Have you seen the show Kleo? Former Stasi assassins, espionage, fall of the Berlin Wall, insane democratic socialists Cold War fuckery, aliens, techno, drugs, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. I’ve watched it a few times now and I generally have no tolerance for rewatching tv shows.

I have not! I’m one for watching the same shows and movies over and over and over again

You may enjoy this show on many different levels. I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down on the news and was always interested in European history. The addition of techno, drugs, aliens, and generally insane characters really makes this something I enjoy rewatching.

I love all of those things

Fans of number stations and their lore are kind of the target demographic for this show.

Adjacent: I recently used a Uniden SDS scanner and wow...scanning is a lot less interesting now than when I last did it, in the 90s. Then: Hear the cordless phone convos of your neighbors & all LEO traffic. Now: Hear snippets of LEO convos & automated messages.

I can tell you from experience that walkie talkies will allow you to hear neighborhood shenanigans. They are also interesting to take on camping trips in places where people’s homes or cabins are not terribly far from campsites. If you’re good at programming, Baofeng radios are usually

Lol I am NOT good at programming but I do have a Baofeng and a Quansheng. They're both running custom firmware but despite a selection of antennae, I still struggle to pick up anything of any interest.

I’ve used this both at home and in the mountains. I’ve enjoyed listening to the various repeaters around here (public lands agencies, SAR ops, mining operations, backwoods prospectors on walkies, all kinds of things). Little kids with walkies are pretty damn funny most of the time

Antenna-wise, what do you use?

I mostly use an assortment of screw-in whip antennas

I’ve got an assortment, mainly because I live and recreate where line of sight and geology can make things weird. I was lucky enough to work with a guy who programmed radios for parks and forests. He tried to educate me well and I have not retained as much as I would like. I do want to be licensed

Kids on walkie talkies are always a hoot

They bring a spark of joy to my cold, dead heart.

Antennas attached to radios which are wired to power sources (vehicles) can be really impressive but I am not set up for anything like that now

I'm in DFW minutes from the airport, so tons of radio traffic. The SDS 100 picks up plenty of audio even with the antenna removed, but it seems like antennas for specific different frequencies still all pick up the same chatter. Haven't yet tested it away from all the civilization and concrete.

The programmer I posted yesterday actually allows you to easily load aviation & railroad traffic pretty easily

Have you come across folks using that on a Quansheng radio? The listing says it works for Quansheng, but I'd found some reddit ppl saying it didn't work for them.

I managed to find a plug & play programming module for my Baofeng.

TBH, my Baofeng has been packed away for 2 years. But I didn't want to unpack it and read about Quansheng firmware tweaks so I got a pair of those. Actually want to use them as walkies--with proper licensing, ofc 😉--but can't figure that out.

Ham radio is a nearly impenetrable world but I feel like getting a ham license and some solid understanding of radio hardware and protocols might become very important with the way our world is going. The lack of really solid English language instruction makes the relatively inexpensive hardware

That was the reason I got the Baofeng! But then the house flooded, stuff got packed away (and much has stayed packed).

Ahhhh. My house and my extended family members’ homes all flooded in Katrina and that was part of my desire to learn about ham radio. Here in Colorado there are actually clubs that meet and so forth. In the mountains you can always tell the ham vans (massive whip antennas mounted outside & ride low

a bit of a mindfuck though NGL

pretty inexpensive and will allow you to listen to the non-encrypted channels (lots of rural agencies). I hate that scanners are not as citizen-friendly as they used to be.

Once you get the SDS 100 all set up, it's an amazing piece of tech! And I get a lot of traffic on it, but the assortment that's available is meh. The scanner is fine; accessibility/use of radio traffic is ugh.