When I worked at Pye Telecom we would struggle to make the charger for this price! Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years. It must be sheer hell being a UK PMR manufacturer these days. I am sure there are even cheaper ones if you look.
Assuming they ship across the world and make a profit, just how do they do it?
At 0930z, my 2.5W to the V2000 vertical was turned on. Just 1 spot of me by G0PQO (50km) so far today.
UPDATE 2125z: Just 1 G spotted me and I have spotted 1 G on RX. Poor. Now QRT.
In the early 1960s my dad bought a DST100 (ex tank radio from) a local garage. It was deaf and weighed a ton. We took it to a local amateur G3CHN who worked his magic on it and it was my main SWL receiver for several years.
Looking back, it copied some impressive DX. It was so heavy that my dad made a special shelf for it. I could not lift it on my own. These days a tiny SDR dongle is probably better!
We can see the windmill from the breakfast table and, as in this view, from the lounge window.
Every day, just about, someone wants a picture of the windmill! This photo was taken yesterday morning.
For some time in the UK a couple of ideas have been considered.
One is an exam (a bit like the old RAE) that would allow people to get a full licence with just one exam. the second is a beginners' licence to allow newcomers into the hobby easily. Some can use licence free gear, e.g. 446MHz gear in the UK without any licence, so the argument is why not a simple transition into amateur radio, perhaps only allowing use of ready built commercial gear on VHF or UHF only?
I have mixed feelings over the latter. Yes,we badly need new blood, but are we happy to dumb down our hobby? This is a hard one.
All these were discussed at a recent RSGB board meeting. You have to be an RSGB member to read these I believe.
