Here’s an interesting products: Midland’s XT511 Base Camp. According to the information I have this radio offers NOAA weather radio, AM/FM and 22 channel GMRS radio. Nothing special until you get to the cool part – it can be run off a handcrank. It also charges 5 watt Midland radio battery packs and anything that has a USB charge port. Sounds like a very cool goody. I would imagine the handcrank would run the AM/FM and the light, but if it also will run the 2-way radio part then you’ve got a unique product there. May have to get one and play with it.
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Continuing the saga of the surplus German rain ponchos I ordered from Sportsmans Guide………..
The replacements showed up yesterday. I sent them back three and kept one. They sent me another four. Upon initial inspection they looked fine, however closer inspection showed two had small repairs (with duct tape) and one had a small unrepaired tear. One poncho was perfect. So, Im gonna have to give a conditional thumbs down on these things. If you don’t mind the duct tape repairs then they are an excellent deal. I’ll keep the two good ones (out of the total five) and put them in storage and use the others for daily or vehicle use. It’s a shame, up to this point Id been pretty pleased with SG’s HQ catalog stuff. To be fair, they did take back the return and send replacements in a very timely manner. The repairs escaped my initial notice so it is entirely possible the person packing the order didn’t notice them.
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Had a day and a half of rain the other day and it went a long way to reduce (although not remove) the fire-related problems here. The air is much, much clearer and you can see the mountains again. Hopefully this little bit of rain (the first in over a month or so) will give the fire crews a break and allow them to get on top of things. I know several people, including one LMI, who were ordered to evacuate their homes. Fortunately everyone (so far) has come through just fine, but its always good to be prepared.
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Happiness is opening a box from UPS and finding it jam packed with lovely new-in-the-wrapper high-quality 30-rd AR-15 mags. (And I think that sentence has set a record for hyphenation.) What I am guessing will be my final batch of the C Products mags arrived today. If you want some, you know whatcha gotta do.
Im very dubious of the usefulness of FRS/GMRS radios apart from very short distance communication. My dad and I use them while hunting but thats a generally a distance of less then a mile. In general, claims about the distance they will transmit seem to be wildly inaccurate. This fellow posted a field test of FRS/GMRS radios on Jim Rawles’ blog:
http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/08/letter_re_gmrs_versus_2_meter.html
Jim does make a good point that MURS radios do have more output/power than GMRS and dont require any kind of license, but I wonder whether the MURS bandwidth will eventually get freed up and clobbered by other technologies when the FCC rearranges the spectrum in the next few years. Some of the smaller portable/handheld 2-meter radios are quite nice but Id really rather not have to take a HAM technicians test in order to use them. Of course, in a SHTF situation, no one will give a crap about whether you’ve got a valid license/callsign. I do like the fact that the XT511 can be dynamo-powered, that is a major advantage, but Im not sure the transmitter would do you much good. Something that could easily be dynamo/12v/solar charged and broadcast on a broader spectrum might be a more ideal “survival” tool.
Based on the owner’s manual linked on their site, the hand crank recharges the Ni-MH battery pack and that battery pack powers everything in the radio (assuming you have it selected from the power source options)
Very interesting find – I’m going to look for one as well. I like that it has both high and low power GMRS transmit capabilities.
Get your technicians license and pick up some dual band HTs. The little Yaesu VX-2R is shirt-pocket, and has excellent range. I used it cross country for APRS the first time I came through.
The test is easy, and there’s a site you can take practice tests on, using the actual test question pool. That’s basically all I used to study for my test.
Also, what is your take on the new Magpul PMAGs? Thusfar Ive been holding out for the next generation with the witness window in them to become widely available. Im hoping that they fit better than other poorly executed polymer mags (Orlite and Thermold being first to mind). Ive got quite a few OK and Center mags that Ive replaced the followers in with the Magpul anti-tilts and they all work fine in my ARs and my FNC. My FNC is the most picky about mags, absolutely hating the steel SA-80 mags and Orlites but for some reason loving Thermolds. Are the C Products mags Teflon coated?
Have you tested all of your C Products mags? I got several bad mags when I got in on the group buy over at ARFCOM several months bad. They all had more or less “sloppy” welds and some were very, very bad. The mags I sent back wouldn’t retain the rounds if you *lightly* tapped on the floorplate. They’d just jump right out. I kept a couple of the *good* mags, still with sloppy welds, and replaced the rest with D&H mags from Mag44.com.
I did have some mag related issues at a training class, but in the heat of the class I wasn’t able to identify if they were the C Mags or not. I need to test the ones I kept again using just those mags so if there’s a problem I can isolate it.
That was several months ago though and it’s possible their QC has improved since then.