I Bought This Yaesu FT-897 As A Gift To Myself For Passing The General Class Exam Last Month. I Was Going

I apparently live in a soldering replacement tip black hole, so when I need a new tip I have to buy a new iron. The Chicago Electric soldering iron ($3.99 @ Harbor Freight) and the Weller soldering iron ($19.99 @ Ace Hardware) appear to be the exact same, aside from color. I've looked online and haven't found any specific manufacturer for thr Chicago Electric iron aside from "various Chinese" production companies, while the Weller is produced by Apex Tool Group, LLC out of Apex, NC. Still yet, the packaging for the Weller says it's made in China. Here's to hoping that the tip on the Weller is a bit better quality and doesn't deteriorate as quickly as the Chicago Electric one.

Ruined one of my Heltec V3's by soldering and resoldering the connections for the hot and ground wires trying to get it to fit into the radio frame.

I crimped thr coupler over the main element and the contact of the SO-239 connector before using some heat shrink for a bit of added structural support. I'm not like all the other high class and fanciful hams, so I used my daughter's hair dryer on high heat to shrink the heat shrink. It worked like a charm!

Learned about the MIDCARs and the ECARs nets from a Facebook group and tuned in this morning. I was encouraged to go ahead and check in, so no need to just listen in until I feel I've learned enough about them. I heard a call for any stations to check in and I got real excited, grabbed my mic, keyed up and got that TX-Error again. I downloaded the Japanese band plan (because this radio came from Japan - see previous posts) and learned that I will not be able to transmit on frequencies above 7.200Mhz on 40 meters. It's all good, I'll just have to save up and try and get a comparable radio with similar capabilities. Meanwhile, I'll just listen in to these great nets.

Performing 3D Printer surgery

I removed the other shelf thinking that it would relieve the pressure on the power and reset buttons, but this turned out to be wrong.

I bought this soldering iron at Harbor Freight and have only done some light soldering and the tip looks like it's been buried in the dirt on Mars for a millennia. I guess I need to upgrade before continuing my projects.

All done printing the faceplates!

Had to meet a client the other day and when we were done talking about work he asked me if I like my mobile radio. The next 50 minutes went pretty fast, talking about antennas.

Got it updated and connected to my phone but it's the only one in the area. Need to build a mesh