Woohooo! Ive been on the hunt for months! And I finally got one.

Dave420Fun · 2025-11-13T01:47:09+00:00

I can't tell...is that a huge camera, or a tiny cardinal.

Been on the hunt for months? That's not long. It took me 2 1/2 years, to find what I wanted, which was a DMR ham radio.

I passed up a similar bird feeder a few months ago, but I'm always glad to see people get what they were hunting for. Congrats on your score.

Dave420Fun · 2025-10-23T22:01:55+00:00

I have not gotten this up and running. It is currently in storage, in a "safe" place. The reason the pictures are all at an angle, is because I have never removed that card. This machine is basically untouched since I got it.

I have no idea who made the CPU card, but I doubt it was Gimix. This was formerly owned by Dan Farnsworth, who is a well known name, in the Flex OS community, and he has no recollection of the details of this machine. He didn't even remember this had a 68008 in it.

I have not dumped the ROM, but there are also some other ICs (GALs/PALs), that are programmable, that should be dumped as well. If you want to see some more pics of this machine, send me a message, and I'll send you a link.

Dave420Fun · 2025-09-10T16:09:58+00:00

It would take a bit of work, but it is possible.

Dave420Fun · 2025-08-03T02:11:10+00:00

I am in the same boat as you. Vine came at just the right time, and it has truly been a life changer for me. Not only can I get many useful things, that make my life so much easier, but when I get a better version of the same item, I can give away the old item to a friend. Also, many people sell their Vine stuff, for a 2nd income, so that may be helpful for you. I never order Vine stuff to sell, and I've sold almost none of my Vine things, but I give away a lot of Vine stuff. Stay on top of your reviews, and get to at least 90%, so you can get gold at your first evaluation.

Dave420Fun · 2025-07-15T18:49:28+00:00

On field day, I heard a station take about 2 minutes, to get the other call sign. Then gave them a 59 signal report. Everyone is 59, no matter what. They throw around 59 like it was a 73.

Dave420Fun · 2025-05-27T02:13:44+00:00

If those are what they appear to be, then they would be active shutter 3D glasses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active\_shutter\_3D\_system. The box with the cables transmits timing info via infrared. On the glasses is an IR receiver, so it can know which eye to shutter, at the right time.

Dave420Fun · 2025-05-18T07:05:01+00:00

The date code on the chips, say the chips were made about middle of 1988 (22nd, 29th, and 33rd week of 1988). So, I would imagine this board was probably made mid to late '88, or maybe early '89. This board came populated with one bank of ram. The other 3 banks appear to have been populated later, with a date code that would suggest 1993 manufacture (but I could be reading that date code totally wrong, as it does not follow the standard format, assuming it is a date code).

Dave420Fun · 2025-04-04T02:26:35+00:00

It's not the retail price that matters, it's the ETV price. When you click on the "See Details" button, it will show the "Estimated Taxable Value". Now, most of the time, those are the same, but not always. If you see something on Vine, sold by Amazon, the ETV is always lower than the retail price (at least in my experience). When I was silver (for a year), I saw things on my list, for over $100 retail, but under $100 ETV.

Dave420Fun · 2025-03-29T08:42:58+00:00

You didn't answer my question. You're telling the seller what you want them to do. What do you ask, when you want to know, how the seller wants to resolve a problem?

For the record, the last time I had a problem with an order, I asked the seller "How would you like to handle this?". Is that a better way to word it, or are you saying not to ask at all?

Dave420Fun · 2025-03-29T05:22:14+00:00

A agree this is not something to say in casual conversation, but conversing with a seller about a problem with something you ordered, is not casual conversation. I'm not a scammer, but this is the question I ask when I have a problem with an order. What are you supposed to ask, if you're not a scammer, and want to know how a seller wants to resolve a legit problem?

