Since my last post on the subject gnucash tells me I have spent way too much money on my new old hobby of Ham Radio.

I did successfully build two battery packs to power the Yaesu FT-817 I bought. I also spent a bunch of money on supplies to build an electrically shortened half-wave dipole out of PVC pipe and wire. However, by the time I was done I'd spent a significant fraction of the cost of the Buddipole I purchased when I realized how just much my hand-built antenna sucked in comparison.

Both the radio and the Buddipole are awesome. Do you know that feeling you get when you handle a well made instrument of some sort? The feeling of quality? Yeah, these have that.

But quality alone does not make something useful. I took both up to Tilden park to compete in the IARU HF competition.. And I failed. Miserably. I made only four qualifying contacts. I also got a large pile of incredibly itchy insect bites, which frankly are more annoying than failing miserably at a ham radio contest.

Also, I'm vain. My new call-sign is N1MMY.

posted: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:16 | permanent link to this entry