TGO David

Surf from bed and you can do both. Just turn the webcam off first.

The S&W forum is a dirty whore! Remind me to have you take care of that for me the next time I do this. Honestly those were my initial thoughts the first time I saw vBulletin 4. Give it a chance. It takes a little time but once you figure out where everything is again, it actually makes more sense logically than the way it used to be laid out. They'll never demand you spend less time on the Internet again. Data retention was certainly top priority. It was also the easier part.

I'm envious. It's going to take a lot of coffee to get me through this day.

Ok, fess up. What did you do during the software upgrade?

The upgrades are a go. I've just finished the majority of the heavy lifting on the new graphics and am ready to go with it. TGO will be offline for a portion of the day tomorrow.

If you turn the forum around, it's on the back at the bottom... like a tramp stamp.

Thanks guys. Just wanted you to see what was happening behind the scenes. Feedback on the new look is welcomed.

Bingo

This is... I posted this in another thread but I suspect not many people saw it. I've decided to go an entirely new direction with the look of the site and what you see above is a snapshot of the work in progress as of yesterday. I've made more changes since then and it's slowly coming together. Rather than upgrade the site and have it look like junk for the first few days, I've been pushing myself to get the new look done before I do the upgrade. The upgrade itself is a process that I've done now several times behind the scenes on a test server and it works flawlessly. Once I get the new graphics done (today? tomorrow? Sunday?) I will go ahead and pull the trigger, if you'll pardon the pun. Anyway... back to work for me. Soon! Soon!!

Just by way of an update... I am not 100% that this is going to happen tomorrow. This morning I got frustrated with the direction the graphics were taking so I scrapped the whole thing and started over. The new look and feel are slowly coming together but it may not be ready in time tomorrow. Here's a glimpse. Ignore the "Garage" tab at the top. I'm still building it in Photoshop and it was easier for me to copy the forum table out of my other forum and build it around that. Easier to visualize at least.

It'll be added in soon after the upgrade is done.

It's not a built-in feature but it's probably something that can be added on afterward.

Yes.

I'm still trying to decide what sort of antenna setup I'd want to use at the house. I'm leaning toward a simple, short tower to get the antenna up above the roof lines. Beyond that, I'm still pondering my options. Amp, no amp... what bands do I want to work... etc. My grandfather had a 75' tower at his house for CB back in the 70s and 80s, base station, [illegal] linear amplifier, etc. He loved using that rig.

None of my Warrens have rusted. I still love them.

That officer needed backup sorely. At least a half dozen more officers; one for each jackass who wanted to impede the arrest by crowding him. Busted noses for everyone!

For what it's worth, the Heart of Tennessee Amateur Radio Emergency Service (HOT ARES) has a linked repeater in Joelton that you can probably hit using a 5W portable. I used my portable last night to hit the Smyrna repeater and participate in one of their training nets. No problems. You're still going to want something in your car, though. More power, better range... more fun.

If a guy can make money selling tactical beer mugs then you can certainly make money selling those! Signed, Proud Owner of a Tactical Beer Mug

Sadly there aren't many entries (80?) mostly because folks had no idea it was there. But yes, you will need to re-enter it. This gives us a chance to clean it up for accuracy by attrition.

Getting your feet wet in Amateur radio is fairly easy and if you'll just be doing local comm or bouncing off of repeaters, all you need is your Technician license and a UHF/VHF radio. The cost of the test is merely $15 plus whatever you invest in study aids. A simple 2m hand-portable (think walkie-talkie) may be sufficient for hitting your local repeater and can be had for about $130-200 depending on what brand and model you get. I bought a Yaesu FT-270R hand-portable after the fact and spent all of $130 on it. Portables usually issue about 5-watts power, which combined with the typical rubber ducky antenna limits you a bit on how far your signal is going to reach. A few miles, depending on terrain, typically. Mobile UHF/VHF rigs can be had from about the same price range to upwards of $500 depending on how many bells and whistles you want. The Yaesu FT-7900R that I run in my truck only cost about $300. You also need to factor in the cost of your antenna, antenna mount, antenna coax, power wiring, etc. I think my rig cost me about $500 all together but I planned for future expansion and added in some things you could eliminate to save money. If you want to talk to folks in other states / countries, you're going to want to pursue your General license (another $15) and invest in HF gear. The sky is the limit on the cost of the associated equipment and it all depends on how deep you want to get and how much you want to spend.

Welcome!

The exclusion of Code seems to be a somewhat religious topic among Hams. You have the guys who had to do it to get their General license and feel like everyone else should have to as well. Then you've got the guys who are happy that it's no longer a requirement and believe it should be an optional pursuit. I fall into the latter category.

You are a search ninja.

Since it is a forum, you will be able to search it using the full power of the vBulletin search engine. Key words, Boolean expressions, etc.

I honestly can't think of a reason why I'd want a 9mm when you could have a .38spl +P+ in the same form factor.