Occupational Hazard

One of the things about writing a blog - you get a lot of "out of the blue" e-mails. I guess that's a consequence of becoming somewhat "known". I get e-mails offering me exciting ground level opportunities to engage in marketing or distributing radios or radio related electronics products. I also get e-mails with "exciting" new product developments. Generally, I just delete these e-mails, as they are not CW or QRP related, but every now and then one comes along that is rather interesting and catches my eye.

The other day, I received one such e-mail form VGC which is an electronics company in China (of course) informing me about a newer 50 Watt VHF/UHF mobile radio for under $200. Here's the link.

https://www.verotelecom.com/VERO-VR-N7500-50W-Dual-Band-Mobile-Radio-With-APP-Programming-p541441.html

I don't know if this is or ever will be FCC Type Accepted, or whether or not it's a piece of cr@p.  It's distributed here in the USA by GigaParts, so I guess it's somewhat reputable. But the one thing did intrigue me is that it is supposedly Bluetooth compatible and I guess that would allow you to program the frequencies via your smartphone, or a tablet.

I'm not in any way endorsing this product or advising anyone to buy it. Heck, for all I know, the app could be spyware. I certainly don't know if it's any good and I've never heard of this company before. The thing is that I've never heard of a radio that can be programmed via a Bluetooth compatible device before. Maybe one already exists and I'm so cooped up in my QRP CW bubble that I've never noticed it or heard of it before. Nevertheless, that's one innovation that I think would be cool to have.  Maybe the "Biggies" need to get on board with that concept.

I'm not that big into VHF/UHF, but especially in an EMCOMM situation - a radio that you could program frequencies into on the fly as needed, using your smartphone and not having to be hardwire tethered to a laptop? That would be neat!

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

By Golly ....... it worked!

Thursday evening I finally bit the bullet and programmed the QYT K-8900D that I purchased from Amazon a couple of weeks ago.  I now work in the IT field, so you'd think that this would be like second nature to me, but no. To me computers are still part black magic. I was dreading the process.

I was expecting COM Port errors, communication errors between the radio and the laptop, all sorts of things that would make me go screaming into the night. I was pleasantly surprised when the whole process went like a hot knife through butter. 

I fired up CHIRP, connected the radio to the laptop using the provided cable and pressed the "Download radio profile" tab and half expected the computer and/or radio to laugh at me. To my amazement, the little progress bar quickly sped across the screen and what was factory programmed into the radio appeared on my laptop screen. No snickers, no guffaws, no knee slappers.

I then made what changes I wanted to, crossed my fingers and pressed the "Upload profile to radio" tab. Again, the little green progress bar whizzed across my laptop screen and I was finished. The entire deal took less than five minutes

No looking for drivers, no looking into COM Port settings, no muss, no fuss. I was relieved.

I put the unit into my Jeep Friday morning. The K-8900D that was in there has some wear and tear on it, so it will go down to the shack to be used to check into the various ARES/RACES nets that I participate in each month. This older unit is missing a knob, which seems endemic to these units. I have no idea where it went. I think it was sucked up into a black hole and ultimately arrived at the same location where missing socks from the clothes dryer go.

I saw replacement knobs being offered on eBay by some guy in Lithuania. I purchased a packet of two and they should be here later this month. I'm not used to things going like they're supposed to.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!