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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • Yeah, I get all that. Link is still messed up. There certainly are functional prototypes of quad-copter “cars” that are all electrical in nature and that’s what I’d expect here too. Throw some wheels on one of those with a “road” speed of say 30-35 for the residential runaround tasks and the drive to an approved take off and landing zone (think flying above freeways only) and something like this becomes more feasible. The idea that we’re going to all be driving 4500 lb+++ “cars” is truly laughable.

    The closest thing that I’d say exists today as a “flying car” is a Cessna 172 weighing in around 2500 lbs.






  • A pair of GMRS walkie-talkies (~$70) an associated license (~$35) a better whip antenna for the first (~$12) and a magnetic mount antenna (~$35) that I threw on a high shelf in a closet or could move to a vehicle if desired.

    They can hit a publicly open but privately owned repeater about 20 miles away, which has been interesting. Means that I can radio contact over about a 50 mile radius which covers my city pretty well.

    There’s a lot of chatter on the repeater, mostly from “prepper” types who want to be prepared if the cell system crashes. They’re kind of politically right leaning, which sucks but hey, it’s their repeater so I don’t participate a lot.

    The radios I got have GPS sharing so they’re nice for any backwoods hikes as you can pinpoint each other and that’s a nice safety feature.

    Are they worth it? I guess so. $150 to get fairly deep into a new hobby isnt budget breaking for me, but the actual usefulness is kinda limited when cell towers are most everywhere, even in places like campgrounds of most major cities