Cool New Dualband Rig

I picked up a new rig the other day. It is a dualband handheld radio that supports the latest digital formats. It has a number of innovative features that are not very common in ham radio equipment. The text messaging feature allows you to send simple ASCII messages to other radio users. The built-in MP3 player can play tunes via the built-in speakers or a stereo headset. The microSD memory slot allows for easy change out of stored tunes and expansion of memory. This rig is compatible with Bluetooth headsets which puts the “wireless” back in wireless. It has a really nice color display that can display “wallpaper” to personalize the device.

The rig includes some very handy features such as a world clock, calendar and calculator. You never know when you might need to calculate the length of a dipole antenna or the resonant frequency of an LC circuit. The battery life on standby is an amazing 16 days. A 1.3 Megapixel camera allows you to take photos and store them to the memory card slot. The two frequency bands are 800 MHz and 1900 MHz.

Yeah, that’s right, it is a Verizon cell phone (LG VX-8300).