Ed,

EV>That reminds me of a article in CQ Magazine saying something about if a
EV>Ham was going to get married he first should buy that expensive Radio
EV>that he is wanting to buy and then put it in the attic of the house so
EV>a lot of dust can accumulate on it and then a few months after the I DO
EV>to tell the wife he is going to go look up in the attic to see if there
EV>is any of his old radio stuff that he might want to start using again
EV>and then he brings it into his Hamshack.

  Great story. That reminds me of the story where this guy has the ham
shack down in his basement. His wife never went down there, always
content to let her husband go to "the ham cave". 
However, she wasn't
too happy about him getting new radios, etc.

  Well, this guy was lucky enough to have "a candy store" (think Amateur
Electronic Supply, Ham Radio Outlet, etc.) nearby. One day, he got the
idea to lug an empty box up the stairs, but told his wife that "The
radio is on the blink, and I have to go get it repaired". He added that
"This place in town has a great service department, and I can ususually
get it back the same day".

  She thought nothing of it, and let him take the "radio" (in truth, the
empty box) to be "repaired". Late that afternoon, he came back with the
box, saying "What a great service department!! Everything is working
again!!". What he did NOT tell her what that there was a NEW radio in
the box.

  That worked...until she finally figured out what was going on. LOL
(And, that's a true story!!). :)

EV>A Ham operating at A.R.R.L.'s W1AW Hamshack normally wouldn't be during
EV>a Contest, would it?

  Good point...I don't think so, but I don't make the rules for
contests, work contests, or run W1AW. ;)

EV>My wife one time came up to me while I looking at another table at a
EV>Hamfest Fleamarker and showed me a copy of The Radio Amateurs Handbook
EV>and asked if I was interested in it.
EV>I saw it was newer than the one I had so I went to the other table and
EV>bought it.

  There you go. A lot of the hamfests now are getting functions for the
ladies who aren't licensed, like their husbands are. But, I've seen
cases where either just one of the couple is interested in ham radio,
and the other couldn't care less...but the best is if both are hams.

  One deal I saw at the 2013 Ham Holiday in Oklahoma City was a new set
of award certificates..."Worked All Neighbors" (hi hi). I've got JPGs of
that in one of the ham radio file areas on the BBS. I also found the
last regularly produced QRZ Callsign CD (Version 32, October, 2008), and
put the QSL Card JPGs online for ham radio operators to download.

EV>QRZ.COM does that for us now doesn't it?

  If you're talking about their Online Swapfest, yes. I never used it,
though. I'd rather look at the item before buying it. I had bought a
used Icom 2GAT 2 meter HT at the Monroe, Louisiana hamfest awhile back,
but all I got was "a worthless boat anchor doorstop"...the finals had
gone bad in the HT. That model was my first radio, which was SO EASY to
program and use. Technology has changed so, that you need a programming
cable and software to get the radio programmed. And, we thought a
computer operating system was difficult!!

EV>I may try it out and see if the Packet BBS I used in the mid-1990's
EV>still is on the air.

  The data radio still hasn't arrived...although on a D-Star Net last
night, one ham said that the MFJ Data Radios were causing interference
with the other radios in his shack. Since that'll be my ONLY RF gear, it
shouldn't pose that much of a problem...especially since the packet
burst is maybe 1-2 seconds at most on 5 watts...so even with an indoor
antenna, RF shouldn't be an issue.

EV>I got close to imagining what a person I talked to looked like once.

 I've made the mental image, but practically every one of them was

(Continued to next message)
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