QYT KT-8900D Mini-Mobile & Bluetooth Radio Mic

Quite a few members (myself included) have been tempted by the new QYT KT-8900D.  $109AUD (shipped) buys you a Dual Band Quad-Standby Colour Screen Mini-Mobile rig that puts out a healthy 25W in a tiny package, complete with little cooling fan, a great little speaker and (from all the ones we’ve used) good quality transmit audio.  I was fortunate enough to get mine with a $20 discount coupon (thanks eBay!) that made it a $90 purchase.  How can you say no?

Side note: Yes, these model numbers are getting ridiculous.  How many 8900 radios can there be?  As many as there are 9800s?  What about the 7800s?  Argh!

Lyle VK2SMI spotted an interesting accessory specifically for this radio today – a Bluetooth Radio Speaker Mic!  Integrated Bluetooth options in higher-end radios like the Icom ID-5100A and the Yaesu FTM-400 aren’t uncommon these days – but if you opt for those (stupidly) expensive options you get yourself a Bluetooth headset – not something in the form factor of a traditional radio mic.  $59.99AUD (shipped) is the right price too!  Check out the BT-89:

Included is a 1400mAh battery in the mic giving a quoted 2 days usage (with 1 week standby).  Usable range is quoted to be 10 meters from the supplied dongle, and the dongle gets its power from the radio itself.  As pictured, the unit is supplied with a USB plug pack and a USB to 3.5mm cable for charging the mic.  No more mic cables in the car (or less cables across the bench) sounds enticing doesn’t it?  I’m not sure how good the radio will look with that short dongle cable leaving the dongle dangling 2cm in front of the mic port though…

Compatible radios are listed as the QYT KT-7900D, KT-8900, KT-8900R and KT-8900D (see aforementioned comment about model numbers).

Conversation turned to how easy it may be to adapt this unit to other radios – different mic pinouts would be one hurdle to overcome (which should be relatively easy with a small home-made adaptor), supply voltage from the radio to the dongle may be different (less easy to overcome, but doable) and finally the impedance/output that the Bluetooth receiving dongle presents to the radio’s mic input may also be an issue.

Food for thought.

Now if someone could get to making an adaptor that lets you use your in-car (factory) Phone Bluetooth connection with (any) mobile rig (along with a nice cordless PTT), I’d be eternally grateful!

January Oxtales

January Oxtales has been released – and what a bumper edition it is this time around!

Our regular thanks to John VK2AYQ and Trevor VK2TT for another excellent read – and thank you to all contributors.

Members should now have received their copy by email, but website copies of the current and past editions can always be found here.

Things you were taught at school that are wrong

From The Conversation, 2/1/17 by Misty Adoniou, original post here.
Via Stuart VK2FSTU, image embellishments by Paul VK2ICQ (no, they’re not in the original article!)

Stuart VK2FSTU adds “one for the Grammar Nazis!”

Do you remember being taught you should never start your sentences with “And” or “But”?

What if I told you that your teachers were wrong and there are lots of other so-called grammar rules that we’ve probably been getting wrong in our English classrooms for years?

How did grammar rules come about?

To understand why we’ve been getting it wrong, we need to know a little about the history of grammar teaching.

Grammar is how we organise our sentences in order to communicate meaning to others.

Those who say there is one correct way to organise a sentence are called prescriptivists.  Prescriptivist grammarians prescribe how sentences must be structured.

Prescriptivists had their day in the sun in the 18th century.  As books became more accessible to the everyday person, prescriptivists wrote the first grammar books to tell everyone how they must write.

These self-appointed guardians of the language just made up grammar rules for English, and put them in books that they sold.  It was a way of ensuring that literacy stayed out of reach of the working classes.

They took their newly concocted rules from Latin.  This was, presumably, to keep literate English out of reach of anyone who wasn’t rich or posh enough to attend a grammar school, which was a school where you were taught Latin.

And yes, that is the origin of today’s grammar schools.

The other camp of grammarians are the descriptivists.  They write grammar guides that describe how English is used by different people, and for different purposes.  They recognise that language isn’t static, and it isn’t one-size-fits-all.

Continue reading →

Radio Garden: Close your eyes and listen to the world, from the live broadcasts of Havana to Aleppo

From the Independent.co.uk, 10/12/16 by Max Benwell, original post here.  Via Stuart VK2FSTU.

At the end of a year where the world has become increasingly bewildering and alien, a new site invites listeners to cross borders, and with profound results.

A screenshot from the Radio Garden website

Radio Garden works like any other digital radio but, in this case, the world is your tuning dial.  As you turn it with your mouse, gliding between borders, over cities and towns, it crackles and tunes into every station available in the area.

The project was designed by Amsterdam’s Studio Puckey and released on Monday.  It lets users listen to 7,877 radio stations around the world by dragging and dropping a pointer over a 3D Google Earth interface.

I started browsing Radio Garden in Europe, and slowly went from west to east, from London and Paris through to Germany and Lithuania.  I found out what techno they’re listening to in Berlin, before swinging over to catch up on the latest pop music in Kazakhstan.

There’s something profound about going around and eavesdropping on what people are listening to all over the planet.  Dragging and dropping from place to place, you get glimpses of different countries, cities and regions, and not just through the music, but the adverts and talk show discussions.

Going further afield I got hooked on South Korea’s KCR, a station that plays non-stop classical music.  I then tuned in to a Sri Lankan talk show, before heading south west down to Africa where I discovered a radio drama broadcasting in northern Madagascar. Continue reading →

Ruh-roh! Rick Ruhl rolled out of Ham Radio Deluxe in software kill-switch aftermath

From The Register, 3/1/17 by Shaun Nichols, original post here.  Via Stuart VK2FSTU.

Cofounder ejects over blacklist for bad reviews.

The developer of Ham Radio Deluxe – a popular app used by thousands of hams – has restructured its management following claims it punished users who wrote critical reviews.

HRD Software said in a statement on Friday that co-founder Rick Ruhl will step down to pursue other interests.  Ruhl, along with co-owners Mike Carper and Randy Gawtry, ran the radio software company after buying the rights to the code in 2011.

The reshuffle comes after HRD found itself under scrutiny after it remotely disabled copies of the software belonging to users who spoke out against the company on various amateur radio websites and forums.

“Ham Radio Deluxe software would have been abandoned in 2011 without Rick’s partnership,” said HRD co-owner Dr Michael Carper.

“Rick’s day-to-day leadership in running the business has contributed to the vitality and functionality of Ham Radio Deluxe.”

Ruhl was, essentially, blamed by customers for his organization’s poor handling of complaints and bad reviews.  After one user went public about how his copy was blackballed in revenge for posting a negative review, it was followed by further claims that HRD had similarly retaliated against others – and had maintained a “blacklist” of radio handles that had been blocked from using the software.

Though HRD at first pinned the balls-up on a rogue “contracted support employee,” Ruhl eventually accepted responsibility for the blackballing and said HRD Software would remove the blacklisting of the call signs.

“No one is going to be sued.  I made a serious mistake and error of judgement in this and many cases and I am truly sorry,” said Ruhl.  He had earlier left an angry message on one blacklisted person’s voicemail, threatening legal action for speaking out against his company.

“I apologize publicly…  I do have diabetes and sometimes this affects my judgement and it did in that voicemail.  I truly regret it.  I’m talking to my doctor about changing my medications so I won’t have any more low sugar.”

“[HRD’s cofounder] Randy, Mike and I are discussing my future with HRD.”

In addition to shifting Ruhl out of the company, HRD said it will be updating its end-user license agreement to “modernize and renew” its customer support policies.