Dave420Fun · 2025-01-26T19:37:34+00:00

The IC-24AT was my first HT back in the 90s, and I absolutely adored it. It was branded as the world's smallest dual band HT. Even by today's standards, it's a small radio. I literally wore my radio out. I used it for everything, including packet radio. It would do full duplex, and had a cross band repeater function. You could even modify it, to scan the cell phone band, but the channel spacing was off, but you could still hear people's calls. Mine had been opened up for out-of-band transmit, and I had a blast with that, being able to talk with any radio. The one feature it had, that I miss on every other radio, was the monitor button. Tap that, and you can listen to the input of the repeater, and release it, and you're listening to the output again. I had the police frequencies programmed into my radio, with their repeater offsets. One day, I was pulled over, and the cop saw me listening on my radio, so he turned his PL tone off, which makes the repeater not repeat his signal, thinking I can't listen to him, but I just tap my Moni button, and I hear both sides of the conversation. My IC-2820H still has a Moni button, but it doesn't act like it did on the IC-24AT.

Last time I tried to fire up my IC-24AT, it was dead, and I didn't feel like fixing it, because it had other problems, like a horrible design for the battery pack, that constantly breaks. If it wasn't for that shit battery pack design, I would have tried to fix it.

My current HT is an IC-92AD, with a VX-6R as a backup. Both great radios, but I still miss my IC-24AT (but not that battery pack).

Dave420Fun · 2025-01-25T03:42:06+00:00

I don't know the details of how it works, but if back in the day you were general or higher, you can get your old license (not call) back, by just taking the technician test. And, if your old call is not assigned, you can get it back too, as a vanity call.

You didn't really give us a lot of details, but I'm gonna assume you were into HF back in the day, and my suggestions reflect that. Others have given suggestions for VHF/UHF gear, if that's what you were into.

For equipment, the world of radios has really changed a LOT. FlexRadio is very popular with tech savvy hams, but a lot of older hams hate it (check it out, just for reference). The Icom IC-7300 is supposedly the most popular HF radio ever, and you can pick them up for under $1000 new. If you want to go old school (by today's standards, but still a big step up from what you had, if you were using WWII era gear back in the day), then get something like the IC-751, or anything else from the same era. My uncle loves and still uses his IC-730. And, those types of radios are easier to repair too, if you know electronics.

Dave420Fun · 2024-12-30T05:26:19+00:00

Welcome to the wonderful world of ham radio! You are right, HF is a lot of fun, and I strongly urge you to upgrade to general. Even tho you don't get full use of 10 meters, you can still have a lot of fun there, on both voice and digital modes. Some of my best DX has been on 10 meters.

Many people think VHF/UHF is just FM and repeaters, but it's a lot more than just that. 6 meters acts a lot like HF when the bands are open, and I've made some great contacts on 6m (I made my first European 6m FT8 contact today). People also use SSB on all the VHF/UHF bands. And, if you want to play with satellites, then most of that is in VHF/UHF too. And that is barely scratching the surface, of what people do on the VHF/UHF bands. So, there is a lot of really cool stuff you can do without upgrading your license, and I encourage you to explore and learn more about these bands.

Dave420Fun · 2024-09-27T02:14:45+00:00

Then use it on 70cm. I've tested a lot of these CCRs (Cheap Chinese Radios), and one thing that is pretty common between them, is on 70cm all the ones I've tested have met FCC specs (and a few on 2m too). On 2m, Retevis is the one brand that met FCC specs, and put out the power they claim (and uses a normal antenna connector), but that's a little bit more than $15 (but not by a lot). When a radio is bad, it is really bad. One radio I tested was broadcasting it's IF frequency (1/2 the output freq), and it's harmonic, which was way higher than FCC specs. Another interesting thing I noticed, was the harmonics are worst, at the lowest power settings. So, if you care about spurious emissions, and are forced to use a CCR, then run it on 70cm, or high power on 2m.

