On my last payday I purchased a 3D printer, specifically an Ender 3 Pro which I ordered with a suitable amount of filament to get going, though it came with some filament anyway but only a small amount compared to what I ordered, in both Amateur and CB radio circles a 3D printer is very useful indeed as you can 3D print things like antenna parts and other useful things, one of my first designs was an adaptor to allow my 7-meter SOTApole to sit in my drive on mast stand, I also had a look on Thingiverse and found some SO239 cover caps which are ideal for my radios that are on the display shelves in the shack, though do consider that these radios do get put on air from time to time.
The prior payday I ordered in some Motorola T62 PMR446 handhelds, these seem to work ok and I did a video on the YouTube channel about these, they meet the newer spec of allowing 16 channels here in the UK however that needs activating as they are 8 channel by default.
I also ordered a TinySA which I have yet to finish the video on, and an antenna from Wish that is designed for CB handhelds and is telescopic, which I will be pitting against the Albrecht CL27, the stock antennas on both modern handhelds and the comparable antenna found on my 1980s Realistic TRC-1007, it also came with a magmount so I'll be putting it on the car roof and connecting it to a radio and an analyser to see how it fairs in that regard.
I also hope to look at the new Thunderpole T-600, which I have seen pictures of and know full well who makes it, I already own the PNI Escort HP7120, which is electronically the same radio, but the T-600 appears to use different firmware to allow AM/FM switching on the CEPT channels while in the UK mode, this will possibly be featured after my next payday.
I'll also try and update this more as like everything I have been doing it has been disrupted by a hectic work schedule
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