*twitch*

[vxo.livejournal.com]

Long story short... my family (except for my brother) are all hams, and my brother and I are the proud owners of the household's collective two clues (out of five people).

My parents volunteered to do communications duty at a parade tomorrow night, without actually verifying that they still had sufficient equipment to actually do it (they had a retard moment about a year ago and sold off most of it for pennies on the dollar).

Of course, my time and labor are of no value to my family, who promptly demanded that I make one of these babies *handheld*.

It weighs like six pounds, is the size of a paperback programming reference manual, and sucks down 15 amps at 12 volts on transmit. It was made to be used as a mobile, so it doesn't have any provision for directly hanging an antenna off it, either.

They also presented to me a Kenwood TH-22AT, which actually is a handheld, but has a completely broken and very difficult to replace power connector. There are a couple of working Icom IC-2AT's around too, but those can't send a CTCSS tone, so they can't access any of the repeaters being used for the event.

Someone here needs an IC-2AT... to the head.

Comments

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

Oh Hell....

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

"No problem! We just have to wire up a car battery to your alice pack, and stick an antenna on it! Should only weigh 20-30 pounds. You do own an alice pack, right?"

[alexanderc.livejournal.com]

[laugh] Just remind them to bring a whole bunch of D cells and duct tape. :)

Enjoy the Jr. Orange Bowl Parade. I'll wave (and listen) from a safe distance a few miles north of you. Never know when the battery pack on that FT-2800M is going to glow from the current draw (or maybe the crazy RF if they forget to turn the output down to 5 from 50 Watts ;) ).

[vxo.livejournal.com]

Oh, trust me, they'd leave it at high (65 watts). I did mention they do not share the CLUE, did I? XD

[hotclaws.livejournal.com]

Give 'em two baked bean cans held together with string.

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

You know, that's a whole lot of words I didn't understand :)

[tragnon.livejournal.com]

They are making the exam too easy.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it could be done, but not so much hand-held as backpack, or maybe if they've a cart or something...

Crazy, anyway.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

"Sure, I could subcontract that job for about $20K. First prototypes in six months OK?"

[merlin-t-wizard.livejournal.com]

Make it *handheld* Uh huh. Let's see: 12V deep cycle battery for power, metallic hardhat with an 18" 1/4 wave whip on top for an antenna and you're all set. Based on an 80/15/5 duty cycle for an 8 hour day, 2 NP 7-12s would probably work. But, I wouldn't want to be the one wearing it. (But I want a picture if you do set it up)