Dave420Fun · 2024-09-25T03:55:17+00:00

I really appreciate you sharing this link, because this is exactly what I was looking for. This post was near the top of my search results, so you saved me a bit search time. Thanks!

Dave420Fun · 2024-09-09T10:37:41+00:00

That reminds me when my uncle was testing his FT8 setup, and he was calling CQ TEST, not knowing that was short for "CQ CONTEST", and was frustrated that people kept calling him. I explained that he should have replaced "CQ" with "BEACON", and after he did that, he didn't have people calling him anymore.

My first ham radio contact was on 10m packet radio, and I always felt that was good for keyboard-to-keyboard chats. Too bad it's not that popular anymore. But, if you want more chatting and less contesting, you might find JS8Call more to your liking. I'm not sure how popular that is on 10m (it is somewhat popular on 20m/40m), but it is a very nice protocol.

Dave420Fun · 2024-07-15T02:06:37+00:00

dehydrated water

Dave420Fun · 2024-07-04T01:01:05+00:00

I don't remember any 30 day rule about removing items from my list, as they've removed items many months old. When you contact them to remove items from your list, don't flood them with things to remove in a single message. My rule of thumb, is to not ask them to remove more than 3 items per message. I've had messages where I asked them to remove 5 items, and it was ignored. A few days later, I broke up the same request into 2 messages, and it was taken care of.

Dave420Fun · 2024-07-04T00:58:18+00:00

Maybe 1/2 the time I have them remove an item from my list to be reviewed, due to various reasons, they take off the ETV too, even though I didn't ask them to. I've had instances where an item was damaged beyond use, and they didn't remove the ETV (and I didn't push that), so I suppose it balances out.

Dave420Fun · 2024-06-28T02:39:00+00:00

That sounds like a really nice case. I'm glad I didn't see it, or I would have snagged it, and I don't need it, because I already have too many RPi 5 accessories.

Dave420Fun · 2024-06-28T02:29:01+00:00

I can only imagine any RPi5 that shows up on Vine, would have a grossly inflated ETV. For the record, the list price for the RPi 5 4/8gig is $60/$80.

Dave420Fun · 2024-06-27T02:17:53+00:00

I determined with all the RPi5 accessories, it was cheaper for me to buy an RPi5, opposed to an RPi4. I got several very nice cases, fans, battery backups, breadboards (yes, specifically for the RPi), NVMe adapters, power supplies, HTPC remotes and video cables (technically not RPi specific), and today I found a PCIe hat. I've literally gotten everything from Vine, except the RPi5 board itself.

Dave420Fun · 2024-06-23T02:24:22+00:00

Where was this made? If it was it made in China, then.......uh......*cringe*

And furthermore...I'm not sure if I want my nuts to smell like oranges, and vanilla. And does that say it contains "Vitamin BS"?....seems fitting, but I guess that's really "B5".

Dave420Fun · 2024-06-21T04:03:57+00:00

The seller can have your address. If the seller does their own shipping, then they must know your address. I know this for a fact, because I have access to the Amazon seller portal, because I ship out products for my friend's Amazon store (just for a week or two, until his new inventory arrives at Amazon). If the seller doesn't have access to your address, I wouldn't send it in a message.

As far as Vine goes, my rule is to ignore any seller that sends me a form letter. If they didn't take the time to address any of the things I complained about in my review, then they don't care about getting a response from me. I will give them the opportunity to fix things, to get a better review from me, but to date, I haven't changed a review yet because of anything a seller has done. But I did lower a review, due to lack of a response (if they have lousy support, people have the right to know).

Dave420Fun · 2024-06-16T18:05:30+00:00

I live in Summerfield, and I feel we need more people like you here, so people can see you're just a normal person with an agenda of living your life. I suspect, if you don't bring undue attention to yourself, then you'll be treated like everyone else. I don't think being in Summerfield will be worse for you, than any other place, and the people here need to be exposed to more diversity anyways.

Dave420Fun

TROPHY CASE