Here's a proposal. Stop trying to make ham radio into a hobby for the richest person or the one with the highest line of credit and not the most effort.

When I took my Extra it still mattered at 20 WPM. The VEs in Connecticut made you take one minute of solid copy, not the multiple choice nonsense.

I'm now competing with people I can't possibly hope to outdo, because those same people's investments in corporations nearly killed me. And they all interlock so I do mean what I said when I condemned them all.

Stop trying to sell ham radio and ham radio licenses by dumbing down tests and substituting ever increasing costs of new rigs as a floodgate.

Please don't tell me to buy someone's stinky, dusty, mouse infiltrated basement trash. I didn't have to do that from 1987 to 2006 before the license tests were minimized and then the costs were maximized.

I've read it all at age 37.

I have had Astron supplies from when I started in ham radio and have two SS-30M unlit versions from a few years ago. I ordered two lit meter versions thinking I was being smart to enhance the meter readability; they came with loose meters. I'm on my third pair and am getting annoyed now.

The two I now have that I did bother to hook up (the meters were a bit less loose) has a bigger issue that the meters get brighter under load. I'm sure this brightening of the lighting will result in a undesirable pulsating on SSB and CW. In fact I don't see how they could go much brighter than switching the rig on in receive is causing them to go.

And when the radio was running even though I ran them 24 hours without anything connected, they started to stink. I smelled that same odor before when one of the previous two I was sent came with a smashed back of the PS.  

This seems abnormal to me for new item and not much better than what was returned already. Has anyone else seen this other than the one website I did see that says it ? I built Heathkits. This isn't a kit and if it was a chain store I'd be done wit the brand.

It's very disappointing.

I'd like feedback on whether this is a widespread Astron issue in the last few months or a railroad salvage crate.

Thanks for the ideas, guys. I appreciate it.

Matt

I have an NMO mount on my car and a UHF mount. Both were hit by a piece of insulating foam that flew off a car on the highway. It shattered both antennas and bent at least one mount back, the UHF mount, and destroyed the NMO too.

Is there a way while this is being fixed, to switch the UHF to an NMO ? If I did my research properly the UHF is smaller than the NMO hole.

I'm wondering if anyone reading this has done this.

Thanks
Matt

Have you considered static discharge from the rotor blades ?

The static would be strong and broadbanded enough to get into even FM radios, especially handhelds which are typically more sensitive and in this case, close, by your description.

I wonder if the handhelds' front ends are shot and prone to receiving this kind of broadband rf noise based on the fact they seem to be hearing the spurs from your HF transceiver's oscillators whether computer or radio, again, by your description.