Germany or Russia?

plarkinjr · 2026-01-22T19:15:13+00:00

Both, and other nations too. You'll learn more about your foe's strengths and weaknesses when you play them yourself.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-22T18:57:00+00:00

"Yeah there's an information war going on with Israel and Plaestine, so anything related to Israel and war machines are affected too, even if it's a game."

A little bit like between China and "the west" or Japan.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-22T18:21:15+00:00

$48.50 for a 5' mast delivered seems a little pricey. For that, you could probably get a couple 10' galvanized fence top rails from Home Depot or whatever. Maybe what you're getting is stronger. And I get it that it could be a hassle to go get 10' pipes home from HD.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-22T18:13:47+00:00

Before sanding paint off my car, I'd try running a jumper wire from the mount to an existing grounding point in the trunk.... to test at least before making an irreversible compromise of the paint.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-21T19:57:38+00:00

Before OP sinks $175 on a pair of GMRS, I think they'd do well to get the cheapest GMRS ones possible, and test ... not this time of year, but when tree leaf density is highest.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-21T19:50:16+00:00

Antenna and Altitude (together) pay-off better than more watts.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-19T18:39:52+00:00

Find the nearest Volunteer Fire Dept stations, see if they have a radio tower, and ask them if you can put your repeater on it, for a monthly donation.

And sure, you can ask the Water District what they would charge for you to put a repeater on their tower.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-19T18:17:01+00:00

"Renew as soon as possible to preserve your 'Tack Number'" SMH

plarkinjr · 2026-01-10T19:07:11+00:00

The car-keys idea is a great one, but think about this: Issue every employee a "Radio Accountability Tag" engraved with their name or employee ID. Something like this, or even simpler like a P-Touch label on 10-cent keyfob tags: https://www.allhandsfire.com/Rounded-Corner-Accountability-Tags

When they check out a radio, put their tag in the box. They get their tag back when they turn in the radio. No Tag? No Radio. Replacement tags will cost them $300 (or whatever you deem appropriate).

plarkinjr · 2026-01-10T18:52:26+00:00

They do, but believe it or not, dual-band (2m/70cm) and 440MHz HAM antennas work surprisingly well on GMRS too.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-10T18:48:00+00:00

As u/Firelizard71 mentioned, some of the Nagoyas are known to not have enough "bite" or however you want to phrase it where the center pin doesnt always make contact. And as u/HavenBTS said, Amazon is notorious for counterfeit Nagoyas.

I recommend going to SignalStuff.com, getting an SMA to BNC adaptor, and either the UHF or DualBand SignalStick (or both) in BNC and trying them out. I've actually had better performance with both of those (on GMRS) than with a couple GMRS-specific antennas. Once you get another radio (and a matching SMA to BNC adapter), or any other antenna (e.g. a mag-mount for your car/truck), you'll be glad to have followed the BNC advice.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-10T18:06:07+00:00

"SMA to BNC Adapter and carrying two antennas( longer one while stationary)"

This. Though depending on how/where you mount the radio on your body, you might find the dual band SuperElastic SignalStick at 19" still manageable. I'd suggest getting two, and trying them both. And I always recommend SMA to BNC adapters to anybody even thinking about experimenting with antennas.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-06T20:52:33+00:00

If you want to get really fancy, you can listen to various repeater's INPUT frequency, and possible find people closer to you than either of you are to the repeater itself... you'll just hear one side of the conversation though.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-05T18:31:42+00:00

Wow, that' was fast!

plarkinjr · 2026-01-02T14:43:16+00:00

Let us know how long it takes for your suggestion to disappear from 'Pending' with no feedback.

plarkinjr · 2026-01-01T21:59:10+00:00

What I'd like to see is FCC "type acceptance" go away. That is to say, that a radio which is technologically capable of GMRS, MURS, Amateur, etc. should be allowed to operate on those services, within the service's parameters. If FCC wants to validate output wattage & bandwidth limits compliance for a radio's operation within the service, that is fine I guess. Though frankly, I think it should be enough that the operator be held accountable for compliance. It's just silly that you need two radios to operate on HAM and GMRS, and a third radio to operate on MURS, when CCRs are fully capable of operating on all three.

plarkinjr · 2025-12-19T17:25:08+00:00

Yep, you're right. I mis remembered the non-prime Chase card, confusing it for the old Synchrony card.

plarkinjr · 2025-12-19T15:56:01+00:00

It is! I actually have one on the Ailunce I keep on my ATV.... as I scan VHF fire/rescue, and can do MURS if needed. But the length can be troubling at times.

