A ham who occasionally emails me shared a story from Sunday. It seems like prior to going to church, he was eyeballing an electronic goodie that could be had for $350. He goes to church and prays a bit on how he would finesse this purchase with his XYL when the box would show up in a few days. Satisfied that he could do it, upon arrival back from church, he goes to place the order -- in just a few short hours the price is now $400 -- The Terrible Tariffs have entered the fray.
Gas prices are soon expected to rise and that is just for starters. For you, the cult followers, I bet you really believed that China was going to pay the tab -- but it looks like you are. Wait until the food prices go up because of the increased cost for transportation. It's Econ 101.
The Tesla guy's actions have a ripple effect -- just wait until the unemployment numbers for February get published -- it may even personally affect those of you who voted this crew into office. Actions have consequences.
In time your interests may move away from the IC7300 menus (and you may have been RIF'd by Musk), and thus your thoughts may turn to embedded microcontrollers as in Digital VFOs.
Forget those books from the ARRL and get yourself a copy of Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzai. He is the guy who co-founded the Arduino -- about 15 bucks. You could even sell your EMRFD on eBay and you would get the Banzai book and cash back.
Banzai in his early days was a ham and the writing style is pegged at the 8th grade level and speaks to those with a limited technical background. Bravo Massimo!
Now something to go beyond the read is the hardware and Lauren Snachez's boyfriend sells this jewel for about $60. It is called Tiny Lab Turning to the math, for the cost of about 15 gallons of gas you can Do the Digital (book + board)
For those who think only homebrew, this board would be hard to replicate from scratch as to features and cost. There is an Arduino Uno embedded in that board along with other digital electronics.
This would be a great project for the next 6 weeks of winter -- yes, Phil saw his shadow!
Them that know can make it go!
73's
Pete N6QW