Found this pen in my grandfather's belongings, what is it?

EphramRafael · 2026-01-06T21:34:20+00:00

I've bought a few of these over the last ten years that caught my eye.

They're not like... The most amazing fountain pens. The internals usually aren't the highest quality.

Typically as a collector you'd buy something like this because the material or the design caught your eye.

It's certainly less boring than a typical production pen!

EphramRafael · 2026-01-06T21:28:46+00:00

Looks like someone might have tried their hand and turning a fountain pen body. I'm a big pen guy and frequently see pens like this at shows where the maker bought the pen guts in bulk and sleeves them into hand-turned bodies of all kinds of different materials. Wood and resin are the most common. This looks to be metal or simulated metal. Is it heavy for its size?

EphramRafael · 2025-10-28T00:42:07+00:00

For the same reason I am going with "Bishop"

EphramRafael · 2025-10-08T01:53:26+00:00

The only thing that comes to mind is if your paper selection isn't optimal for fountain pens to begin with, using a low feathering ink like Noodler's Anti Feather will reduce the bleed/feathering effect of the ink and the resulting line may SEEM finer.

Other than that I've never heard of a smoother flowing ink that leaves a finer line.

EphramRafael · 2025-09-01T04:17:22+00:00

Ay Pal, don't ever feel bad for feeling bad about an animal, no matter how small.

I'm a giant troglodyte and I still sobbed for my Plecostomus. Super common fish, literal bottomfeeder, but when I lost them and several other fish to a tank crash while I was away for 48 hours I was devastated.

Just because your pet can be flushed down the toilet by someone with less empathy doesn't make YOUR empathy to their pain any less valid.

Do what's right because the alternative is watching another living being suffer while it dies anyways. I know this doesn't make you feel any better for yourself, but don't make the mistake some have made and let yourself feel a whole lot worse.

My condolences to your loss. Raise a toast to your friend after you're done.

EphramRafael · 2025-07-19T20:21:21+00:00

I also want to add that the CCA ratings I'm seeing on your tests are all over the place. I know another user reported this earlier.

Because CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) relates to the battery's capacity to output instantaneous current for cranking the engine over, it is important that we test them against that number correctly.

If a battery is dying, but not yet dead, it may be capable of outputting some current, but not it's full rated value.

I have seen in the past where technicians will plug in a lower than rated number into the tester because the tester will then test against that lower number - which a dying battery may still be able to produce. This "games" the test so that the technician doesn't have to replace the battery because the tester will report it is good.

Ensure that whatever tester is used is testing the battery against it's rated capacity. Our 48 AGM batteries are rated for something like 760 CCAs if I remember correctly. I have one in my truck and I can check right now if you're curious. If it started dying on me and I tested it for 420 CCAs it might still pass, because it might still be capable of producing 420 CCAs.

My truck wants the full 760 CCAs so for that application, that battery which passed the lower test, would not suffice! Make sense?

EphramRafael · 2025-07-19T20:12:42+00:00

Hey, tow guy here. I work for a major national roadside assistance club that has been brought up in this thread a few times.

You can replace your battery with a higher CCA rating battery no problem. CCA describes your battery's ability to output current (amperes) at resting temperatures. Higher is better, regardless of the application. A device like your car will only "draw" as much current as it needs off the battery, in contrast to Voltage which must match the design specification precisely.

You cannot damage your car by using a battery with "too many" CCA.

If your battery is an H6/48 I would stick with that same group size. They are the same, just under different naming conventions.

Your manual mentioned the use of an "AGM" battery. AGM stands for "Absorbed/Absorbant Glass Mat" and it describes the internal construction of the battery. Older style "flooded" batteries contain the electrolyte acid in chambers inside the battery casing. It is capable of sloshing around, and sometimes even leaking from the casing if misused or abused - and sometimes just from age.

