Hi Steve,

Yaesu makes nice radios, so you wouldn’t miss out on anything by going with Jordan’s recommendation. I’ve never had any issues with my cheapo baofeng, but I know there are plenty of pilots out there that hate them for various reasons. Also seems to be hit-and-miss if you get a good one or a bad one (maybe I just lucked out with the one I got).

I would avoid adding in adapters and extra connectors into the mix if you can avoid it.

If you get the Yaesu FT-70D, it looks like this speaker mic will work:

https://www.amazon.com/Yaesu-Standard-Microphone-SSM-17A-Replaces/dp/B089YW2BP9

For my radio, I got this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z4X3MM6

You only need the one connector (speaker mic plugs in, and you both talk and listen from the speaker mic). I don’t have an external PTT button, but the location of my speaker mic on my shoulder strap makes it easy to reach even with my brakes in my hand (and I can push the button with my thumb without pulling any brakes). Also, with my new harness, I now have the radio mounted in my flight deck, with the speaker mic still on the shoulder strap (so radio no longer in my back pocket). Best to talk that over with Jordan to make sure that’s an approved/recommended solution (works for me, but go with instructor advice).

I’ve considered the boom mic / in-helmet / PTT button / wireless solutions in the past, but I’ve stayed away from them for a few reasons:

• added complexity (when setting up on launch)
• something else to charge (or forget to charge)
• expensive (the nicer in-helmet solutions like SENA are expensive)

Would also recommend against using VOX (voice-activated mic solutions) – wind noise while we’re flying makes that impractical and annoying for other pilots on frequency.

One last recommendation: strongly recommend something soft over the mic for wind noise (it cuts down wind noise when you’re transmitting quite a bit). I use this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sunmns-Furry-Windscreen-Condenser-Microphone/dp/B07J3HDTYB

I’ve also heard other pilots that like this one (it’s a small stick-on one that just goes over the mic portion):

https://rycote.com/micro-windjammer-30-uses-ryc065546/

Climbs were very smooth but on the weak and small side. Still, the weather was near perfect which made for really pleasant flying and allowed us a modest adventure to the east. Heard many others on the radio having their own fun.

Echoing the thanks to Forrest for the retrieve – we packed up, got curbside, and he was there 5 minutes later. He had a cool rattlesnake story too.

In-flight pic of the ocean air coming in:

Track Log here

Nice – 3000 hours is quite a milestone.

Looks like our little group made a couple of cameos starting at 2:44 :)

There’s nothing wrong with the data itself (the holfuy API, or any of the downstream sources that it feeds such as mesowest or Windy). All of the data goes directly from the weather station up to holfuy only (first), and then those other downstream sources pull from holfuy.

There are occasional downtimes or outages, most especially due to some of the more hardcore weather situations that can be seen up on launch; others, due to the increasing unreliability of older cellular networks in the area (the holfuy stations connect to the internet via 2G, since the 3G network was shut down this last year). The Crestline station (also a holfuy station) connects via wifi to a router in the bunker up next to launch (the radio towers). Sometimes the internet service up there fails as well (also causing outage), and that launch gets even colder/icier/snowier weather than Marshall tends to get. Sometimes the anemometers will get iced over, so for situations like that, you might see temperature readings from the station, but no wind. To put things into perspective, we’ve had the holfuy stations (3 of them – Crestline, Marshall, and AJX) up for a few years now and have never needed to touch the stations themselves. We have had anemometers fail, but that goes with the territory.

Windgrams – they occasionally get borked from weird data in the weather models (so you’ll see a day or two with no image, or you’ll notice the wrong day applied to one that you an see), and also (rarely) an occasional server hiccup that needs to be addressed by Alan. He provides great service to that app and is very responsive to emails (in my experience).

Shots fired

As said before (forgot how many times), please lay off the name calling. No need to call the lot of us a bunch of fools – the bickering just happens to be louder than all of the other good interactions that people are having on a regular basis.