181–190 of 312 posts
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Why would the CBP seize radios that are perfectly legal to sell? That wouldn't be "flexing", that would be "over-reach".
They're not legal in the US, in the way they're sold usually, they claim to be Part 90, and they're not
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Oh its not gatekeeping. You get what you pay for. My baofeng 5 died two hours into a 12 mile backpackign trip across catalina island. It couldn't do a quarter mile line of sight with an airport 2m amateur tower and when turning on the flashlight feature in my tent it died entirely and would not power back on. I was entirely reliant on it for ranger station as well as general comms and phone patch/weather. Packing thi…
How is it a "byzantine nightmare"? I plug it into my computer, put in the frequencies (and names I want for the channels.), and upload the configuration. That seems pretty straightforward to me.
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> The people at the Capitol riot/insurrection were all relatively well off. “All” probably overstates the case, but it certainly seems that they were disproportionately so. Certainly, those that have been arrested or identified from video (sets that seem to converge over time) seem to be largely employed (prior to the attack, less so after) and not poor.
TIL rich people can afford to travel more than poor people :)
I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate for this, but honestly FCC regulation of ham radio is at best antiquated cold war bullshit (ie, crypto bans) and at worst gatekeeping for a bunch of old men who can dox themselves in order to get exclusive access to some bands. Every single person here uses high powered encrypted communication without a license, it's a cell phone.
> Every single person here uses high powered encrypted communication without a license, it's a cell phone. Your cell service provider holds the license. Ham radio exam is not hard, and does not require special training, just some basic knowledge of how radios work and what the regulations are. I don't see what the issue is.
Not only that, but every exam question comes from a published pool of questions [0]. If you can memorize the answers to those questions, then you don’t need to learn anything about how radio works at all.
People who are intending to use radios to commit crimes aren't going to read this and go... "Darn." As a HAM, to the other HAMs who are worried the FCC will use this as justification to curtail your privilges -- they will, and they'll tell you it's necessary for your own safety. Will it make us any safer? Of course not. So where does the real problem lie? The people using radios to commit crimes, or the government us…
tl;dr : How to turn a local or state crime into a federal one. It isn't particularly shocking that this is a statute. I wonder if ham radio was used in the capitol riot.
Baofeng's, Baofengs everywhere. Of all the images I have seen of the attempted coup, I have only seen baofeng radios. These are very cheap ($20'ish) radios that work very poorly (they splatter all over the bands) even when equipped with decent antennas. They barely work when equipped with the stock rubber-duck antennas. It's easy to be a snob about the type of radios that they are using, but that's not even the point…
Quick: let’s implement ID for everything, because that clearly stops criminals.
Baofeng's, Baofengs everywhere. Of all the images I have seen of the attempted coup, I have only seen baofeng radios. These are very cheap ($20'ish) radios that work very poorly (they splatter all over the bands) even when equipped with decent antennas. They barely work when equipped with the stock rubber-duck antennas. It's easy to be a snob about the type of radios that they are using, but that's not even the point…
> These people are idiots. It makes me uneasy to see how much commentary on recent events seems to focus on insulting these people instead of hearing how society has failed them and why they're upset even if we tend to disagree with their suggested fixes. I think their presence in DC and that "colorful" person they elected are all symptoms of this behavior.
While your ingroup is unique individuals with good and bad traits, your outgroup is an undifferentiated "them" that is selfish, untrustworthy, stupid, the reason for all these problems we're having, and we really may have to do something about them one of these days!
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There is reason to worry when the tools of defiance or rebellion are taken away. Rebellion is bad, but maitaining some remote possibility is good. This case isn't really so bad because there's no prior restraint, no tools being taken away, or new tools for the government. There is still concern that charges could be heaped on someone to the point they feel the need to plea bargain for something that is either a very…
> Rebellion is bad Not always. Not saying it is here, but I think it depends on the context. Arab Spring, for instance.
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As a pinch of salt... If you can get a baofeng to last out of the box longer than a week, and manage to DX a handheld or a repeater further than a parking space away, you should at least win a QRP award and a discount on your technicians test before you get sent to the klink.
I've had a UV-5R for four years. Receives fine. The handful of times I've used it to transmit on a local net nobody mentioned vomiting in disgust at its poor transmission characteristics. The original battery even still holds a charge, which I really didn't expect, since it's probably spent 3.9 years sitting on the charger being kept at the float voltage.