I did a bad, bad thing!
Jul. 7th, 2006 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneI went down to Las Cruces a couple of weeks ago for Amateur Radio Field Day. I wanted to take my handheld radio with me (called a HT for handheld transciever) but I couldn't find the battery charger. About a week ago I called Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) in Phoenix to see if they could set me up with a charger for my Yaesu FT-530. No dice. I didn't understand it, I mean, the radio is only 15 years old! What's up with not having a charger for it? ;-)
So I went to Radio Shack last night and bought a charger with the proper tip. There was only one problem: I didn't know the polarity of the battery, should the tip be positive or negative? So I called HRO back just now (after posting a message on a ham radio news group without getting a response) and they told me that tip was positive. So my radio is now charging away. I might have to replace a secondary battery, it's sort of a watch battery that maintains the radio's memory and settings, I'll have to wait until it's charged to see if it'll need replacing.
Here's where the bad, bad thing comes in....
Since I was already at the HRO web site, I decided to see how much dual-band (VHF/UHF, also known as 2 meters (144 MHz) and 70cm (440MHz)) radios were going for now, IIRC my FT-530 cost me about $350 some 15 years ago.
BIIIIIG mistake.
They now have tri-band radios. They're VHF/UHF, the third band is either 220 MHz or 6 meters (50ish MHz) depending on the model that you buy. And you can get them for around $250.
They had tri-band HTs when I was first getting into radio, but they were pretty expensive. Well, it looks like the price has come way down!
I'm glad I'm broke.
So I went to Radio Shack last night and bought a charger with the proper tip. There was only one problem: I didn't know the polarity of the battery, should the tip be positive or negative? So I called HRO back just now (after posting a message on a ham radio news group without getting a response) and they told me that tip was positive. So my radio is now charging away. I might have to replace a secondary battery, it's sort of a watch battery that maintains the radio's memory and settings, I'll have to wait until it's charged to see if it'll need replacing.
Here's where the bad, bad thing comes in....
Since I was already at the HRO web site, I decided to see how much dual-band (VHF/UHF, also known as 2 meters (144 MHz) and 70cm (440MHz)) radios were going for now, IIRC my FT-530 cost me about $350 some 15 years ago.
BIIIIIG mistake.
They now have tri-band radios. They're VHF/UHF, the third band is either 220 MHz or 6 meters (50ish MHz) depending on the model that you buy. And you can get them for around $250.
They had tri-band HTs when I was first getting into radio, but they were pretty expensive. Well, it looks like the price has come way down!
I'm glad I'm broke.
