RayDiddio

I've been looking up so long my neck hurts. Jack Horkheimer always reminded me to keep looking up and I still do. He was truly a loss in the world of planetariums and space in general. I do not currently own a telescope but will be getting another sometime after January when we are done moving. I am looking at some middle upper end Celestron models with tracking mounts as I am an amateur photog and would love to try and get some nice DSO images. Anyway, this is what I have been eyeballing for a few months now: https://www.celestron.com/products/cpc-1100-gps-xlt-computerized-telescope

I use a SignalStick as well as the telescoping Smiley. These both blow the Nagoya models out of the water for me, especially indoors. I have the 771G. Rarely use it now.

People laugh at this, but they were unimpressive at best for me. The ducky that came with my radios performs better.

Life experience says otherwise. Yes, my friends, the close ones, insult me and I insult them. It's a bonding thing. But people I have never met have not been so kind in recent years for whatever reason they have. Their mistake... I would literally give a person the shirt off my back if they needed it badly enough.

My entire point ended with the wink, hehe... on purpose. No matter what we do in this type of hobby, the terms are always insults. Just like ham started as an insult. Cheers everyone!

Dork is a definite insult with it being another word for a portion of the male body below the waist and above the knees as well as a term used to describe people as stupid, foolish or inept. Geek is a term of endearment.

Fair. You did try. Lesson learned!

This thing, all because of RANDY, is getting pushed further and further back for shipping dates. I should have ordered when I was going to but of course I didn't.... I should have listened to the warning to order NOW but of course I didn't...

Let the repeater wars BEGIN!!

You can easily restore the programming. Backup the programming with CHIRP Flash radio to NORMAL Read the radio AGAIN (this is per CHIRP) so CHIRP has the layout of the memory Re-upload your saved config via CHIRP back to the radio These were the steps I followed and it worked flawlessly for me. I have done this going from GMRS to ham to NORMAL modes and back. It has worked each time.

It's not a bad radio. You can unlock it or even put a VERY much more unlocked firmware on it (which I have) and it does what you mostly expect. For the price and features, it's a great little radio. Definitely not the best of the best, just ask the Queen about that and you will get a good radio, but it can and will get you started with a small and very lightweight unit that can get you some fars... as they say.

Your second link is the one I use most in calculating because I love how they do the inclusion of the adjustment factor for real-world application.

To give you an idea... My homebrew antenna for GMRS has a total dipole length of 11.6 inches using two 5.8 inch legs. If you can modify what you have or load it the way WRKW566 suggests, you would probably just burn out radios using it.

No need for defense. Was basically just agreeing with Mr Shannon.

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