$21 Full Function QRP tuner - Don't Buy

[RadioRay]

I always wanted a standing wave, as a child, but my parents were too poor to afford one.

-...-

It sounds like a great product, because anything that can give you a 50 Ohm(z) into shoes, a frog and an octopus MUST be quite good.



>de RadioRay ..._ ._

[raybiker73]

Wasn't that an REO Speedwagon album back in the day: "You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Octopus" ??

[Archangel320420]

Com'on you guys. These guys are trying. One semester at the University of Southern California does not give a Chineses student a lot of writing skills in English. They are doing the best with fish and shoes that they possibly can under such circumstance.

[RadioRay]

Nothing mean spirited intended; just some good natured musings over the odd nature of the instructions. I can assure you that their English is far better than my Mandarin; which mostly consists of "hello, thank you, see you again" at the local Chinese restaurant and for a million dollars I could MAYBE recite 2/3rds of the Mandarin sign-on announcement for China Radio International on shortwave radio.   


de RadioRay ..._ ._

[raybiker73]

You'd be amazed how many people show me things and ask for translations, and when I tell them, "That's Chinese. I don't speak Chinese. I speak Japanese, and not entirely fluently," they look at me and say, "Well, they're the same thing, aren't they?" 

[RadioRay]

Oh OUCH!  My Japanese was enough to be polite, carry me to food and to catch the right train.  I could also conduct a very good inventory as long as it was all numbers...   ha ha

One of the fun things happened when I was in Penang , Malaysia. I earned a company paid R&R at a high dollar hotel with an excellent Japanese restaurant.  I entered and you could tell that the greeter was Japanese/Malay mix.  He greeted me in Japanese and we exchanged bows, then in Japanese I asked him (basically) how he was doing today? 

His eyes got BIG, then he looked both ways and leaned closer to me and whispered: "I don't really speak Japanese!"  ha ha  I assured him that his secret was safe with me. Of course, like most Malaysians, he probably spoke Malay, at least one Chinese dialect, English and maybe some Dyak, so I was the lingo-slacker in that room.

Languages are fun.


>Ray

Ps.  Most Sushi Zan here are owned either by Koreans or Chinese.  I haven't seen a Japanese owned one since California and so no way to practice.

[raybiker73]

Most Sushi Zan here are owned either by Koreans or Chinese.  I haven't seen a Japanese owned one since California and so no way to practice.

The only decent sushi place around here is about a 70 mile drive, and it's owned by a Vietnamese guy named Steve.   

My Japanese is VERY rusty. I took a college class a few years ago because 1.) I've always wanted to learn Japanese, 2.) I needed something to exercise my mind on, and 3.) the woman teaching the class was a couple years younger than me and drop dead gorgeous. At the end of the first semester, I actually got up the courage to ask her out to dinner. As it turned out, she was dating someone, so I got a no.    I waited until the day after final grades were posted to ask her, for propriety's sake. Only later in the day did I realize the date: December 7th. So yes, I got shot down by a Japanese person on Pearl Harbor Day. 

P.S. I ended up being very good friends with her, and took 3 more semesters of Japanese.

Ray

[cockpitbob]

Looking at the picture of the tuner in the first post I see some Chinese characters.  Can anyone translate them?  I'm thinking they are either switch settings for Tune Shoe or Tune Octopus, but I'm a little concerned they are the punch line to a dirty joke.

[KC9TNH]

Looking at the picture of the tuner in the first post I see some Chinese characters.  Can anyone translate them?  I'm thinking they are either switch settings for Tune Shoe or Tune Octopus, but I'm a little concerned they are the punch line to a dirty joke.

I'm sure they will eventually get better, several of the companies have once they realize what's up.  Then again, there is a cottage industry in ham's being able to publish "The Real American-version of (fill-in) Documentation."  Wouxun (pron. Oh-Zheng, or pretty close) is getting a little better.

Take heart; somewhere, someone who reads Chinese is asking just WTH is THIS:

[cockpitbob]

IT ARRIVED:

At first I was quite pleased.  I defenitly got my money's worth in parts.  Complete and all good quality.

But then I noticed it was missing the best part....THE INSTLUCTIONS WEREN'T INCRUDED !  I can figure out how to build it from the pictures on eBay, but I was looking forward to learning how to weld standing waves for best octopus interface .

The good news is that reading their eBay feedback implies it was an oversight for me as no other customers compalined about this.  I sent them a message and that afternoon I got a leply with instluctions on where to downroad what I needed.  The bad news is the page was almost all in Chinese.  I figured out what to crick on and was able to see the instluctions in a viewer, but I could find no way to downroad them without lisking cricking on some Chinese chalacters that might subsclibe me to Chinese farm porn.  I had get it with screen captures 
Overall I'm pleased.  It's got good hardware and a PC board for the standard 50ohm bridge & LED type SWR indicator.  The box is just a little bigger than I'd hoped, but there's room in the box to add a 4:1 balun so I can use it on twin-lead fed antennas too.
 
I'll post pics in a week or 2 when I get around to building it.
 

[KK0G]

Rots of ruck.

[buckeye43210]

Octopus refers to the Chinese version of the RockMite QRP transceiver.

The Chinese Rockmite: Meet the CRK-10

[KK0G]

Octopus refers to the Chinese version of the RockMite QRP transceiver.

The Chinese Rockmite: Meet the CRK-10

Well I'll be, and here we were making fun of Octopus..................... it's still a goofy name for a rig.

[cockpitbob]

Octopus refers to the Chinese version of the RockMite QRP transceiver.

The Chinese Rockmite: Meet the CRK-10

Well I'll be, and here we were making fun of Octopus..................... it's still a goofy name for a rig.

Along with Frog, and Pixie, and Worker Bees. 
There's some interesting looking kits there.  A 3watt Rockmite might be of interest to me.
The descriptions are, as usual, a real hoot!

  1, this is the maximum power of frogs, the rated output power has increased to 1.8W (D882 output), at the same time suite power output using the American ring, so that the "Jungle" with the remote communication ability, enhance the "practical frogs"!

They have a SSB radio kit for $125(shipped) that gets good reviews.  This looks like good competition for the MFJ-94xx.  It won't do CW, but a CW capable MFJ9440 is over $300.
CW is the way to go, but I'm guessing only 10% of hams know Morse, so if the SHTF having a field capable SSB radio would be well worth it.

[buckeye43210]

There's a prepper minded US dealer for some of these rigs over at QRVTronics.com

QRV stands for are you ready?