I want to thank all of you who told me about and helped me to get the G.E.
super radio 3.  I got it for just $40 in just 4 days.  It does everything
that it is supposed to do and I am very satisfied.  However, I do have 2
observations.  There is a very annoying 60 cycle hum but only because I have
it on my head board just a foot from my head.  What they call a feature, I
don't like.  The radio automatically switches from 110 to battery when
necessary.  I would rather control that myself to save the batteries for an
emergency situation.  Until I found the hum annoying I was going to put a
piece of heavy paper or cardboard between 2 of the batteries and then just
pull it out when I wanted the batteries to work.  Now, I guess I'll just run
it on batteries and keep an extra set of batteries around.  6 D's!!  Again;
thanks to all who assisted me.


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: What Constitutes Accessibility?


> What I call an accessible radio is one, I can program, and use with out
> asking for sighted help can can do everything with out the computer though
> semi accessible I'd say I can do it with the computer but like my old
> Yaesu
> FT-51, I can't do much beyond the basics on it with out software.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Louis Kim Kline" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 1:44 PM
> Subject: What Constitutes Accessibility?
>
>
>> Hi to all.
>>
>> As I was reading through the posts on accessible handhelds, it occurs to
>> me
>> that a lot of different things constitute accessibility.
>>
>> In our modern age, we've gotten used to thinking of accessibility as
>> voice
>> readout and an auto tuner, and as much as I love my HF rigs that have
>> these
>> features, I know that there was a time when it wasn't so.
>>
>> While I was in college in the late 1970's, a good friend of mine who was
>> totally blind had a Ten Tec Triton IV, which had the following
>> modifications:
>>
>> A dial skirt with single dots on the five khz marks, two dots on the 10
>> khz
>> marks and three dots on the zero.  He also had an audio oscillator hooked
>> up across the LED for the ALC so that when the LED lit, the oscillator
>> beeped.
>>
>> With those two modifications, he could always adjust the radio for proper
>> levels, and he could always get it on frequency.  In that sense, it was
>> accessible.
>>
>> I had a Standard C528A HT in the 1990's.  It was pretty straightforward
>> in
>> its command set, with articulating beeps for the various functions, much
>> as
>> John described on the THF6A.  At the time, I still had my vision, yet I
>> hardly ever looked at the display because I got so much feedback from the
>> beeps on the radio that it wasn't necessary to look at the display.  So,
>> in
>> my mind, that radio was truly accessible.
>>
>> At times, I think that half of the battle in accessibility is in getting
>> accessible documentation that explains things from a blind person's point
>> of view.  For example, I had a rotten time with the Icom IC-706 Mk II G
>> until someone put up a really great key chart on
>> www.icanworkthisthing.com
>> and suddenly a bunch of things made sense to me and the radio became much
>> more usable.
>>
>> I think the area of documentation is one area where the industry could do
>> better, but I suspect that they do not even realize there is a problem
>> there.
>>
>> Anyway, I thought that Jerry's post was amusing because of the
>> assumptions
>> that he started out with.  Incidentally, I believe that the reason why
>> there are not HT's with voice boards is not because the industry cannot
>> do
>> it, because the technology is readily available to do just that, but
>> because there has always been a conscious effort to keep these radios
>> very
>> small, lightweight, and above all, to sacrifice anything that would
>> degrade
>> battery life.  And, even if I was prepared to live with a little shorter
>> time between charges, thinking about how tiny my Icom IC-T7H is, I would
>> not want to try to install anything into it.
>>
>> Incidentally, I program it with the Icom Cloning software from my PC.
>> The
>> software works great with JAWS, and I see no reason why it shouldn't work
>> with Window-Eyes, so in that sense, my present HT is at least
>> "semi-accessible."
>>
>> 73, de Lou K2LKK
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Louis Kim Kline
>> A.R.S. K2LKK
>> Home e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
>> Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
>> Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753
>>
>