[G3XBM] Two Beofengs for 22.99

[G3XBM via rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin]

Roger G3XBM's (Mainly) Amateur Radio Blog

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Two Beofengs for 22.99

Posted: 21 Mar 2022 09:50 AM PDT
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/two-beofengs-for-2299.html


Although I have not looked around, I see you can buy 2 Beofeng 5W UHF hand
portables on eBay for £22.99. On the way somebody makes a profit. I know
quality control is a bit hit and miss but these prices are stupid. They
come with batteries, chargers, carrying straps and belt clips. How do they
do it and make profits?


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G3XBM grabber

Posted: 21 Mar 2022 06:43 AM PDT
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/g3xbm-grabber.html


Some browsers will not allow page embedding for security reasons.
If you can see embedded pages you may be amused to look at my grabber, that
is mostly on 10m FT8 RX. If embedding does not work on your browser, there
is an alternative link.
As you can tell, 10m is pretty good now and has been in recent days.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/10m-ft8-grabber .

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10m FT8 QRP (Monday)

Posted: 21 Mar 2022 06:23 AM PDT
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/10m-ft8-qrp-monday.html


At 0900z, my 10m FT8 RX was turned on. I may try 2.5W TX later. So far
today (at 0905z) 21 stations have already been spotted including several in
Australia. This is getting too easy! Just turn on 10m FT8 RX and there is
the DX.
UPDATE 1010z: 138 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX. It is interesting how
this band has changed in the last 12 months: no longer generally quiet. It
is wide open most days now.
UPDATE 1250z: 363 stations spotted.
UPDATE 1312z: A brief TX period with 2.5W resulted in no QSOs, but I was
spotted by several stations including HI8RD (7054km) in the Caribbean. 392
stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today.

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70cm UKAC results

Posted: 20 Mar 2022 11:32 PM PDT
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/70cm-ukac-results.html


On the second Tuesday of the month the RSGB organises an activity contest
on 70cm. Even though I can only run 10W to a 2m omni, I usually go on.
This time, I only stayed on for a short while, because of my poor voice,
making just 1 valid QSO. One other one was rejected as "not in the log".
Better luck next month?
See
https://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/vhfresults.pl?Contest=432MHz%20UKAC&year=2022 .

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Sunspots - Monday March 21st 2022

Posted: 20 Mar 2022 11:31 PM PDT
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/sunspots-monday-march-21st-2022.html


Solar flux is 95 and the SSN 39. A=9 and K=0.

[andyW]

Post by G3XBM via rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin
Roger G3XBM's (Mainly) Amateur Radio Blog
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Two Beofengs for 22.99
Posted: 21 Mar 2022 09:50 AM PDT
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com/2022/03/two-beofengs-for-2299.html
Although I have not looked around, I see you can buy 2 Beofeng 5W UHF
hand portables on eBay for £22.99.  On the way somebody makes a profit.
I know quality control is a bit hit and miss but these prices are
stupid.  They come with batteries, chargers, carrying straps and belt
clips. How do they do it and make profits?

It's the economy of Scale.
China set up a HUGE factory specifically to create comms for the
Olympics. Once the design and set up was sorted and paid for it is just
a matter of cranking out Millions of BF888 and their derivatives for
pennies over cost.

As an aside, the modules that they use (SA-818) are cheap as chips and
make great little UHF cores for radio orienteering, fox and hounds or
any UHF experimentation.

Andy