Lane

You should be fine with those scores. My experience was the actual exams were not full of the hardest questions in the test bank. I wonder how fast they are processing new licenses these days? I got my call sign in about a week when I did my testing years ago... It was posted online first; and then I got the physical paperwork in the mail about a week or so beyond that. Can't wait to hear about your results on Sunday.

That information is still out there. I spent some time trying to find the specific daily press conferences where Cuomo defended his nursing home decisions (before finally; and much later realizing he could blame CDC/Trump)... In the end; all those press conferences were all televised, and published on youTube by various media outlets. If someone has the time, and the technology to assemble all of those (youtube-dl and a huge hard drive); it could help deal a death blow come 2022 when Cuomo is running for re-election again. Chronologically, those press conferences are a non-stop string of back-peddling; and flat out lies. As someone who watched many of the early press conferences yelling at the TV; it's most disappointing to watch Cuomo's condescending quips, and belittling attitude towards the local reporters grilling him on serious issues (at the end of every press conference). Any criticism he doesn't want to answer to is always labeled a "political attack from the other side" (including the nursing home issue). Last I heard; administration still hadn't released the actual data from the "voluntary surveys" they collected to "prove" that Cuomo wasn't at fault for the nursing home spread. I wonder how many of those "voluntary surveys" got lost because they didn't fit the data absolving Cuomo of responsibility? Science speaks for itself; but Cuomo has been unable and fully unwilling to present any data to the general public. It's going to be very interesting when that finally shakes out in the end (because it can not be hidden forever). NY had plenty of opportunity to slow down, or even stop the spread. Cuomo and NYC mayor De Blasio agreed that it would be "impossible" to shut down NYC; or quarantine in any way. Allowing passengers to return freely on flights from Europe when Italy was already shut down, it was the same issue; "impossible to shut down NYC". Even then, the general public was aware of temperature scans, and other means of checking on people returning from overseas travel (it was happening all over Europe already). Cuomo's BS about "not knowing the virus was coming from Europe" is a lie that even Cuomo himself would have trouble defending given the timeline. Sadly; this is just the tip of the iceberg here in NY State as a whole. One ripple that shut down a gun factory in Alabama because of the NY PAUSE doesn't phase Cuomo a bit. There are plenty of people still out of work six months later; with absolutely no prospects for the future. They certainly won't be working in their chosen industries before Christmas. Some things like concerts and large venues are hinting it might be September of 2021 before they are able to resume/re-open. I'm not even sure I could fabricate a complete list of all the industries that are currently still at 25% capacity; or totally shut down... The business landscape is changing rapidly as many have shuttered for good in the past months. Think of the strippers (who can't work state-wide)!!! Do you really want strippers cashing you out at the grocery store instead (ok, maybe that's a bad example; because I kind of do)? On a slightly more serious note; this is likely to continue for many years to come... Those ripples are just starting to fling people out of the pool, as we see with Kimber here... It takes time to pick up a factory and move it to another state. It's going to become a lot more serious if a second round of school and business shut-downs spreads through NY. NYC and surrounding metro areas are still far below normal capacity in both residence, and business operations (which is a tax revenue issue among other things). There was a mass exodus around the time the initial shutdown started. I still wonder how all this will change the voting landscape this year. Does it break the gerrymandered districts in NY or surrounding states?

I don't know anyone who thought it was an easy test to study for. That initial tech test is tough because it requires knowledge about a broad range of topics; many of which aren't terribly applicable to basic use of a radio. Especially without experience (which it tough to get without a license), or exposure to a wide range of operation; it's mostly book learning. Too much rote learning, and associative learning is required for that initial test in my personal opinion... The general class exam is the one that tests barely any additional information. How are you scores on practice tests recently?

I was just spit-balling about those issues; apparently there is a lot of truth to Cuomo getting in their way... https://www.nssf.org/kimber-chooses-southern-hospitality-over-new-york-contempt-for-corporate-headquarters/ A separate article specially mentions that the NY pause orders made Kimber shut down their existing Troy, Alabama assembly line. Many of the small parts it relied on had been made in the NY factory. When Cuomo forced the NY factory closed for an indefinite period of time; they absolutely needed to make other plans. Blame Cuomo.

