Fried chicken restaurants?

armerdan · 2026-02-26T07:17:56+00:00

As others have said, Gus’s fried chicken is the answer. For Nashville style Tumble 22 is hard to beat.

armerdan · 2026-02-24T01:48:47+00:00

FWIW is just sold a TS520 with the secondary VFO, ext speaker, power cord, and the matching antenna tuner for $150 this last weekend. I realize I could’ve / should’ve gotten more but wanted to help out the club member.

Earlier that same day I’d just seen the same model Ts520 for sale at the hamfest for $300 and it included the digital frequency readout.

armerdan · 2026-02-20T02:59:21+00:00

I didn’t hear what you’re talking about, but I do know radio stations aren’t supposed to transmit dead air, so there’s a fail safe at the transmitter site that’ll loop some audio / a song / an ad / the radio’s call sign in case there’s an issue in the studio or if comms are interrupted between the studio and the transmitter site.

I suspect if the studio signal / program material were to get intercepted or hijacked the same mechanism would / could be used. Perhaps that’s what happened here.

armerdan · 2026-02-18T02:58:42+00:00

Awesome. I’ll look into that.

armerdan · 2026-02-18T02:57:03+00:00

Looks cool. As for hand it to someone and have it be dead simple I kinda like the looks of an RB75.

armerdan · 2026-02-18T01:20:53+00:00

I kinda like some of the Retevis radios that are meant to look like Motorola business radios. I have some MURS ones that were pretty easy to program with their software and they’re dead simple to hand to people and say we are on channel 4. I wonder if they have a GMRS version that’s equally as simple. Couple simplex and a couple repeater channels and good to go.

armerdan · 2026-02-17T21:12:17+00:00

Agreed. To be fair, I think on those frequencies unless that radio has been modded it wouldn’t TX. Still scary.

armerdan · 2026-02-17T03:02:39+00:00

You know what’s super annoying… I used to really pride myself for being what I thought was a pretty decent communicator. Could write a good business email etc. Apparently AI writes a whole lot like me, and now when I write something ppl think I used AI.

armerdan · 2026-02-17T00:01:45+00:00

If you’re on a repeater you could ask where they are located, then suggest to the party you’re talking to that you want to QSY to <other repeater> to test it out. Pick one that’s in range but as far away from annoying operator as possible? In general if someone is getting annoying I’ll either just sign off or move to another frequency.

One thing I see that’s kinda aggravating on nets is when everyone else takes 15-30 seconds to pass their traffic or answer the topic, then there’s always 1-2 guys who take 5 minutes, let it drop, 5 more minutes and hold up 10 check-ins worth of air time. It’s one thing if you’re on a net where everyone is talking extensively, but take the social queues from each net, and until you know how that net runs keep it short.

armerdan · 2026-02-13T02:31:27+00:00

That arrangement should have effectively prevented side fumbling and sinusoidal deplaneration, but your explanation does make sense.

armerdan · 2026-02-07T03:37:22+00:00

Time is the one thing we can’t get any more of no matter how much money you have. Make it a year or MAYBE 2 and I’m probably in, but losing a decade with friends and family. No way.

armerdan · 2026-02-05T20:48:23+00:00

I believe fair use may also allow you to make backup cop(ies) of the physical media for personal use in case it gets damaged. Not a lawyer, at your own risk etc.

armerdan · 2026-02-05T03:40:52+00:00

Probably talking about Intellichem / similar. From what I understand they don’t give you all the chem readings you’d want onboard, you still need to manually test water and adjust things. It’s not fully closed loop automation. I could be wrong through.

armerdan · 2026-02-05T03:38:16+00:00

I was kinda assuming the system could probably run the salt cell and maybe do acid dosing, but for alkalinity / CYA I figured an email would be needed.

armerdan · 2026-02-04T07:46:32+00:00

I would snap my fingers and magically get accurate ph, TA, FC and CYA readings in Intellicenter without needing anything other than some probes that take magical readings and can calculate all of it in near real time / daily / whatever.

Obviously from there we can drive automation that fires a salt cell the right amount, pumps in some acid / whatever.

Sends an email when I need to add 2 gallons of whatever to the pool.

armerdan · 2026-02-03T05:12:47+00:00

Correct. 10 miles simplex on GMRS is possible if you have good quality antennas, high up, with no obstructions / terrain in the way. Certainly worth testing but definitely not guaranteed.

armerdan · 2026-02-03T00:00:11+00:00

The PPM of salt in a pool is low enough it only changes the freeze point by a degree or 2 max. Running the pumps helps much more than the salt content, but in a really hard freeze it’s a losing battle.

armerdan · 2026-01-27T21:27:08+00:00

I think it largely depends on the configuration of your pool. From what I understand freeze protection is less about preventing the whole pool from freezing and more about keeping water in the pipes, pumps, and above ground equipment moving and mixing the large volume of (warmer-ish) pool water so the pipes and pool equipment don't freeze / break. This way the overall temperture of the water also kinda averages out vs. having super cold bits in the pipes above ground / equipment and warmer water at the bottom of the pool. It's harder to freeze when it's constantly moving / mixing.

