u/olliegw

I'm looking for an antenna for my FT-5D that's still portable but gives an improvement, i swear i used to pick up more non-ham stuff on my UV-K5 with it's stock antenna.

But i've never had an antenna that's given a noticable performance benefit, i had a nagoya for a while where the plastics degraded after only about a year or two, i also had an abbree which did nothing but make the HT unwieldy and i couldn't even contact my friend across town with it, it broke in the end.

I've seen these signalstick things, are those any good? i'm looking for something that can let me make good use of the FT-5Ds receive range, good TX/RX on ham frequencies but also good RX on non-ham stuff like Marine VHF and PMR

I'm interested in the new macbook neo, not because it's a powerhouse (i know it isn't) but because a lightweight laptop might be useful for photo editing on the go, if it can run the full desktop version of Adobe Lightroom Cloud.

I want to ignore the hype train because i know it's a glorified mobile phone, i'm wondering what the display specs are like (is it calman verified etc?) and if the price will drop later in the year when i intend to buy one.

If not, would an older M-processor macbook be a better choice? i know inflation has the upperhand but £600 for a laptop is a lot of money and not budget at all in my eyes, i could upgrade my aging DSLR system to the latest mirrorless for that, or a full x86 laptop with better specs for less then that, i also know how incredibly locked down some apple stuff can be.

So, Macbook NEO, used M-processor Macbook, or just stick with using the S23 Ultra for quick edits on the go?

Is there any guide out there on how to do VHF SSTV with a HT? i have FT-5D and UV-K6, i'd like try some SSTV but don't have access to 14.230 at the moment