Dave Heil wrote in message ...
Brian Kelly wrote:


Without knowing just what A4s have been going for these days $500
seems to be reasonable if it's in decent shape.

The Pittsburgh WB3 who was mulling the buy over contacted the seller the
day after the hamfest and bought it.

Very familiar routine, I always (make myself) balk at jumping on
pricey impulse buys no matter how much I just have the have the thing.
Whatever it might be. I've lost "deals I couldn't refuse" to others
who didn't hesitate and won some by going home and thinking it thru
first like your WB3 did.

out on an empty 20 x 80 foot floor in the old textile mill I'd haunted
since I was a kid. I sorted thru the heap and picked a small pile to
save for myself. Then I invited family members and a few others to
trash pick the heap before I ordered the dumpster. Micollis got his
van load.

Sure wish I'd known you back then. It would have been worth a road
trip!

You did "know" me then, it was just a year or so ago but I didn't get
into it here. I had a lotta stuff but most of it had nothing to do
with radio. Household goods, lumber, leftover home handyman crap,
clothing, obsolete office machinery, darkroom "treasures" and beyond.
A photo-freak nephew carted off my big Kodak Model A enlarger . . I
have no idea how old it was, probably came out of the 1930s. "Good
luck with that clunker Tim!" . . . poof: gone: wunnerful.

With a few exceptions the radio stuff was really ancient,
uninteresting junque not worth anything to anybody except to a rare
Miccolis type or two. He never got anywhere near the few goodies which
are not junque like the meatball Collins rcvr., the R4B, the 2M gear,
the TNCs, HTs etc. which I still have. You wouldn't have bothered
hauling off any of the crap he glomed.

Believe me, you'd have been really disappointed if you'd done a
600-700 mile overnighter round trip for that non-event.

Woulda been one helluva yard sale though.

dumpstered but I'm not losing any sleep over it. I did my kids a
favor, they'll dumpster everything which is left anyway when I croak
so I've saved them some of that chore

...or they'll put it on ebay and smile all the way to the bank.

They'd have to know how to handle used ham gear via e-bay and they
don't. I'll direct it to Handi-Hams or the technical high school club
in Brooklyn or to the ARRL or to the FRC or sumpthin' like that which
they can handle. And get their inflated tax deductions. They
understand that "method" and will smile all the way to the bank.

. . . That's why I gotta be a hardass and not go back
to collecting nice old radios else I'll wind up right back where I
was.

My bride and I are both packrat types. That's one reason we had to
build the 16 x 30' barn. Thankfully, there's heat out there so the
stuff doesn't get damaged.

That's a professional-level pack-ratting facility David, nice, heated
and all huh? Of course it helps to have yer own gas well doesn't it?

Per a post of his around here a couple days ago he's trying to be
contrite and explained that his antenna problem involves some sort of
installation "restrictions". Maybe like CC&Rs or some such, he didn't
say . . .

Could be CC&R problems. It could be wifely concerns about the chil'ren.
It could be his concern about what the neighbors will say. A simple
A-frame mast or even a 4x4 topped with a 2x4 would have given him
another support. He could have easily protected the fed portion from
the chil'ren.

Sure. But he'll still weave, bob and duck. He doesn't have the time to
mess with antennas anyway, furiously posting here sucks up all the
spare time which others use to get on the air and operate.

"It's all about the chil'ren

Whatta weenie . .

After a long period of observed behavior, I'm in agreement.

Delayed development problems . . .

Or like the guy across the street who bought a 40 inch flatsceen TV
"for the chullins" but they're not allowed to use it.

Doesn't want to damage their sensitive eyes?

Doesn't want the kids screw up the timer which tells the VCR when to
record the sports events he'll miss when he can't be there to watch
'em.

Our old B&W TV in Oak Hill, WV must've had a 21 meg IF. I ate it alive
every time I tried to get on 15m with the old DX-40. I spent my days as
a Novice on 40 and 80m.

Those 21 Mhz TV IFs came along about the same time the 15 meter band
was opened to ham radio. Bordered on an engineering scandal. So then
they moved the TV IFs to 42 Mhz to get away from the hams. As if 15M
ham ops don't pump out harmonics. Welcome to the '50s techo geniuses
at the IEEE, the EIA, RCA and the FCC . . .

That could have gotten a whole lot
more confrontational. Zed Zainoon W8ENJ, a Lebanese-American screwed up
the TV reception at a Moundsville bar close to his home back in the
early '50s with his Collins KW-1 AM KW. There was very nearly a
lynching.

Heeee! Precious moments in ham radio.

There are guys (beer drinkers, not hams) STILL talking about it!

Somebody oughta tape their tales for posterity. You got a digicam?

We were in a two-house compound in Botswana. A chunky, middle-aged,
single personnel lady moved in next door. She raised hell about my 160m
sigs setting off her burglar alarm. One embassy staffer tried to be
helpful. "David is transmitting at way too high a frequency", he
opined.

Ya just gotta wonder . . .

Only the Regional Security Officer, the younger brother of actress
Margarent Colin,

NICE sister!

had a handle on the situation. I outlined the problem,
including the fact that none of the alarm system wires was shielded.
He had the house system rewired by a local technician. When the guy
showed up with some small shielded cable, Tom said, "This stuff is too
thin and unobtrusive to run down her walls. Don't you have any fat gray
or black cable that'll really show up?" That's what they used, big ugly
gray wire running to each motion detector head. It eliminated the
personel officer's problem and mine.

That was MEAN and ROTTEN. Shame on you, tsk, tsk. Also involved some
gonads, toying with snivel service personnel types can lead to
"issues" . . .

Dave K8MN

w3rv