Shortwave radio is still alive and well in , and after spending six weeks comparing ten of the most talked-about models side by side, I can tell you the category is having a real moment. New DSP-based portables from XHDATA, Qodosen, and Raddy are pulling in weak signals that older analog radios simply cannot touch, … Read more
I’ve been shooting for over a decade, and I still remember the first time I walked off an indoor range without electronic ear protection. My ears rang for two days. That’s the moment I realized passive foam plugs alone aren’t enough, and that finding the best electronic ear protection for shooting isn’t a luxury, it’s … Read more
Finding the best sim racing seats for your home cockpit is one of those upgrades that quietly transforms every lap. After roughly 90 days of swapping seats across our test rigs – including a 12 Nm direct drive wheelbase, a set of load-cell pedals, and one stubborn shared cockpit – we saw lap-time consistency jump … Read more
If you have ever spun a lap in iRacing or Assetto Corsa Competizione and felt like the car just would not stop where you wanted it to, the problem is almost never your wheelbase. It is your pedals. We spent weeks testing the best load cell pedals across price tiers, and the gap between a … Read more
A sim racing wheel is a force-feedback steering wheel designed to replicate real motorsport handling for use with racing simulators on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. It pairs a wheelbase that drives the force feedback with pedals for throttle, brake, and clutch, and it is the single biggest upgrade you can make to a racing simulator … Read more
Flying with a portable cockpit weather and traffic feed no longer means a six-figure avionics upgrade. The best ADS-B receivers in let any general aviation pilot pull subscription-free NEXRAD, METARs, TAFs, NOTAMs, TFRs, and surrounding traffic onto an iPad, an Android tablet, or a Garmin aera — for less than the cost of a single … Read more
If your panel-mount radio dies at cruise altitude, a handheld aviation radio is the difference between a routine squawk-7600 and a real emergency. That is the framing the FAA lays out in AIM 6-4-1: if you lose two-way comm, you become NORDO (no radio) and have to follow light-gun signals, land as soon as practicable, … Read more
The single best ANR aviation headset we tested this year is the Bose A30, and after 30 days of side-by-side flying in a Cessna 172, a Diamond DA42, and a Citation CJ3, that conclusion didn’t waver. It carries FAA TSO and EASA E/TSO-C139a certification, weighs only 14.2 oz on the head, and trims clamping force … Read more
Last March, a tornado ripped through central Alabama at 2:14 a.m. while most of the county slept. The families who made it to their storm shelters in time had one thing in common: a NOAA weather radio on the nightstand that woke them before their phones ever buzzed. Cell towers failed within minutes. Wireless Emergency … Read more
After six weeks of trail testing across the North Cascades, Olympic Peninsula, and the Mojave Desert, our team ranked the 8 best handheld GPS units you can buy in . We logged 412 miles on foot, swapped batteries on overnight trips, dropped units in streams, and pushed buttons with cold-weather gloves to find out which … Read more