[Mishmash] The recent weather.

[Fred Atkinson]

Hi, Dick,

> Hi, Fred.  Glad to hear you missed the worst of the weather.  It's
> turning out to be a helluva
> spring, with tornadoes in Georgia, flooding over a good part of the
> country, and snow where
> there isn't anything else going on.  We've been lucky around here;
> nothing but a little rain
> and some winds.  About 60 mph recorded, took down my multi-band
> dipole but it needed to come
> down anyway so I could work on the traps.  I guess it saved me some
> trouble.  :-)

    Well, thank goodness for small favors.

> I'll be going to Timonium hamfest next weekend.  My son, who has been
> out of work in the
> computer biz for some time, is starting a side business (as I may
> have mentioned already).
> He's planning on taking up as much stuff as the Corolla will hold and
> seeing what sells
> in two days.  He says he did fairly well there last year, and will be
> taking along more
> gear than last time.  I wish him luck.  I'll be at Timonium full time
> both Saturday and
> Sunday so I can spell him when he wants to take a break in addition
> to looking around the
> show.  I'm looking for a 25 amp or so 12V supply to match the six
> meter rig I picked up
> recently through AMRAD.  Nothing else I need, but I'll probably find
> some more junk to
> bring home.  Somehow I always do.  :-)

    Get yourself an Astron thirty-five amp metered supply.  That's what
I've got.  I've got it rigged so I can connect my Kenwood TM-V7A to it
the next time I bring it inside from the car.

    Have a good time at Timonium.  That was one I stopped going to
because they always made me do the Limbo Rock in the parking lot to get
into the hamfest.  Are they still making you do that?

    I had been getting a lot of complaints from other hams about
ignition noise on my signal.  They said it competed with my voice much
of the time.  I plug my unit in through the cigarette lighter plug so I
can easily move the radio from vehicle to vehicle when it is required.
Today, I saw the wires that Honda had connected to the back of that
plug.  The plug itself was rated at ten amps.  However, the wires were
maybe one gauge bigger than doorbell wire.  With that fifty watt radio
pulling probably seven or eight amps (while transmitting), I'm sure I
was getting quite a voltage drop while I was keyed.  I suspect that
greatly contributed to why the transmitter was picking up so much
ignition noise from the vehicle.

    So I stopped at a new car stereo place that had just opened near
here.  There were a couple of Korean men running it.  I told him that I
wanted to run either number ten or twelve wire from the battery to the
cigarette lighter and fuse it.  He said no problem and that he could do
it right then.  He only charged me thirty-five dollars to do it for me.
Twenty years ago, I'd have done it myself.  But I'm not good at crawling
up under dashboards to run wire any more.  And as I am a rather big guy,
crawling under the dash of that Honda Civic was out of the question.

    I took off down the road and opened it up to forty-five (the speed
limit) while transmitting at the radio's full fifty watts.  The fellow I
was talking to over my ham set said if I hadn't told him that he was
looking for ignition noise, he'd never have noticed it.  He said there
was barely any left.  So I think I solved the problem.

    I can't believe Honda installed a cigarette lighter plug with such a
small gauge of wire.  Sheesh.




Fred