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  • [G3XBM] Two Beofengs for 22.99

    From G3XBM via rec.radio.amateur.moderat@21:1/5 to All on Mon Mar 21 16:26:45 2022
    XPost: rec.radio.amateur.moderated, rec.radio.amateur.equipment, uk.radio.amateur
    XPost: free.uk.amateur-radio

    Roger G3XBM's (Mainly) Amateur Radio Blog

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    Two Beofengs for 22.99

    Posted: 21 Mar 2022 09:50 AM PDT http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/two-beofengs-for-2299.html


    Although I have not looked around, I see you can buy 2 Beofeng 5W UHF hand portables on eBay for £22.99. On the way somebody makes a profit. I know quality control is a bit hit and miss but these prices are stupid. They
    come with batteries, chargers, carrying straps and belt clips. How do they
    do it and make profits?


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    G3XBM grabber

    Posted: 21 Mar 2022 06:43 AM PDT http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/g3xbm-grabber.html


    Some browsers will not allow page embedding for security reasons.
    If you can see embedded pages you may be amused to look at my grabber, that
    is mostly on 10m FT8 RX. If embedding does not work on your browser, there
    is an alternative link.
    As you can tell, 10m is pretty good now and has been in recent days.

    See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/10m-ft8-grabber .

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    10m FT8 QRP (Monday)

    Posted: 21 Mar 2022 06:23 AM PDT http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/10m-ft8-qrp-monday.html


    At 0900z, my 10m FT8 RX was turned on. I may try 2.5W TX later. So far
    today (at 0905z) 21 stations have already been spotted including several in Australia. This is getting too easy! Just turn on 10m FT8 RX and there is
    the DX.
    UPDATE 1010z: 138 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX. It is interesting how
    this band has changed in the last 12 months: no longer generally quiet. It
    is wide open most days now.
    UPDATE 1250z: 363 stations spotted.
    UPDATE 1312z: A brief TX period with 2.5W resulted in no QSOs, but I was spotted by several stations including HI8RD (7054km) in the Caribbean. 392 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today.

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    70cm UKAC results

    Posted: 20 Mar 2022 11:32 PM PDT http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/70cm-ukac-results.html


    On the second Tuesday of the month the RSGB organises an activity contest
    on 70cm. Even though I can only run 10W to a 2m omni, I usually go on.
    This time, I only stayed on for a short while, because of my poor voice,
    making just 1 valid QSO. One other one was rejected as "not in the log".
    Better luck next month?
    See https://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/vhfresults.pl?Contest=432MHz%20UKAC&year=2022 .

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    Sunspots - Monday March 21st 2022

    Posted: 20 Mar 2022 11:31 PM PDT http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/sunspots-monday-march-21st-2022.html


    Solar flux is 95 and the SSN 39. A=9 and K=0.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From andyW@21:1/5 to All on Wed Mar 23 08:44:27 2022
    XPost: rec.radio.amateur.moderated, rec.radio.amateur.equipment, uk.radio.amateur

    On 21/03/2022 20:26, G3XBM via rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin wrote:

    Roger G3XBM's (Mainly) Amateur Radio Blog

    ///////////////////////////////////////////
    Two Beofengs for 22.99

    Posted: 21 Mar 2022 09:50 AM PDT http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/two-beofengs-for-2299.html


    Although I have not looked around, I see you can buy 2 Beofeng 5W UHF
    hand portables on eBay for £22.99.  On the way somebody makes a profit.
    I know quality control is a bit hit and miss but these prices are
    stupid.  They come with batteries, chargers, carrying straps and belt
    clips. How do they do it and make profits?

    It's the economy of Scale.
    China set up a HUGE factory specifically to create comms for the
    Olympics. Once the design and set up was sorted and paid for it is just
    a matter of cranking out Millions of BF888 and their derivatives for
    pennies over cost.

    As an aside, the modules that they use (SA-818) are cheap as chips and
    make great little UHF cores for radio orienteering, fox and hounds or
    any UHF experimentation.

    Andy

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)