This is actually a wise move; and I support that kind of "compliance" as a means of retaliation. I get it... But in NY, there still aren't any laws or bans behind this recent behavior. Just empty threats on a form letter sent by the AG. Quite frankly; I think that harassment by the AG should be illegal in itself. I wonder if Kimber got one or more of these letters too? I saw an anecdotal mention that "some" company (Kimber?) was blocked from buying an adjacent industrial property to expand a manufacturing plant. While I couldn't verify that part myself; I did find some interesting news from March. Apparently Kimber had to shut down it's manufacturing plant due to Covid-19 regulations here in New York. There was a lot of specificity in those regulations; and a lot of niche businesses had to seek explicit approval to re-open again because they weren't explicitly mentioned in a re-opening Phase. Even now; long after the Phase 4 re-opening; there are business that are not allowed to operate at anything close to full, or even reasonable capacity. Cuomo beat it into our heads that there are only Four Phases... Does that mean the rules we live under now are "forever rules"? I honestly don't know... For example, movie theaters were forced to remain closed until just last week; and still can't re-open in NYC. With that information; I'm reasonably certain the Covid-19 shutdowns might have been a large factor in Kimber moving operations and manufacturing to Alabama. Paying rent and upkeep on buildings you can't use for months on end is sure to affect the bottom line. Not to mention; with guns selling faster than they can hit the shelves, it's a bad time to be bending over for a shutdown that has no known end point. With second wave shutdowns happening in Europe; it's just foolish to believe NYS is going to loosen restrictions further anytime soon. It looks like they moving to 100% remote learning at most all of the state universities following Thanksgiving (https://www.suny.edu/suny-news/press-releases/10-20/10-27-20/covid-test-thanksgiving-break.html). How much longer before K-12 schools are forced to follow suit? If businesses meet a second wave of shutdowns; it's going to be game over for a whole lot more of them.

@Radioactive I'm not offended at all; I have the same opinion of this place, and the things they keep doing to businesses and residents. Our state Attorney General keeps sending out threatening letters to online retailers; some of whom will no longer sell regular parts to NY residents. Mostly places stopped shipping 80% receivers quite a while ago. A number of businesses will not longer even send a finished lower to an FFL for a NY resident (PSA is one of them). Just yesterday I heard LaRue won't sell a handguard (but triggers are still fine). All of this without any force of law, just a threatening letter that says selling parts is illegal in NY State because people "could" build illegal "assault weapons". The ultimate goal appears to be preventing anyone from building (and perhaps repairing) their own firearms. There are a few laws waiting in the wings that could do just that. Imaging having to go to a gunsmith to install a new trigger (legally)? Or having to pay a licensed gunsmith to assemble a lower receiver for you? Do I need to pay to have them apply oil, or clean the gun? The absurdity is almost unbearable. I'm honestly shocked Kimber lasted as long as they did in Yonkers. I'm sure Cuomo is thinking "good riddance", as long as he keeps his horde of armed guards and bomb sniffing dogs around at all times (that last part isn't even a joke; man is paranoid as all hell).

I'd throw her a rope any time she made a request to the board. With or without a notary.

Happy Birthday.

Should have mentioned. The antenna wire was wrapped around a 35mm film can to make it. Coil expanded a bit after the fact. I built it to fox hunt, and it seemed to qualify for that purpose. I even build a Fox that fits inside of a 35mm film can; including the LiPo battery to power it. It was designed to transmit a signal the UV-5R and other cheap radios could seek and find. Has a cheap silicon labs SDR chip, and dumb microcontroller inside, battery charger, etc....

It's around 1.3" diameter. An acceptable dual band UHF/VHF; not exactly well tuned for either band as I recall. As long as you don't transmit; you can endlessly toy with antenna designs for fun. Simple designs with measured dimensions can be very sensitive to a specific frequency.

