot.org