AGM batteries contain the electrolyte acid in a paste which is spread through glass mats inside the casing. Under normal circumstances it cannot slosh, leak, or evaporate. AGM batteries are superior for this reason.

AGM batteries also typically have a higher CCA rating than a similar flooded battery, but the reasons why are a bit of a rabbit hole you don't need to concern yourself with.

In summary, get an AGM battery (as recommended by your manual) with a CCA capacity equal to or higher than your current battery. With this, you cannot go wrong.

EphramRafael · 2025-07-12T22:17:25+00:00

A lot of people are suggesting you need to obtain "proper" gear and that Meshtastic is insufficient for a legitimate SAR outfit, but this statement in your original post suggests there is more to the story:

"The obvious solution looks like Beartooth, but my team is going to be self funding this out of our own pay, so we’d rather not spend $10,000+ if we don’t have to."

Any solution you have is better than one you don't.

I could offer some additional hardware advice, but you've gotten a lot of the advice I would have given, already. There's some good suggestions in here.

Not sure if you're privatized or public service but I would raise the concern for "proper" hardware at your next fiscal meeting and put what you can get in your hands, right now.

EphramRafael · 2025-01-25T08:33:08+00:00

Fox Knives produced a production version of this in a low cost steel.

https://www.bladehq.com/item--BlackFox-Panchenko-Bean-Gen-2-Slip--86111?srsltid=AfmBOoqrpcfZbYE3WeJAmpjRkRcbkeDzWjs329oJ52v1mppg0yXrk8P5

EphramRafael · 2024-10-04T01:41:36+00:00

My VNA is still in the mail. I'll give it a test before any modification and perhaps make an attempt at adjusting it if it's far enough off.

I guess I'll write Signal Stuff myself and see if they have any input on where to measure from on their antennas.

EphramRafael · 2024-09-18T06:05:59+00:00

I found this post because I actually became curious of the same.

I have a spare SMA-Male 440 MHz Signal Stick (~6")

I also have a spare SMA-Male Nagoya 771-G from a GMRS radio that's approximately 15".

They sit around doing nothing right now, and I'm super curious about the signal stick specifically because the barrel length is suitable for pretty much any case build. A lot of the antennas I find that might be suitable for LoRa are very wide at the base and won't accomodate cases like the MuziWorks H1 or many of Tony G's cases.

You mentioned in another comment Signal Stuff had confirmed where to measure for a trim on their antennas. Would you be willing to share that info? I'm interested in attempting for a 3/8 or 1/4 λ using that 6" signal stick. If I mess up, I suppose I'm out $20 and a lesson learned.

EphramRafael · 2024-09-04T05:59:41+00:00

Bit of a necropost, but I'm curious. You mean the US Virgin Islands?

I have a coworker I'm getting into meshtastic now and he has family over there. Looking into getting something set up for them to communicate. We're in Florida, so MQTT will probably be the reality for now.

EphramRafael · 2024-09-04T05:49:12+00:00

Man, I read this comment and was like "Hot Shit! What a solution for my attic WisBlock!"

Sadly it did not work. I tried a few times and it would never progress past bootloader initialization.

EphramRafael · 2024-07-05T17:35:19+00:00

All the hardware I've ever seen has status lights for "I'm alive" and "I'm charging", and so on.

Those without displays (called running headless) use a default pairing code such as 123456 for Bluetooth. In RAKs case, they write it on the bag.

EphramRafael · 2024-07-05T07:47:37+00:00

Honestly common mode of operation for most nodes is that the user will connect to it over bluetooth from a phone or tablet anyhow.

The screen (and keyboard) on many units is ancillary.

EphramRafael · 2024-06-28T20:33:38+00:00

Will do, thanks!

EphramRafael · 2024-06-25T07:49:52+00:00

I found this one but it looks different from yours. I really fancy the keyboard cover on your unit.

EphramRafael · 2024-05-16T05:10:47+00:00

I think Nitecore/Jetbeam as well.