Quick and dirty directional antenna I made to use with my UV-5R a while back. Three loops; not super well tuned, but it works well enough as it is. I could do a lot better these days if I had a need to do so. Just chopped off a short coax adapter cable, and soldered the wire antenna in.

Here's RepeaterBook in case you haven't found it yet. There are apps for iPhone and Android as well. I've used all of the above; and below on the road from time to time myself. Here's a links for Florida in particular. Just start browsing by location, band, and/or feature: https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/index.php?country_code=US&state_id=12

That's the one. One thing to consider moving forward; is that those cheaper radios use an antenna connector that's reverse polarity from many more expensive radios. Just make sure you double check before you order any kind of antenna for the UV-5R; otherwise you'll need a gender bender, or conversion adapter. On the other hand; you can buy any antenna you want; and just rely on using an adapter. PL-259 is quite popular as an antenna connector. While heavy; I still use adapters for male PL259 antenna connectors; that's a SO239 to female SMA adapter for the Baofeng to make those work.

Beofeng has a BF-888 that's UHF only (Sad). Even cheaper in cost; with no buttons or screen. Same programming cable, and a channel click knob at the top. Antenna is removable. I wish it was a dual band. Making antennas is fun and easy. Measure twice, cut twice; or thrice.

I know there are better radios out there. But don't let those ham snobs keep you down. You can plug that into a car style whip antenna; and use that at home, or in the car. Very handy in either place; and the full size antenna will get you A LOT further still (both in Tx and Rx). You can usually find a two pack of radios for a similar cost; and bundle that programming cable too. I'm sure you have a friend; and anyone can use it as a receiver... Do it.

Yeah; there's a ton of legal stuff you can do without a ham license at all using that radio... Just make sure you turn off transmit on other channels. I got police radio on the UV-5R up here for a long time; up until a few months ago. Well worth the investment. Bought a two pack; one for me, one for my brother. Probably about $35 at the time. I got between 40-50 miles to a repeater from the top of a mountain with mine. Don't believe that 5 mile range... With line of sight, and the stock antenna; that radio goes a long way (repeaters help of course, sensitivity, antenna, etc.). You'll hear stations loud and clear that you can't transmit to, and that's a good thing too (nice sensitive receiver for cheap). It's really an SDR inside; but I don't think anybody's cracked the firmware yet... Haven't looked into that in years... Maybe they have?

Making a quick update here; mostly for my own documentation. The shot timer upgrade wasted a ton of my time recently; trying to figure out why the gyro numbers weren't showing up, or recording. I finally got it to sort of work, and set it aside briefly because I didn't want to break it again. Only then did I realize that a few of the newer orange boxes have totally different inertial measurement unit chips inside. That means that code for one; doesn't work to read the other. This is a very minor problem now that I know; the units are otherwise identical, and the rest of my code is entirely portable between them. This is now the 5th official hardware change since I started this project (including my initial breadboard proof of concept shot timer)... It has come a long way since then. Even with default gyro settings, overloading the CPU with audio recording from the microphone, and drawing display updates; I was able to get readings every 4 milliseconds. Not quite what I need; but turning off the peripherals I don't need will easily be enough. This newer IMU chip also has a much larger buffer; so I'll be able to record 2-4 milliseconds of gyro data at full speed, and then download that from the chip into memory or flash afterwards for processing. The goal here was to be able to graph physical barrel movement from trigger pull, through the projectile exiting the barrel. Worse case scenario is that I need to run a few precisely made reloads with a timing offset to collect a full data set. If I can collect 64 samples in a 2ms time span, I won't worry about that much. But if it drops down near 16 samples; I'll want to collect more data with an offset trigger time as a verification. Finally out of the weeds on this project. And all the problems started because I was trying to use the hardware I have on hand, round-robin to ensure the internal lithium batteries wouldn't go bad from sitting around too long... I haven't normalized the readings (zeroed X,Y,Z), but the flutter is easily below the published +/- 1% of a degree in angular velocity. Found some newer research that inserts this type of IMU inside of larger projectiles; then recorded data while firing them. That process doesn't seem to work well to look at what the barrel does, given the projectile itself is experiencing such dramatic changes as it accelerates down the pipe. Those green numbers changing faster than the LCD display can update; and faster than the camera can record are what's special here... Still showing the boot time demo screen; but it already records gyro data to RAM. Initial test measurements on live hardware should be possible in the next week or so easily. Might be worth starting off with subs to allow for a longer data collection window during those early hardware verification tests. Progress.

