Since I cannot use my best friend, my Acer Chromebook, and my fingers are toooooo fat to use my Google 7 Android phone (using Old Eyes fonts). I am wondering what tablet works best for around $70-$80. It can be anything in the 7-10" range, just need a virtual keyboard that I won’t spend all of my time retyping what I really intended to type in the first place. I have a lot of Kindle Books so considered a 7" Fire with a 2022 release date, but I thought I’d get some additional input from the heavier users. I have no real need for a plain Android tablet otherwise as my Acer Chromebook does 95% of what I typically do for a dumb terminal with a Verizon 4GLTE MIFI device attached.
Thanks, in Advance. I am not fussy other than I want HAMRS to work for me. Cheers, Davey - KU9L
I used a Fire Tablet with a wireless keyboard for my HAMRS POTA activations for almost 2 years. It did a fine job. I have since moved to an iPad with a wireless keyboard.
The caveats here are that, as far as I know, the HAMRS OS for Fire Tablet has not been updated for the present 1.0.x series. This transition was made about 18 months ago. But I believe the older OS is still available for download from the App Store.
With that OS, Fire Tablet, processing of QSOs began to slow after a lot of logs and QSOs were stored in the memory. In my case this was was 20+ logs and at least 600 QSOs. If you clear out your logs occasionally, this would not be a problem. Just don’t expect to store all your POTA logs, forever, in your HAMRS program.
The other caveat, is that the older Fire Tablet OS won’t have all the features of the newer OS for other platforms. I don’t remember whether immediate call lookup and contact mapping was available, for instance.
Overall the Fire Tablet and a keyboard/case makes a convenient package for HAMRS logging without the expense and risk of taking a much more expensive IPad into the field. A Fire Tablet is still very usable with the older OS.
Thanks, Jack! I had an iPad2 once, then one day it was so obsolete that I threw it in the recycle bin. I guess they all will be there someday, LOL. I have seen a couple of Android tablets for sale, but I had so much bad luck with them in past years that I was afraid to take a chance, no mote Kit Kat, either.
I could always just write things down manually and then hack it into my Google Pixel 7 phone when I get home, I don’t go for quantity since I am often QRPp. I will ponder your very helpful advice.
I’m a Chromebook fan as well and waited for a sale on the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 13” for this use ($379?). The battery is beefy and the detachable screen works as a tablet if you prefer that experience over your existing Chromebook.
NOTE: Hamrs is distributed as an AppImage file. Before starting to run AppImage files on a Chromebook read (this)
Then, before running linux apps/programs on a Chromebook, you have to setup the Chromebook following these instructions.
Next, download the UBUNTU hamrs file (hamrs-0.11.6-linux-x86_64.AppImage) from hamrs.app and put it into the linux directory
Next we make the AppImage file executable.
Click on the circle at bottom left of screen. Type linux in the search box and press enter. The linux terminal will open. Then, at the terminal prompt type :
At this point Hamrs will open as usual and you can carry on as usual with Hamrs procedures.
After the initial setup you only have to execute the last command to start Hamrs. After the initial ./hamrs press tab and the rest of the file name will pop up, then press enter.
Thanks to @ken . I copied this from his post. It helped me a lot.