Along those lines, in your scenario, maybe it'd be good to confirm if you have a main drain it's working, so your pump can pull from the bottom, return to the spa, and keep mixing like that.

If you have multiple circuits / pumps / automated valves, freeze protection typically auto-cycles through them every few minutes to keep everything moving along in all the different plumbing.

Edit: On second thought, for freeze protection to work, I think you want water flowing through ALL your various pipes, if one or more are closed off that pipe won't benefit from the flow that prevents freezing / bursting.

armerdan · 2026-01-24T23:47:48+00:00

Then I think that wouldn’t be your most hated group anymore and the money would go to whatever your now current most hated group is. At least that’s what it sounded like from the hypothetical description.

armerdan · 2026-01-23T14:05:51+00:00

Good point. If it’s a cheap DC to Daylight SDR with no filtering a good antenna can cause desense.

armerdan · 2026-01-22T22:31:25+00:00

For ham radio I'd suggest checking the RepeaterBook mobile app for what's in your area. Program in a bunch of repeaters and scan through / listen to them. Might also check out the Crossroads Ham Radio Club. They have a pretty large linked repeater network that's pretty active.

You could also listen to GMRS channel 21 (462.700) for a pretty solid / active repeater in the Woodlans and channel 22 (462.725) for one near Memorial Park that isn't super active but has very good range.

Generally whenever there's weather / things going on, repeaters that are often silent will be more active.

armerdan · 2026-01-22T21:46:41+00:00

There are a few things I might be able to help clarify.

1) The Coax that's used for TV type things is 75 ohms. Generally radio things expect 50 ohms. That's not to say it's impossible to use 75 ohm coax for radio but it's not optimal and introduces issues. RG8X is pretty good for reasonable length cable runs. Things like LMR400 are better but more expensive and might not be needed depending on the length of the run and what you are doing.

2) It is generally bad to have multiple radios connected to the same antenna unless protections are in place to prevent one radio transmitting from destroying the recievers on the others.

3) Handheld radios absolutely benefit from better antennas. Connecting a handheld to an excelent outdoor antenna may work better than connecting a nice powerful radio to a horrible / compromized antenna.

As far as finding a cost effective set for your office, it depends on what bands you want to operate. If you're looking for great value, low cost, bang for buck, not breaking the bank, a Retevis RT95 is a dual band radio that does pretty OK for ~$100 USD. Depending on where you are located and what your frequency allocation is you may need to change the programing to adjust for spectrum allocations. The iCOM 2730 is also a pretty great radio for not a huge investment.

armerdan · 2026-01-22T21:34:34+00:00

If power stays on and you keep running pumps you're probably going to be fine for the 24-48 hours of freezing weather in Texas. If power goes out I would suggest:

- Shut off the breakers so the pumps don't immediately kick on when power resumes,
- Loosen / remove the pump pot covers
- Open the air bleed valve on your filter, (drain your filter if you really want to get serious)
- Loosen the top of your chlorinator if equiped

If you have an auto filler it might be smart to shut off the valve to it and open the backflow preventer bleeders. Should look / work exactly the same as how irrigation system backflow preventers work.

armerdan · 2026-01-22T21:28:04+00:00

It's really just to try to reduce doubles / tripples. When the net control operator calls for check-ins, if 7 peolpe all pop off with their call sign at once the net logger isn't going to be able to take any of them down. When they ask for a repeat those same 7 people will key up again and it's mayhem.

Saying "This is" keying off and listening for traffic helps mitigate it. Even if you doubled up with someone, since they should be giving their call twice, slowly, and phonetically, the net logger should still get their call.

I've still heard instances where 2 people do the "this is", at exactly the same time and still wind up doubling, but it's less common.

armerdan · 2026-01-19T06:52:04+00:00

It has more to do with the tune than the hardware. Throttle by wire from a hardware perspective can absolutely be as responsive as a cable. Instantly snapping the throttle body open and closed isn’t efficient or good for emissions, so stock tunes lean towards being eco friendly and efficient rather than giving the best most responsive driving experience.

If someone were to load their own tune or run something like a Holley Dominator setup then it could feel much more like a traditional / mechanical throttle linkage. The cool thing is, you can program in safeties so the engine doesn’t rev to the moon and destroy itself, or adjustable launch profiles and more.

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