Not sure which $22 baufang you are referring to. The UV-5R was one of my first radios. As long as it has UHF and VHF you'll do fine to start out. I use software called CHIRP to program it since it would be rotten from the front panel. Make sure you get a programming cable for a few dollars more. You can even disable transmit in the programming so you don't dumb thumb it before you get a license. Something like RepeaterBook is helpful to find out what repeaters are available in your area. A lot of action happens on digital these days; but there is no one digital standard that's caught on (and they aren't technically cross compatible). The cheapest handheld radio for digital is about $90 (MD-380, single band UHF only, supports DMR). Digital radios also do analog on whatever bands are supported. Handhelds easily go on up to $500, and beyond; so it's best to wait and see what's popular in your area. You may have D-Star or Fusion repeaters closer to your location (instead of DMR); or one of those in particular may be considerably more active in your particular area. Sounds like you're off to a great start. Looks like I see that UV-5R (EX) for $22.99 without much shopping around. Even has an FM receiver, and a built in flashlight!

Yes; that is the case. There are nets you can join for ARES and RACES which happen weekly as I recall (to keep people involved, and well versed in the procedures). You can even listen in before you get a license if you have a radio already (just don't broadcast until you get licensed). During actual emergencies, those groups provide assistance when other forms of communication are unavailable. Don't worry about trying to pass all three exams on the same day (almost nobody succeeds at that, not even myself). It certainly won't hurt to try the general in the same sitting; much of the knowledge required to pass that are things you'd be exposed to from studying for the technician test. I did pass both of those in the same day; but probably had a low score on the general. I felt the same way about studying up front (my head was spinning too). Once you have a license though; you can keep it for life (assuming you remember to renew every 10 years). A little pain now is likely to pay off later.

I got licensed a bit less than five years ago. I remember the technician test having some rather cryptic questions; testing on things I still don't have any experience with years later. It's a hobby with broad range; and many interesting specialties. My activity on the air comes and goes; been very much inactive recently, but always have a few radios on my desk. Most everything I have runs on battery power charged by small solar panels; so I have something to do when the power goes out. After my brother moved to Florida, I joined a club down there along with him. Talked to a lot of wonderful, and very well educated folks who could literally speak about any topic. The east coast of Florida was a lot more interesting than any of the ham groups near me in New York. I mostly use digital radios with hotspots that let me connect to repeaters worldwide. I also have no problem picking up HF traffic from Florida and far beyond (Alaska, California, and Germany notably come to mind); using nothing more than a simple wire antenna. I used the practice tests on QRZ.com because they were good at helping point out where I needed to study more. It didn't take me all that much effort to be regularly scoring in the 90% range. With a few week left to study; you should do just fine. As other have mentioned; you are welcome to take the general and extra exams the same day, and there is typically no additional cost to do so after you paid for (and passed) the technician test. You'll have a lot more HF options with a general class license, so it's certainly worth a try if you can ace the technician test. https://www.qrz.com/hamtest/

That half dollar is a beautiful find! Key and lock are nice too. Given that the lock is open; I wouldn't expect a full chest nearby, but I'm not sure what you're looking at. Keep going... I'm impressed.

Disclaimer; there is a chance I have a bad container of Trail Boss. Those numbers just don't look right at all. It's cheap enough that I might as well double check. What other loads do you all like with Trail Boss? What if I have a whole lot of extra left over?