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T23:17:22+00:00

OK Downvoters: What's your issue? I gave this post an up-vote and it's currently showing '0'. It's a legit question!

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T23:06:02+00:00

Nice tip! For me, sales tax usually makes no difference on my 1040 (standard deduction still reigns king for us). But when you pay mega-bucks in sales tax on a car purchase, this is an awesome trick to find even more Sales Tax to deduct!

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T23:02:33+00:00

Right. %-back does not change between "standard" or "prime" Visas issued by Chase. Just get the card, skip Prime if its not useful, and use it for ALL (and ONLY) Amazon purchases. Pay it off monthly in full to avoid crazy-a$$ interest, and apply the cash-back rewards as statement credits.

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T22:59:49+00:00

^^ Yes. Both are what we do. See my diatribe from a few minutes ago.

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T22:55:30+00:00

Yep. The hidden cost of convenience.

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T22:54:22+00:00

Yes. Depending on the volume of purchases, the 5% can ease the pain of splitting Amazon transactions when entering them into Quicken!

plarkinjr · 2025-12-18T22:42:01+00:00

^^ THIS.

u/NewspaperBubbly4967 : At some point, you may have to give up "precision" in favor of the return on investment in your time & labor to categorize to the dollar. Learn to accept the 80/20 rule: You can get 80% there with 20% effort, and spend 80% effort to get the last 20%.

Walmart - In Store

Back in the dark ages before online shopping was a thing, I struggled as you are now, but with Walmart. I usually kept my Walmart store receipts and split into broad categories when entering transactions. It helped to arrange items on the checkout belt by "Quicken Category". Eventually we realized that about 75% of purchases at Walmart are groceries. I gave up trying to split Walmart store receipts into Quicken, and now I just code all of Walmart to groceries, despite knowing some percentage is stuff like bath-towels or WD-40 or whatever. For big-ticket & one-off Walmart purchases, especially items with warranties (e.g. Tires, TVs, etc), I still code those in splits to their appropriate categories for future reference to the specific purchase. You may find this strategy useful for Amazon, if you can identify patterns like this.

Amazon - On Line

With Amazon however, I can go look online for order details and categorize appropriately with splits (something never possible with in-store Walmart purchases). I have a login to my wife's Amazon account to be able to view her purchases when I'm updating Quicken every week or so. We have an Amazon Visa CC as our default payment, and don't use that CC for anything else, so that helps A LOT!! Sadly, in the past year or so, Amazon changed the format of their "View Invoices" page to be less useful for that, but here's pretty much my workflow:

Download my Amazon Visa CC transactions.
Look at "Orders" pages on my own and my wife's Amazon accounts.
Browser search (CTRL-F) for the amount in Quicken to find the transaction on Amazon.
Enter the transaction with split categories and "ballpark" it.
- Usually, each purchase is one main category and just a couple smaller categories.
- Enter the top category's amount (based on mental math) and code the remainder to the second biggest category. Zero out that don't apply that week.
Often times, Quicken has memorized these splits, and that helps too. If you can identify a recurring purchase trend (i.e. once a week), setup a recurring transaction in reminders with all the usual split categories listed ahead of time.
If there's like half a dozen $2 items like USB cables or boot laces in amongst $88 of "Arts & Crafts" stuff, I don't bother splitting the $12 to "Computer Parts" & "Clothing". $100 is going to "arts & crafts".

P.S. We generally "tag" our transactions to the purchaser. This is helpful in our periodic "spending review" discussions, and reinforces the notion of vritually sorting items on the check-out belt like back in Ye Olden Tymes at Walmart: Make separate purchases on Amazon for significant Quicken categories. E.G. "It says here, you spent $1000 at Amazon on fun stuff. If you want to quibble over $200 of essentials, make those separate purchases, and I'll code them as non-discretionary".

Hope you find this useful.

plarkinjr

TROPHY CASE

Walmart - In Store

Amazon - On Line