2am in the Nevada desert. Full moon. Have not seen anyone in what seemed like hours. A long time.

Over the radio, there's these weird clicks and pops. Like music an alien insect race would listen to. Then a squelch-break. Silence. Then:

"OH NO.

What's that?

It's the ....

SOOOOOOOO PUUUUUUUR CHEEEEEEeeeeeef!"

Silence.

Insect music.

Peak Design Everyday Backpack 30L. Amazon recently ripped off their designs. It was hilarious and shows you how their bags are good cause Amazon copies them for their basics line. Also lifetime warranty.

I'd clean the rubber parts with regular detergent, and the leather with saddle soap. Then apply mink oil or neatsfoot oil to the leather to condition it and they should be like new.

Touché!

They allow FM mode now (fairly recent change).

glad I could help

Thanks, mate! It's ok. It's strange but it is ok. Be sound.

Modern craftsman wrenches are probably worse quality too (though sometimes, despite the quality, if they're really old they might be a bit bulky/unwieldy....).

As others have said, a resolable leather boot will last many years, but they’re not cheap. The most affordable option that comes to mind is Jim Green. Their African Ranger has a wide sturdy toe box with a cap. It runs about $170 and it’s made with stitchdown construction that can be resoled. The resole might cost close to the original cost of the shoe, but the leather upper shouldn’t wear out for years. They’re made in South Africa, but I think their US distribution is through Amazon.

Feel like these things peaked in the 90's.

Today I wish there were more options using 18650 replaceable cells (all such electronics should use them!), but while some exist, they're hard to find.

Why

Thank you for recommending this. I bought a pitcher from them and wow, what a difference.

I replaced my anode rod last year. My conclusion, the anode rod lasts the lifetime of the water heater, which is defined by the lifetime of the anode rode.

There's a fundamental design problem. The anode rod is installed in the water heater at the factory. Removing the rod requires that you have 5ft of clearance ABOVE the water heater. If you don't have that, it's darned near impossible to replace. So it's effectively a lifetime item.

Have to wonder how many are still out there 40 years later...vintage chic!

I've personally had better results than that transmitting on a handheld set to 5w. There are a lot of variables to range on low power, small antenna units like this. Frequency, obstacles, characteristics of the terrain, condition of the antenna and connector, height above ground, background interference etc.

The best thing you can do to help yourself if you need to use one of these in the wilderness is to get as high as safely possible above potential receivers with it before transmitting. I.e. climb a hill or mountain with it if you want to be heard.

A neat trick if you have two decent handhelds and some rope: set one radio up to retransmit what it receives, tie a rope to its lanyard and throw it up into a tree branch as high as you can. With the other unit you can now transmit with your impromptu repeater being (hopefully) significantly higher up and giving you waaay better range. A decade or so ago I set up a very crude pair of solar powered repeaters like this in the mountains, it worked well and I was able to talk to people dozens of miles away on the other side of the mountains so long as I had LOS with the first repeater. The repeaters in trees at mountain peaks had massive transmit range even at low wattage. Not bad for some cheap Quansheng radios

I have the exact same radio and I rigged up a lawn mower battery to use it

This is true and that’s why most people don’t bother with cb’s anymore. You have one ahole with a amped 50w cb blasting conspiracy theories nonstop.

Hey man, you can get some amazing chinese watches with seiko automatic movements for incredible prices. The steeldive SD1970 is a great example. 100 bucks, seiko movement, sapphire crystal.

All true but CB is limited to 4W and similarly powered 2m handheld radios are much much smaller than their cb counterparts.

There’s a reason LV Neverfulls are the suburban Mom bag.

Before kids you can use it for books / laptops / coats etc. after kids you can use it as a diaper bag for the kid’s stuff etc. You then keep your stuff in a wallet on chain in the diaper bag and then you can separate the two when you need to go out to dinner etc.

Many of the realities behind radio transmission strongly resist miniaturization. A wire has to be so thick to carry a certain amperage. A transformer requires so many turns of that wire to convert to higher voltage. The more power you use in transmission, the better the range, which causes design conflicts with the above

It's typically located down under. The name is kind of misleading: It can be so thick and bushy that you lose your way, or almost completely barren, or anywhere in between. Preferences vary.

But that's not important. The important part is to check your gear before heading in. Mechanical failures there can be life-altering.

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Yeah, the IRS now requires you to pay taxes on any corporate perks. Years ago, I worked for McNeil Pharmaceuticals, which was a division of J&J. They used to run a company store that sold J&J products at cost. You could buy a giant bottle of Tylenol for $1.99. Diapers and baby power were dirt cheap. Supposedly, when the law went into effect, they were supposed to track employee purchases and if the total discount exceeded $100 throughout the year; they were supposed to include it in your W2. The company didn't want to go through the effort. The company store broke even. With these new rules and the additional paperwork, it would have operated at a loss. So, they shut the store down.

I had a friend who worked for American University in DC. Low salary, but he was getting his Masters Degree for free. Law went into effect, and the school yanked the free tuition because of the new IRS regulations.