Minor update on making .223 blanks. Took me a while to find all the problems I introduced along the way (and errors in my own thinking). It's trivially easy to crush the case body such that the round will sit right in a case length gauge; but not chamber at all. When I finally figured this out; I took the decapping pin out of my full length resizing die, and fixed each one carefully. It was a lot worse than I expected; about as much effort as resizing a case that's already been fired. Short blanks don't always feed cleanly for me. Not sure if a magazine modification would help; or if I need to go after the feed ramps. Perhaps even changing my crimp method would allow for a smoother feed (more circle, less star?). I'll mess with that before I test another batch and see what I can find out. I'm sure by now I can find some actual garbage brass to use for that process. May as well add a rotation indicator to the top of each blank die; since they are apparently very sensitive adjustments. Seems like this was entirely too much effort for what is essentially a toy. But it does have some niche uses like throwing antenna up in a tree. My Clays rounds launched cans too slow for the Labradar to pick up, but I suspect the powder will work fine when I get the charge dialed in. Six grains Unique shot a can just above the speed of a standard M200 blank. I declined the 7, and 8 grain for now; but I've shot them before, and they seem "safe" enough with a bit more throw. Trailboss finally makes more sense to me; those cans never left the barrel, just a little puff of smoke which was nearly silent. Plenty of room left in the case, so I won't count the Trailboss out just yet. Probably not going to be the most cost effective option if it requires a case full of powder though.

Sounds good to me. I'll start at the lower FPS number and see what kind of metrics I can hit with powders I have on hand. If the lower powder/cost/chamber pressure node works; the next one up is only going to sacrifice wear and reliability from what I can tell. Taking my time to work up slow in a number of areas. A shot timer / barrel flex measure unit just got flashed with the lastest firmware. I'm not at all sure how many libraries need an upgrade; but there will be a few more... Even the current software could measure those metrics over a 5-20 shot test with some tweaking. Some of those fresh ideas came from learning about the Labradar; so I've yet to write that new code. I presume updated libraries might also bear fruit in terms of timing issues I was earlier running into. Green numbers are angular measurements; the ones I want most... Shot timer already works; but needs a few updates for display on this new hardware still (long standing bug).

I ended up reading this over a few times to fully digest some of the finer points. There where just a few things it left out in terms of history; and that made me curious. I finally found this quick write up about the MK262 vs. MK262 mod 1 and it helped me fill in the gaps. https://www.ar15.com/ammo-oracle/history/mk262.html Realized I do have some of the Hornady 75 grain match projectiles; but none of the other options on hand. This listing on targetsports says 2725 FPS for the mod 1 ammo (https://www.targetsportsusa.com/black-hills-5-56mm-mk262-mod-1-ammo-mod-1-c-77-grain-otm-mp460556n9-p-110508.aspx); but 98Z5V says 2750 FPS. And higher... I think I remember reading hints about this in another thread around here. Those numbers are helpful; though I'm curious how close to the limit those are in terms of pressure. Is that 2780 riding a fine line? Have a few piles of once fired and freshly primed brass that I could get started with. While I'm rather range limited at the moment; I could at least try and hit the FPS number short term. Haven't killed the Labradar yet; but I did try to flash a custom modified firmware. It didn't take, but I also didn't try to change the version number, or otherwise force it in any way. That will be on my list the moment I see a new firmware update from them. I could try to mod the older update file, and flash that to see if I'm allowed to version swap. That's a decent option to "force" it to take an update if it does allow. Trying not to break it before I get some use out of it. I won't blame Canada. Quebec is indeed why it's confusing. As I was browsing the firmware binary for the latest update (pre-loaded); I realized it contains a fully french language translation in code. It also contains numerous features not accessable to the end user. There is likely a developer mode that may or may not be easily accessable. I tried booting the unit while holding various buttons; but nothing has changed yet. It does show up as NXP LPC on my computer; which is a brand and chip family. Just need to know exactly which model number still (and I haven't cracked open the case myself). Knowing chip number; I can buy a dev board and simulate the device externally as a means to safely develop updates on my own. Still rather impressed with the Labradar hardware overall; despite some unnecessary shortcomings in user interface.