My Daughter And I Successfully Sent And Received Test Texts To One Another Once Everything Was Setup.

I bought this soldering iron at Harbor Freight and have only done some light soldering and the tip looks like it's been buried in the dirt on Mars for a millennia. I guess I need to upgrade before continuing my projects.

Next two parts of the project. No license required

I've removed the bottom left "shelf" that the radio sits against that blocks any wiring from the radio to the GPS. Hopefully, this will fix the issue with the radio not properly sitting in the frame. Keep in mind, if you aren't going to wire a GPS unit to the Heltec V3 then you'll not have to remove the "shelf"

Ruined one of my Heltec V3's by soldering and resoldering the connections for the hot and ground wires trying to get it to fit into the radio frame.

Performing 3D Printer surgery

I was about to order a shelf so I could upgrade my station but remembered I had a kitchen rack I wasn't using. It'll do for now. The station is a work in progress.

I bought this Yaesu FT-897 as a gift to myself for passing the General Class exam last month. I was going to buy an antenna but decided to make one myself to learn more about them, so I made a field expedient, 1/4 wave end-fed. I had gooten into amateur radio with my dad who became a silent key nearly three years ago. After hearing the radio crackle to life with the sounds of a 40 meter net I forgot about how I wouldn't be able to use it on all amateur bands (because it's a Japanese model), and I wanted to run and tell my dad all about it. I wanted to throw my call out but I figured I'd better just listen for now. I was as excited as a boy on Christmas.

Got it updated and connected to my phone but it's the only one in the area. Need to build a mesh