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If he does, nobody will ever know!

When I was a boy, we wrote with our fingers. In the dirt. Then we hoped it wouldn't rain before we needed to remember what we wrote!

There. I fixed it for you.

yea,, me either...

I wouldn't know, anymore.

I recognize that my particular extreme use-case might stretch the limits, but that case also incudes often having the good/bad luck to have a number of mountains with above-treeline summits for nearly perfect line-of-sight. Thinking about it, Yagi antennae might make this totally doable...

Interesting how SOCAL didn't have any comments for this thread !

Indeed it is. and for the low low cost of nothing you can be just like this satisfied customer. So don't wait, act now, a better life awaits with Steve's ass be gone method!!! Use it today!!!

???

It might be helpful to suggest the *users* to select, so that.... Oh, I see what you did there!

and a fine job at that! Well written, nice illustrations.. i laughed.. i cried.. I learned... Anyone interested in seeing Sir Steven Shannon's excelled work can see it here: (clicky ^^ there)

Done

*Shakes fist in the air

As if Randy needs an evil alternate account. As much as I love Randy and sometimes making him reply on YT videos by making absolutely ridiculous statements (it's a hobby), he certainly doesn't need an evil alt. Randy is just evil enough to get by.

One of the best purchases I have made in the last few months was getting a digital microscope. Here is what I ordered: TOMLOV DM9 Max Digital Microscope: 20MP 10.1" 1500X HD IPS HDMI. And here is a photo of a digital command control board for n scale steam locomotives. Those are either 28 or 30 gauge wires that have to be soldered to the electric motor and lights. Here is a photo of the Arcom RC-210 board. \ I had to solder everything onto the board. At least there weren't any tiny toroids that I had to wrap like on my QRP EFHW antenna. As you can see, skills learned from other hobbies transfer over to amateur radio. There are many different facets to amateur radio that one can explore. Having your general license opens up so many doors compared to a technician license.

I confirmed, Steve's step-by-step instruction's work. I no longer see SoCal ... Thanks Steve..

You are very lucky.. this stuff really sucks!

I was always interested in electronics but before going back to college to become an engineer I spent eight years as a retail jeweler. Soldering small components while wearing my eye loupe was part of the job. That worked well for me in my early engineering career because the company I worked for needed surface mount prototypes and I could do them in-house.

I forgot to mention that I was voluntold to assemble the controller board once the club realized that working with small components doesn't bother me. I learned my lesson not to talk about soldering tiny digital control boards to N Scale locomotives or showing off any radio/antenna/CW practice oscillators to club members

Nice clean install, good job. What matters in the end is that the setup meets your needs. The Tram antennas are nice and easy to tune. I use the Tram 1174 for GMRS on my Ford Escape. I stopped tuning/cutting once I get the SWR to 1.2 on 462 and 1.4 on 467

I did not study for or feel comfortable taking the general test when I took the technician test. I did pass the general test about two months later. It was pretty easy. And having your general definitely opens up more for you. I'm still trying to study for the Extra but I keep getting distracted and chasing other squirrels. Right now I am busy with an Arcom RC-210 repeater controller. assembling the board was the easy part, understanding the programming manual and actually getting the controller programmed is another story. Plans are to connect the main 70cm repeater, a 70cm Allstar node, and our GMRS repeater to the RC-210.

Hey Nokones, Thanks for the general heads up about dual band antennas. My dual band seems to be an okay compromise for 2m/70cm although the SWR is notably better on 2m than 70cm. I actually have 3 different antennas I can swap in/out as needed depending upon what I'm doing at the time. While SWR is certainly not the only measure of performance, on GMRS, the antenna that gives me the best SWR (1.0 @ 462Mhz & 1.12 @ 467Mhz) is this tiny little low profile 6" quarter wave Tram 1126-B. It works surprisingly well, and I love that most people don't even notice that it is up there....

Now that's just what Randolpho ordered!!!

No bueno there my friend. I am fortunate in that I am not affected by PO, PI or Stinging Nettles. My wife didn't believe me about the PI, until I picked up a bunch from a plant in our back yard, and suffered nothing. The hill behind our garage is covered in the stuff. She, OTOH, is very much affected by them all. Makes hiking our river land an adventure in avoidance for her where I just plow on thru the itchweed...

2% diphenhydramine HCI pump spray is my go-to. I get generic at my local dollar store.