ICOM 7300
I recently upgraded my Amateur radio license from Technical class to General class. To celebrate, I bought myself an ICOM 7300. The 7300 can connect to a computer via a USB cable. Connecting the computer to the radio is called Rig Control.
I didn’t really have any issues with ICOM 7300 Rig Control on Windows or Mac however I found that my radio wasn’t having any part of being controlled by my Linux Laptop.
Confusion ensued.
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XHDATA D-221 Radio
Recently XHDATA sent me their D-220 radio to review. Every time they send out radios they request honest feedback from me (and others) and as a result of that feedback they shortly thereafter released the XHDATA D-221 radio. The Amazon cost is currently $18.90 with a 10% off campaign.
The most notable difference between the D-220 and D-221 is that the XHDATA D-221 includes NOAA Weather Band.
To me that was huge. Weather radio is so important where I live. I’m way in Eastern NC and hurricanes are a popular sport here. We were devastated during Hurricane Florence a few years ago. And of course we all know about the devastation in Western NC from the recent Hurricane.
While I may have inferred that the D-221 is an upgrade path from the D-220 I’m in no way saying that the D-220 is deficient in any way. It is a great little radio. After they sent me one to review I bought a couple other ones on my own dime.
While XHDATA provided me these radios to review not once have they ever tried to influence my reviews. In fact they ask for solid, constructive feedback. As a tech reviewer of sorts I can promise you that not all companies do that. I own a LOT of XHDATA radios, most of which I have bought with my own money. I’m already a fan.
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Choyong A8W
I recently grabbed a Choyong LC90 and reviewed it here. While I found it to have some quirks, essentially I liked it enough to pick up a Choyong A8W. The radio initially cost $119 but can now be had for right around $45 to $48.
I’m just going to say this straight up. This is not a $119 radio. However, in my opinion it is a $45 radio.
It is also advertised as an FM radio but I personally wouldn’t factor that into its list of features. You CANNOT spin a tuner dial to pick a channel. All you can do is scan the FM band. If it finds a channel it becomes channel 1. The next channel it finds is channel 2. On my scan in my area not one single channel displays the correct frequency. I’d be mega angry if I spent over $100 on a radio that can’t display the right channel. Also while scanning the FM band it found channels that I thought it wouldn’t be able to find and it DID NOT find strong channels that it should have. If it doesn’t grab something you think it should, all you can do is rescan. I don’t know why displaying 89.3 as 89.2 really gets my goat, but it does. This is an Internet radio. Plain and simple.
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Choyong LC90 MW/FM/SW/Internet Radio
It is pretty clear that I have a radio addiction. I’ve lost track of how many I have. I’ve been eyeballing the Choyong LC90 since it dropped in China early in 2023. To be honest I hadn’t yet purchased it because of the price. The other day though, I saw the Black Friday price which seemed much more palatable to me. So I struck. I’m impressed with the fit and finish of the Choyong LC90 and it is pretty feature rich.
But I have a couple of complaints right out of the gate. These should not be construed as dealbreakers. It is more along the lines of me saying “Really?”
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A super quick primer on how I got back into short wave radio.
I was a typical 60’s and 70’s kid. I loved CB radio and Short Wave radio even more. After leaving home for the loving arms of the United States Navy I drifted away from my radio hobby.
Fast forward to the mid 2000’s and I am now working for the US Gov’t and living in Iwakuni Japan. I was sent to MCAS Cherry Point in Havelock, NC. And oddly enough, I live in this area now. While I was driving around one day I had the AM radio on scan and it landed on a station that had minimal power and could only be received in parts of Havelock. I have no clue what the station was.
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XHDATA D-608WB
I love radios. I can’t even say how many radios and short wave radios I own because my wife reads this. However, I was tickled to death to find out that XHDATA was sending me their new D-608WB Emergency Radio ($33) to review. It can also be purchased from Amazon.
I also own the original XHDATA D-608 and reviewed it previously here. Like I said, I own a lot of radios.
Also, I own a lot of radios that call themselves Emergency Radios. So let’s see how the D-608WB shakes out.
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I’ve been using Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) for a few years now. Essentially, DMR uses the backbone of the internet to communicate. You can enter that network by using a radio to local DMR repeater connection. Additionally, most people enter the DMR network by a Hotspot device connected to their own WiFi or Ethernet home network. The most popular DMR service is the BrandMeister Network, but over time a couple other networks have sprung up. Today I’ll be discussing how to connect to the TGIF Network. While TGIF has been around a bit, yours truly just discovered it. Connecting to it wasn’t as easy as I anticipated so I thought I’d write a few pointers in this blog to hopefully help others.
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Quansheng UV-K6
I own several handheld VHF/UHF radios. Some are for Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) but all do analog or simplex frequencies. I think just about all of us cut our teeth on the Baofeng UV-5R. I’m no exception. I think I have 2 or 3 around the house here somewhere. On a whim I decided to buy a Quansheng UV-K6 radio which also is designated as UV-K5(8). FCC ID information can be found here.
I recently purchased a Wouxun KG-Q10H which I really feel is the best handheld I’ve owned so far.
The only reason I picked up this Quansheng UV-K6 was for its ability to flash open source firmware onto it. Additionally, the radio can be unlocked to transmit on a whole slew of bands.
The bad news here is that of course is against FCC Regulations. Secondly, because the radio is a VHF/UHF radio, transmitting on any band other than those will be done in milliwatts. So not only are you breaking the FCC rules, you aren’t really doing anything but spraying out weak transmissions with tons of 2nd and 3rd order harmonics. In fact I’d recommend NOT unlocking the all the frequencies. There is a difference between unlocking the radio and unlocking all frequencies. Those are two separate actions or steps. Don’t unlock the transmit frequencies so you don’t accidentally do anything illegal.
Despite all this the radio is SOOOOOO hackable as to be almost irresistible to a guy like me.
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On February 22nd a massive cell phone outage was realized by AT&T and others. Yesterday on Super Tuesday there was a large scale cyber attack most prominently targeting Facebook and Instagram. If you dig a bit deeper the attack hit a lot of other prominent sites as well. Also, a couple of months ago I woke up in the middle of the night and there was no Verizon cellular service and I had no internet with Spectrum. Clearly it is time to bust out the Amateur Radio Equipment and even to add a new radio to the stable. Today I’ll be reviewing the Wouxun KG-Q10H Quad Band Radio ($219).
Wouxun KG-Q10H
Wouxun (pronounced OCEAN) is a Chinese Radio brand sold by “Buy Two Way Radios“. While most of us amateur radio operators tend to think of Chinese hand held radios as junk, the reality is that the Wouxun KG-Q10H has been tested to death on-line and the results are pretty favorable.
Good power, good audio, and the radio passes all the FCC tests regarding spurious emissions. Think 2nd and 3rd harmonics. Conversely, it doesn’t spew RF all over the place like a lot of cheap radios do.
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I have written similar blogs a couple of times in the past but like to keep it up to date as technology cruises forward or if I discover new hardware. Just what would you do if you woke up and there was no internet connection? This could be due to a massive telecom hack, or natural disaster, or an act of war.
Surprisingly, your computer can do quite a lot without a network connection, even if you can’t picture in your mind how that could be. Let’s explore how we can use a computer with no internet connection.
Quite a bit actually. Let me make a quick list:
Let’s build our SHTF machine, shall we?
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