WSHH887

I'm in the call Radioddity camp. Get one connection wrong and you have a bright and shiny new paperweight.

Lots of us newbies here. Welcome to the fire.

You can change the Constitution. Problem is the folks who start the ball rolling aren't going to put themselves out of work. We did it for state officials here, but it was the citizens who did it. We have an initiative process that lets the citizens create laws independent of the legislature and governor. Once we voted for the death penalty. The courts said was in violation of the state constitution. So the citizens up and amended the constitution. Sadly we still haven't executed anyone because the governor has violated his oath of office.

Okay, this got me to thinking. I mentioned in another thread about putting a DB-5 in a sling pack. But it requires a power source. Turns out I have eight older, but not dead, small 12 volt batteries that came out of an ECV. I juiced one up, hooked it up to the radio and everything worked. Left it on all night scanning and this morning it's still working. next to see how long it works with intermittent transmissions. It's kind of fun finding stuff in my garage and repurposing it for radio use.

The whole balance of trade/tariffs thing was caused by only one thing. Americans forgot. They forgot that we won WWII because we were an industrial and military powerhouse. We supplied ourselves and our allies with the majority of men and materials to fight the war. And in forgetting we gave that advantage to our enemies. We won because we could, not necessarily produce the "best" tank/airplane/etc., but because we could produce more and faster. And as the war dragged on our allies were less able to provide what was needed themselves. All the while we produced more and more and more. Short of nuclear/biological war we would loose any protracted war and for exactly the same reasons the Axis lost WWII. If we don't increase our manufacturing capability BEFORE war comes (and it always has) we will have to rely on the kindness of our enemies much as Japan and Germany did. And I doubt they will be as kind. Remember, never in the history of the world, have defeated enemies be treated so well and aided in reconstruction as after WWII.

Except China has already proven they will export to a different country and have stuff imported from there to the US. Remember, China has been falsifying ISO certs for decades. Heck I was literally burned by substandard construction materials.

I'm pretty new here and probably shouldn't write this. But I've been around online information sharing sine before the WWW. Back when online literally meant on the telephone line to one other computer. Back before bulletin boards. So I have learned a bit about the folks that haunt the anonymous electronic world. But here goes. This guy is what is colloquially called a troll. The folks make outrageous statements, often pure fantasy, in order to incite responses. They feed off of the responses. It doesn't matter whether it a good or bad response. As long as they can stir the pot the will. The ways you kill a troll are simple. First they can be banned by the forum owner. Unfortunately they sometimes pop back up under a new "identity". The second way is to stave the troll. Again, two methods. Best is to put him on your ignore list. You won't see his comments unless someone else quotes him. The other method is to never respond to his comments. It took a bit for me to convince myself this guy was a troll. I'm ignoring him. If he irritates do the same.

So far the folks getting into our neighborhood network just use the appropriate call sign and first name. That way no one has to memorize all the call sign. We pretty much know who Sal is even if we have three.

Well, it's take a few weeks getting all the bits and bobs to complete my mobile radio setup. This involves (for the present) one radio, Radioddity DB20-G, cup holder mount, four antennas, one mag mount, an NMO mount (permanently installed on one vehicle), a AC to DC power pack and an old unused Max Expedition Fat Boy pack. My primary vehicle is a Toyota Tacoma. So, the NMO mount is permanently installed on the rear of the truck. The other two vehicles '82 Jeep CJ and '78 Ford LTD II Sports Touring Edition will use the mag mount as will the "base station". Four antennas because I couldn't find a satisfactory way to carry one, so those live in each vehicle and my den. Although I likely will install some sort of permanent antenna at the house. With this setup I can simple grab the bag and have everything I need to be up and transmitting in just a couple of minutes. I'm in the programming phase with the radio. Currently using factory software. Frankly the programming is a heck of a lot simpler than what I used to do with process control equipment, just repetitious as all get out. But, I have tested tested all of the installations and my SWR ranges from 1.01 to 1.03.

Doesn't sound like an issue. Sounds like that's the way it's designed.

Along this line, I always wear gloves while handling blued steel firearms. Or they get wiped down immediately. I can rust blued steel in a heartbeat. So while I prefer the look of blued steel I mostly own stainless. Even with that my old bicycle gun has surface staining. I gave up removing it and just accept it as "patina".

Okay, here's a silly question. Why can't the collection and use of gmrs radios be a hobby? Folks will say they're for use as an adjunct to other "hobbies" such are hiking, off roading, fishing, hunting, etc. But I'd bet more that a few folks here have considerably more radios than they actually need for these activities. The whole programming thing seems to be an area that sounds hobbish. Then you get into setting up and maintaining repeaters. Other than for your personal use that sounds very much like a hobby. GMRS clubs, well that's definitely in hobby territory. Personally, I'm looking at it as just another hobby for my retirement years. Another new field to study and learn. And actually for the most part cheaper than some of my other hobbies.

One other factor would be the individuals own sweat. The "salinity" of folks sweat varies. We ran some tests using a conductivity meter across the palm of numerous folks and the numbers were all over the place.

Not a Sears, but for some reason Uniden comes to mind. For quite a few years mine sat on a shelf in the garage. It finally went during one of my clean outs.

One of the things I mentioned when I started here was how tight my neighborhood is. I wondered about this very idea. But decided to get better educated before jumping in. Because of the fairly short distances I don't think any sort of repeater is needed. I'll continue to watch this thread for ideas.