Nobody fell for the “Modulating Earthquakes” article, and I didn’t expect anyone to. It was just too obvious.

A different story was the reactions on the Baofeng DA-77 dual band DMR transceiver. The specs looked serious enough, and to the untrained eye the picture of the radio could hold up too. The giveaway was the lack of alphanumeric additions to the keypad, identical to what you see on an ordinary phone. Every DMR transceiver needs those.

I slowly built up this one, mailing pictures months in advance to a few hams, and urging them to be quiet about it. Jason KC5HWB knew about the upcoming prank and posted a similar article.

I didn’t cross-post the Baofeng DA-77 ‘news’ anywhere myself, but sat down and waited. It didn’t take long for the news to appear on forums, Reddit.com, and the radio was even added to the RigReference.com database.

You can delete that one now, guys…. sorry for any inconvenience caused!

There were many other great April 1 jokes to be found. My favorite: A guide to the construction of an emergency transceiver, posted by Texas Instruments.