AF4YN feasle

or: Fifty Shades of Heathkit Green Touchup Paint

Here is Bill’s old FT-817, in my portable operating.  On the left, in a portable “pistol case” unit, is the setup in 2013, with my homemade “Build a Beeper Mousetrap” paddles, made from a mousetrap, a wine cork, and some bits of hardware. Those worked pretty well. 

On the right is Bill’s 817 on a portable tray arrangement, compete with 7Ah battery,   In both cases, my portable ops would have been much more portable without adding the Logitech keyer, but I did (and still do) like it a lot–just *really* easy operation compared to all the built-in keyers I”ve used.    (As a side note, Bob Locher, W9KNI, was a really nice guy, and also, I love my Bencher paddles, I have two.)

To keep this concise, while I’m uploading the text of my senior thesis, Bill used the 817 for a while but lost interest in portable ops.  He offered it to me (ac4rd) at a bargain price, saying it didn’t work.  It was an easy fix but he still wanted to sell it, and I had a lot of fun with that radio.   I love telling people (ones who can’t get away) about all the weekends and evenings I spent in a lawn chair, in past years, a ‘barley-pop’ in hand, one of those “portable QRP” setups that are pictured above sitting beside me, having fun with that radio.  All sorts of ordinary operating with a big vertical I had at the time, and a 3-el 10-m yagi, on a 10′ mast on a handcart base, pointed SW, working VK/ZL/KH6, plus some great Pacific DX, with the 817 and a gel-cell. 

Above is that 10m yagi on the handcart.  You didn’t believe I actually used one.  It really is a quarter-wavelength high, on 10m.  And to round out the Wonderful World o’ Boredom, there’s the bedside rig I’ve been putting together.  I was bedridden for several months and now that I can walk some (I’m up to 45 minutes a day, broken into two episodes), I decided to get back on the air a bit. 

I bought a G90 used a couple of years ago, never used it b/c that’s when my latest episode of inability to walk (and build antennas) started ramping up.  I have a 60′-80′ run of wire in the trees running west, left from a few years ago, and a 9:1 unun, so I think I can get a low mast up and use those, despite my physical limitations.  I”ve got a lot of hand tremor from some meds–it’s been a problem for years–and after a 2-yr layoff from operating, it’s going to take a lot of practice to get back on the air.  I”ve got one of those digital interfaces I’ll be hooking up in coming weeks; I used to be very fond of RTTY, especiallyt expeditions and contests, and PSK31 also.  Trying those with the G90 should be fun.