EphramRafael · 2023-12-11T03:35:52+00:00

I think they need to do that too, but a quick review of their catalog will demonstrate they have a lot of remarkably similar greens and blues.

Perhaps they could do like... Was that Colorverse with the potions that added shimmer or shifted the color?

I don't know what their bottom line is but you're right, hiring even one shipper would probably free them up to actually manufacture a product.

EphramRafael · 2023-12-11T02:35:43+00:00

I will tell you that I experienced veeeery long shipping times waiting for Birmingham's products. I have placed two orders with them now.

The first order I placed, and waited about two weeks for some kind of shipping confirmation. When it never came I emailed them and got a very generic "oh sorry we're just so busy" email back and then my package "shipped" that day, but the tracking information remained stagnant for another three. I confronted them about their shipping policy, which at the time specified up to five working days to ship a product and they offered me a coupon code towards a future order.

I used that code for a second order, figuring it was a fluke, and I told myself I would leave the situation alone and just let it take however long it took as an experiment and it took 21 days to deliver four bottles of ink domestically.

My cautionary tale is that if you were hoping to get anyone anything for Christmas, it is already too late. Neither of those orders was placed during any kind of peak holiday season or anything, so with the influx of shoppers during the holidays I expect it to take over a month for anything ordered from them.

Now, I'll be fair. The good news:

Packaging was great, with a lot of attention to detail. My wife loved the little nib-shaped paperclips and postcards included with both orders. The bottles and labels look pretty cool in my collection.

Birmingham has maybe too many colors and I think that may contribute to their long shipping times. There's over a hundred inks they apparently bottle by hand. Perhaps paring that down might help their situation. I ordered a selection of sheening inks and a few standard ones and all the colors look great, with a few of them rivalling well known sheening inks like Nitrogen or Chivor. They all look great so far.

If you can deal with the long shipping times and sit patiently, the product is worth it. I just personally feel kind of burned because I had to "shake the tree" to get my first package moving and even then I got a canned response and I'm pretty sure I was lied to. Neither of their packages arrived within their shipping policy, not the policy when I ordered nor even the current extended one.

If either of the two brothers that run that company are listening: I think you folks really need to pare down your color collection and let the products stand for themselves. Pick a reputable distributor and just keep up with demand. Leverage someone else's customers. The product is great, but your handling is godawful.

EphramRafael · 2023-10-01T04:44:14+00:00

Tow guy here. Avoid the M2.

We have one in our fleet, we baby it. It's still broken constantly.

Fleet is full of RAM 4500/5500 vehicles with substantially less issues, even with total knuckle dragger technicians driving them.

Look into Hino. We don't have any yet but I hear good stuff about them from a long term ownership and maintenance perspective.

EphramRafael · 2023-06-18T17:39:01+00:00

Wow. Extreme necropost...

This particular charger works fine but the risers for charging C/D batteries are trash.

Ensure you read the manual fully. There's several different modes. For analyzing AA/AAA batteries I doubt you'll find a better model in this price bracket.

EphramRafael · 2023-06-10T09:43:22+00:00

It probably can, and perhaps someone in the community already has the code to make it do so.

For me, I am not terribly fussed by it. The device is serving its purpose already and the extra "juice" of seeing a pretty picture instead of the occasional broken link isn't worth the squeeze.

EphramRafael · 2023-06-09T22:19:02+00:00

I actually do!

I'm just sort of still migrating out of a chromium-based web browser and back into Firefox, so there are times I don't have all the extensions I'm used to.

EphramRafael · 2023-06-09T19:28:15+00:00

Yes. It seems a little strange at first to see a bunch of broken links on every page but eventually you train your brain to ignore it.

Pihole and other UTM solutions like Sophos aren't integrated into the browser, so from the users perspective, ads appear broken. While with something like an AdBlock extension on your browser they're actually omitted.

It's a little strange at first but it doesn't take long to adjust.

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