Forscan users?

[ppfd]

I’m looking at a small cheap laptop for ham radio and forscan.

Few I looked at are 4G ram 256 hard drive, processors are 1.1 GHz celeron, the other on says 2.8 Ghz but I think that’s the max speed.

They are windows 10

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[RedDakooter05]

Forscan is very light weight software, so those laptop specs should work just fine.

Although 4gb ram is pretty low, even for windows 10. I won't really go into computer specs though.


As for ham radio stuff? I have no knowledge of that kind of stuff.

 

[ppfd]

Thanks
these are student/school laptops. They allow a little upgrading.
$150.00, I’m going to try one

 

[SigOris]

Pay the extra and get one with at least 8 GB RAM and running Winblows 11, trust me and yes I’m a stinkin MAC user

DE WA1AW

 

[thorn726]

im using a pretty old very small 1.7 Ghz (single processor) windows 7 laptop with 4gb ram and it works fine. not super fast but well enough and i have the license, i used it for dark mode and chimes etc

 

[12Bravo20]

Get as much RAM and the biggest hard drive you can afford. I made the mistake of buying a Dell with only a 256 MB drive and Windows 11 takes up most of the space which doesn't allow much room to install anything.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

Pay the extra and get one with at least 8 GB RAM and running Winblows 11, trust me and yes I’m a stinkin MAC user

DE WA1AW

I would agree with the above statement. 8 GB RAM would be the minimum I would source a computer with, especially since it would future proof the computer a bit. I don't know what you're doing with HAM, but it never hurts to have a better spec'd compute.

I have a PC for work, but my laptop is a MacBook Air 15". If Mac worked with Forscan (without all the 'work arounds' that don't work), I would be a happy clam.

I'm curious as to what you're doing with HAM.
KF0LTF

 

[ctechbob]

I use an ancient (Circa 2007?)Core2 Duo Dell Vostro with 4gb of ram and Forscan works just fine. It is super clunky to use for anything else, but in a pinch I can use it for daily driver tasks. So Forscan won't be the problem, it will be whatever other software you want to use.

 

[_TraMor]

The 256gb hard drive is likely an SSD, you'll be fine with 4gb of RAM, Windows uses swap space anyway. The slowest part of any computer is disk access.

 

[ppfd]

Ham uses
programming for radios
Downloads of the radio manuals
Logging contacts
Digital modes -FT 8, winlink, etc

There was a low spec laptop that was powered by 12 volt batteries, the ham community was going nuts about last year. Was selling for under a hundred. From what I read, it ran all the above pretty well.

 

[TJC]

I’m looking at a small cheap laptop for ham radio and forscan.

Few I looked at are 4G ram 256 hard drive, processors are 1.1 GHz celeron, the other on says 2.8 Ghz but I think that’s the max speed.

They are windows 10

Buy an old IBM Thinkpad T420 - T470 series. They are rock solid and cheap. On Amazon for $150 - $250.

Here is T470S for $148 sample 8GB memory 256GB SSD Core I5 CPU from Amazon.

I am using as T470 for Forscan right now. It is perfect. Win 10 is fine for Forscan and Ham, but I never connect to the internet with mine. Not that it won't but I do not trust Windows to not spy on me or become a virus magnet. I use Linux Mint for internet access on a very nice secure laptop.

 

[RedDakooter05]

Buy an old IBM Thinkpad T420 - T470 series. They are rock solid and cheap. On Amazon for $150 - $250.

Here is T470S for $148 sample 8GB memory 256GB SSD Core I5 CPU from Amazon.

I am using as T470 for Forscan right now. It is perfect. Win 10 is fine for Forscan and Ham, but I never connect to the internet with mine. Not that it won't but I do not trust Windows to not spy on me or become a virus magnet. I use Linux Mint for internet access on a very nice secure laptop.

You use a smart phone?

If so, I got news for you lol.

 

[Trigganometry]

For short money and some digging for it you should be able to find a I5 processor 8mb of ram and min 256 SSD drive. That should be quick enough and not be obsolete for quite a long time.

 

[TJC]

You use a smart phone?

If so, I got news for you lol.

Nope! No smart phone. I did crowd fund Purism development for their Linux based Hardware secure smartphone. I can physically power off bluetooth, wireless WIFI, the cameras and microphones. I own the phone but have not popped a sim into it yet. Purism offers AWESIM to assist in maintaining privacy.

And all hardware has had commercial firmware stripped out. I own one of their secure laptops as well, and it uses COREBOOT instead of commercial BIOS and Firmware.

Yep I spent a career in I/T and everything Snowden published in real (and a more!)

No Facebook, or images from family of me that uses facebook allowed. No Social media either.

The smaller the footprint the better. WIFI and bluetooth are disabled in all my autos, and I am looking at physically powering them down or removing them altogether.

I like tech. But I want to own tech, vs tech owning me. If you are not paying for the service or product you ARE the product. Think Google, facebook twitter, etc.

 

[ppfd]

I'm not too worried about be tracked or followed.
I do listen to a pod cast privacy and osnit I think it called. Pretty interesting about all the steps the caster goes through daily for privacy.
Turns his phone on and off a few blocks from home, puts the turned off phone in some sort of blocking bag. He does some sort if IT security work. Tracking people is big business, like face book and google.
Ever notice how something you say or think, search pops up in your email or on Facebook.
I got off FB for other reasons, but its crazy how they do it.

Back to the laptop. My plain is to use this strictly for the above purposes only. Small and portable for ham use in the field. I'm not going to use it for anything else.
I will replace my 2015 MacBook air with some sort of windows laptop that's much higher power down the road.
That think pad is bigger than I want size wise, but that's a great deal. Wonder if the memory and HD is replaceable?

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