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Although I am very much a techie, I often lag in adopting the latest consumer technology. I don’t need to be the first one on my block to own the latest gizmo, since that usually means paying more for less, compared to waiting until next year. However, since our household has this pressing “need” for … Read more

Holy Freaking Cow! Try to count all of those cellphones. From Reuters: HELSINKI, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion — equivalent to half the global population — on Thursday, 26 years after the first cellular network was launched, research firm Informa said. Since the first Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) networks … Read more

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 … Read more

In Electronic Design magazine, Louis Frenzel wrote an article, “Whatever Happened to the Electronics Hobbyist?” Electronics used to be one of the greatest hobbies ever. There were literally hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people who used to play around with electronics as an avocation or part-time interest and activity. There were at least … Read more

I was getting ready for a trip. Of course, I need to take along my electronic toys, I mean, necessities. There’s the mobile phone, the iPod, the ham radio gear, the digital camera and lots of other stuff. As I gathered up the toys, I surveyed the required support gear, which includes various forms of … Read more