Sunday, December 18, 2011

Little Kim and the Jeep

I spent most of today getting my ham radio installed in my new Jeep, which involved pulling the antenna wire from the back of the Jeep to the front of the Jeep, finding a place to mount the amp unit, then getting power to it. Then I spent most of the evening rearranging my garage because doing the electrical work showed that my electrical tool/supply box was completely out of control (as in, it ended up all over my garage because I had the stuff to do the work but it was buried in this box full of *stuff*), only to come in and find that Dear Leader has died. Not to be confused with Hopey Changey.

One wonders what the new leader of North Korea is going to do. The only long term hope for North Korea is reunification with South Korea, but the South Koreans are scared to death of such a thing... it took a decade for Germany's economy to recover from the reunification with East Germany, and East Germany was in far better shape than North Korea, which is a complete and utter basket case.

-- Badtux the Busy Penguin

4 comments:

  1. Curious about the "ham " radio. Same frequency's as a base unit? Assuming the intention isn't necessarily to communicate over large distances is it fair to say a ham radio performs fairly well in the conditions you experience. Or is it a hobby to see just how far you can communicate given antenna limitations. Radio is fun.

    I have to get busy now and start worrying about the Korea's.

    ReplyDelete
  2. China will continue to provide aid to North Korea, at least just enough to stave off an utter collapse, in order to prevent a tidal wave of refugees coming north over the Yalu.

    South Korea will supplement Chinese aid, a little, for the reasons that you gave: Integrating North Korea into South Korea would push the South back into Third-World status for decades.

    ReplyDelete
  3. One Fly, the Kenwood D710 is a 2 meter / 70 cm FM radio with an output of 50 watts. It is for line-of-sight communications, though if there is a repeater in line-of-sight you can communicate over an area the size of a small state or if the repeater is linked, to a large area indeed (have heard folks from Australia and Scotland on the linked repeaters). I'm going out through a Diamond half-wave antenna mounted on my tailgate. I use this rig for two things -- communicating with fellow Jeepers when out in the field (same reason we use CB radio, but because it's FM and has 50 watts, we can get out and hear better, and because it's 2 meter and thus at a frequency not prone to tropospheric skip we're not getting slammed by skip from Alabama), and to allow my relatives to track my progress (via APRS) when I'm out in the field. At some point I want to get a HF (AM) radio for taking advantage of tropospheric skip in the backcountry to say "Hi, I'm talking to you from the Modoc Mine in Panamint Valley, where there's no cell phone service and the nearest human beings are an hour's drive away!", but haven't gotten around to getting my General license yet or to getting the AM/SSB radio and its corresponding screwdriver antenna (which isn't very good for getting out, you'd really want to run a dipole if you have something you can run a dipole between, but deserts aren't full of trees :).

    Comrade, yeppers, I've alluded to that before on this blog. Both China and South Korea want North Korea to stay exactly where it is -- except to quit doing stupid stuff. Sadly, the "quit doing stupid stuff" part seems something that Li'l Kim was bad at, and who knows whether their new leader (Tiny Kim?) will manage it?

    - Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought as much. It's a great tool for you guys. Thank you for that penguin!!

    better oil ma guns up

    ReplyDelete

Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.

WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.