Two Way Radio's

3RRL · Dec 27, 2005

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

5030...
I can relate to the mess...especially with a fly cutter. How many passes do you have to make to get it 3" deep? Do you have a power feed on the mill or are you cranking by hand? I was trying to think of an easier way using a shell mill where you could take one pass using the horizontal arbor adaptor or a right angle head for the mill....???
If it's not too late, you can pick up one of those cheap dust vacuums at Harbor Freight for under 200 bucks. Well worth it compared to cleaning up the entire shop much less cleaning every one of your precision tools and indicators.

Oh, as far as radios go, I just ordered a set of the Midland radios you got. Hope they work good for me. Only thing is I'm setting mine on "mute" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif when mama calls.HA! She just wants me to get off the tractor! (or get out of the garage)

5030 · Dec 28, 2005

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

Rob:

I have Anilam DRO's on all my machines not that I need digital readout for wood. My X and Y axis's both have Servo power units on them. I still crank the Z.

I am taking a 3/4" pass each time give or take a little and a cleanup pass on the 5th cut. The vacuum would not work as the amount of chips would overwhelm it in about 10 minutes.

The problem with a shell mill is the fact that you would have an extremely hard time grinding and maintaining the clearance and cutting angles needed for the soft material in the CBN material. HSS will maintain those necessary clearances and perform well. I have a couple of insert shell mills and thought about that. Once I got the proper rake and clearance angles on my toolbit (took some trial and error as I never work with wood as a rule), it's just a matter of pulling the toolbit from the flycutter head when I observe fewer shavings and more sawdust and touching it up on the bench grinder. I'm almost done and I have ground away, at the most, 1/16" of the parent material on the toolbit.

I'm running the Servo crossfeed motor as fast as it will traverse on the knob.

Soon as this job is done, I have to mill front number plates for my buddy Mike at Bellacorse Motorsports Marketing. The blanks will be coming in the mail this week.

Interestingly, I had my Cobra sitting on top of the grinding wheel guard on my 6x18 toolroom grinder (right next to the B'port) and someone driving by (I presume on the main road) was on the channel that I have the radio's on. I thought my wife was talking and it was a strange voice. Only heard it once though. I gusee I'll have to change the channel to a sub channel on both units.

I should probably add that all my precision tools are in my Gerstner boxes, closed and latched. I have jigs and fixtures sitting around that will have to be air hosed off though. It's really not too bad as I keep the cutting tool sharp and I get very little fine sawdust.

I glanced at your bio....retired? I'll never retire, I have too many friends that need jobs done. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

3RRL · Dec 28, 2005

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

( I glanced at your bio....retired? I'll never retire, I have too many friends that need jobs done. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif )

Well...not exactly. I just can't get rid of some old customers! They hound me for their specialty injection molds..fully automatic unwinders. I try to overcharge them but they don't care. And yes, they are my friends for many years. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Guys like us never really retire...they just tool & die /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Good luck on your projects.

Birdhunter1 · Jan 4, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

( I'd stop by your local radio shop that sells and services radios to professional users. They can give you good advice on what will and won't work. Our local shop even has a few radios you can take home and try to see if they'll work in your area. If the FRS and GMRS radios won't work, you may have to step up to a commercial use frequency.

I looked into for my own business and I had the option of buying or renting the equipment and then paying a monthly access fee. It was set up so many companies would share the same frequency, but the radios are programmed so you only got the traffic from your own radio users. In our case there are several repeaters around, so you can easily talk to a coworker 50 miles away. Surprisingly, it wasn't really that expensive and the most expensive part was purchasing the equipment. )

Ditto!
That's what a friend of mine uses on his farm and I have one of the radios in my truck and literally we have talked to each other in the range of 80 miles away from each other! As long as we can each pick up the repeater we can talk crystal clear.

Where he farms is a flat river bottom along the Mississippi and with the lower band we can talk to about 3-4 miles away from each other.

3720_Owner · Jan 8, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

( i looked in the manual also. )

Although most guys do not like to or at least do not like to admit looking in a manual, but it really is required for the all but the most basic FRS/GMRS radios. I just bought a set for my wife for Christmas so she could call me when I am out on the tractor. Read through a lot of reviews and a lot of people were complaining about the range. Reading through a couple of the manuals you find the radios can have different standard output power for each band (FRS or GMRS) and some have a seperate low and high power setting. So you can end up with four different band/power settings. If the radio defaults, or is accidentally set to while playing around with it, to the low power setting of the FRS band you will find it is about worthless.

So what do you do? Wait till everyone else is not looking and sneak off to the barn, workshop, or garage with the manual. You will be a lot happier and amaze everyone on how you just seem to "have a knack" with that high tech electronic stuff.

Steven

mrutkaus · Jan 9, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

Just a reminder, FCC does indeed hand out fines up to $10K and jail sentences for individuals operating unlicensed radios...

Mike

3720_Owner · Jan 9, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

That is another one of those things I read while trying to find info about the GMRS/FRS radios. Seems the enforcement is rather spotty, but with my luck I would be the one and only guy in the county to get caught.

Heck I could be the only one to send in a publishers clearing house entry and still not win.

So I paid the ... choke ... choke ... choke ... $80 for 5 years and got the license.

I would hate for the feds to have to take the time away from chasing terrorists or drug dealers to nail some guy on his farm with a wal-mart radio.

5030 · Jan 9, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

Lets see:

$80 clams for the license and the radio's were less than $80.00. What a deal...what a sham. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Postage is up to 39 cents. Probably by the end of the year it will be a buck a letter. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Don't tell Franks Candy Counter but I'm going to run "bootleg" /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

1962 · Jan 9, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

technically you are correct about the FCC. but then again that would be like citing everyone who cusses on the citizens band radio(CB). i would imagine it would be pretty hard to catch unlicensed law breakers with mobile radios. with all the new wiretap laws to keep them busy, they might be less interested with a couple senior citizens trying to locate one another in the shopping mall..

BobReeves · Jan 11, 2006

Re: Two Way Radio\'s

I managed a Motorola two-way radio shop in a previous life and I can assure you the FCC won't take the time to hunt down a couple of walki talkies operating without a license. They only respond to complaints, no harm no fowl.

This is not a recommendation to run without a license but I probably wouldn't bother. Do what your conscience dictates.