• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

New ham gear question

Earl Faubion

Earl Faubion

EF3
Joined
Dec 30, 2003
Messages
246
Location
Oklahoma City
In anticipation of passing my Technician license in a few weeks, I've started shopping around for ham gear and have narrowed my choices down. One day this week I was discussing those choices with a local ham friend who cautioned me about buying new gear, saying he'd seen several instances of it breaking down due to the no-lead solder the manufacturers now have to use. His advice was to consider buying used equipment made before the no-lead regs went into effect.

This is the first I've heard of any such thing and after poking around online I didn't find much to back up what he said, maybe I didn't look in the right places, I don't know, but if it's affecting ham gear I'd think it'd be affecting other consumer electronics too. Has anyone heard of this before? Given a choice I prefer buying new gear, at least for my first rig.
 
I've bought new Kenwood gear (2m rigs) the last two times I've bought a radio. Both are in my vehicles and have not had any trouble.
 
I haven't heard anything on the "no-lead" score for equipment failure. Most HAM Radios and Commercial Radios are required to meet a certain ISO standard and many HAM rigs meet or exceed the MIL standards as well. So they generally hold up pretty well.

I would also look at the manufacturer too. Yeasu, ICOM, Kenwood are all big names in the HAM radio industry. Motorola is another big name in the Commercial Radio industry and many of their radios can be programmed for HAM use.

Good luck and enjoy!
 
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No matter the brand, if you think you're going to seriously use your gear, all I'd buy would be a dual-band radio that has cross-band repeat functionality and you can also display VHF/VHF or VHF/UHF.

-John
 
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