Surprise: New Antenna!

But this one's nothing exotic.  The rubber boot on the Mustang's AM/FM had weathered out and cracked.  Water was getting in and reception went in the tank come wet weather.  So... eBay to the rescue via a "Genuine Ford Parts" site and a $20 bill.

Top: Old and Busted.  Bottom: The New Hotness.

Ignore the "Wash Me" written in the dirt.

The change-out was trivial, about as mechanically simple as any conventional threaded hand-tightened screw gets.  Post-mortem on the old antenna revealed that, as long suspected, it does in fact incorporate a loading coil in the base.  I've always been impressed by this radio system's performance.  It makes late night AM DXing on quiet rural stretches of highway enjoyable, and a good way to pass the long hours of a nighttime drive.

Up to 25 Cups a Day

That is an impressive number.  In a new study, subjects were sorted into three bins: less than 1, 1 to 3, and 3 up to 25, and arterial stiffening was tested for each group.  No correlations were found between level of coffee consumption and arterial problems.  Good, I'll take it, with a triple espresso on the side.  link to article  RTWT, it's short and has so-bad-it's-good humor smuggled in.

Three observations: (1) 25 cups upper limit?  I'm guessing they had to cut things off there due to the quantum properties of people who consume more than 25 cups per day.  I mean, it's hard to measure somebody's arterial stiffness when you can't localize the person's limbs due to the jitters.  (2) These levels of coffee consumption may not stiffen the arteries, but the study did not seem to address stiffening of the eyelids.  (3) Overall, it's good news.

Radio Programing Notes for the FT-2900

Having pretty much decided to kick Old Reliable to the curb in the near future in favor of the new dual-band radio, I had to go looking on the interwebs for easy programming instructions for the thing.  Why now?  Why not.  Shoulda looked this stuff up years ago, but I'd managed to get things working and all... Anyway, here's an easy 1.2 page cheat sheet for the FT-2900: https://noji.com/hamradio/prog/Yaesu-FT-2900R-Programming-Guide.pdf

Why on Earth won't Yaesu put this information in their manuals?  Yes, yes, we get it Yaesu: the features are all "Easy and Convenient!(tm)"  So why not tell us the how and why of the features in said manuals?  Gah.

Dirt Rag Turns 30

If you mountain bike (and you should), this is the only magazine that matters.

link to the "turns 30" page

Happy 30 DR, and many more returns.

Today's Link to Awesomeness

Today's APOD post is a link to live stream video from the ISS.  So many good things to see.

Two Week Impressions: Yaesu FTM-7250DR VHF/UHF Transceiver

Responding to one of those "you bought it from us, would you now please review it" emails, here's a short piece I wrote up on a recent radio purchase.  Enjoy!

----

I needed a dual-bander for my home shack that could put out something in the 50 watt range, and this one had the best combo of features and price.  The Fusion digital aspect is a bonus, which I may dig into later.  So far though – two weeks – it's all been analog FM, and I'm getting good signal reports. Manual programming is pretty easy (you tube has at least one good how-to video), and operating is even easier.  The lack of a squelch knob bothered me at first, but the auto setting works well.  The fan is quiet, and it does keep the temperature under control.  In an hour-long QSO at 50 watts, the finals temp never got above 125F, which isn't even up to "parked car in summertime" levels.  The front-firing speaker is a nice feature, and the sound quality is fine for voice comms.  Beyond that... it's compact, and it does everything it should.  Finally I have to mention the price again.  It's about the best deal going on a dual-bander from any of the Big Three.  Throw in a sale at MC and this buy was an easy choice.

Now... the only problem is that I still love my FT-2900, but have no real use for it anymore.  Guess some friend is about to get a deal.

----

Well, that's all for that quick review.  As to why I bought this thing, along with an exhaustively detailed programming guide, I'll point to last week's post.  Going from 75 watts down to 50 is a loss of about 1.8 dB.  I never like taking a step backwards, but in reality it's only a small change that'll never be missed.  More than anything, I'll miss that ginormous heat sink on the 2900.  I mean, lookit the thing (pic right); like something that came off a Harley engine.  It is good to step up to having the 70cm band now though, and circumstances now dictate that I have it.  Anyway, if you're interested in a good, clean, used FT-2900R 2m radio, I'm hanging onto it for a few more weeks, just to be sure everything's holding up.  After that, say sometime in July, it may go on the block.

'tis The Season

In related news, NPR has a story about the ongoing hard times in the Panama City area, and The Tallahassee Democrat has a "what if" take on if Hurricane Michael had swung a little farther east into Tallahassee itself.

BTW, here are some occasionally helpful links:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane?index_region=at
http://hwn.org

Back to your regular Saturday afternoon.