Yesterday I visited the Rochester Institute of Technology, or RIT for short to learn more about the campus and possibly make a decision on transferring there in the upcoming fall semester. I was most pleased by the campus as a whole; the environment, the student body, the vast amount of extracurricular activities such as student clubs and events outside of class, and the support services that they have to offer.
(Time to roll out the welcoming mat?)
I felt very excited and willing to accept RIT's offer for admission, but the one thing that is worrying me is the cost. RIT, being a private school, has a very high tuition rate, which makes it hard for people from lower echelons of society to attend. Even with my honor standing from SUNY Canton and they scholarships I received with my acceptance letter, I may still be about $15,000 or more short each semester. If push comes to shove, I may fall back and decide to stay within the SUNY system and attend SUNYIT in Utica next fall instead of the prestigious RIT. I will keep you all up to date as my decisions develop and I finally make a decision.
And now it is time for everyone's favorite part of the blog, an EQUIPMENT REVIEW!!!
The Kenwood TM261A is a decent 2m (144Mhz.) mobile transceiver that has a lot of nice features right out of the box, beside being a simplistic radio made around the late 1990s and discontinued around 2003 or 2004. It offers power settings at 50W, as well as two lower settings at 10W and 5W. What sets the 261A apart from other radios at the time was its ability to recieve the air band (110-136Mhz) in amplitude modulation, or AM, which set it apart from other radios at the time. Other features included were 61 channel memories that are able to store the PL tone to your repeaters plus calling frequency memory. It also has automatic repeater shift for the default configuration on the band plan, so no more having to remember what the shift is for repeaters down the road, unless it is an oddball! It also has a modular microphone plug that uses an RJ-45 connector, similar to those on Ethernet cables, which makes plugging it into a terminal node connector a breeze for digital packet use.
(Small and mighty, this mobile fits the bill)
For a basic 2m radio to install into a car, I would definitely recommend it due to its simplicty in design, an modular microphone jack. The only drawback is that for most 2m mobile radios nowadays, 55 or 60W on high power seems to be the norm, but it all comes down to preference. A good price for one of these used would be about $100, which is how much I paid for my own exactly. I had very good signal reports on many of the repeaters in the Syracuse and Rochester area traveling down Interstate 90 on my way to RIT.
Next week, I will be talking about mobile antennas and how to improve your dee bee's or to put it simply; gain. Until then, this is N2ASD. Clear.
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