"Mike" <W4EF@dellroy.com> said --
>I ran into a young guy at the Pomona swap meet last month
>who was looking for amplifier parts. He bought some
>Motorola sytle power combiners from one guy who had a
>bunch of healthy looking amplifier parts (big vacuum caps,
>3CX3000 socket, etc). From the gist of the conversation
>I am pretty sure this guy was a freebander or so-called "AMer".
>Sounded like he wanted to build a healthy mobile amp with
>the parts he picked up. Later I ran into him at another booth
>where he was looking at an HP141T spectrum analyzer.
>He said he wanted to look at harmonics, but seemed a little
>nervous when I started asking about what frequencies he
>was interested in. I went on to explain about the various
>plug-ins available for the HP141T and there availability
>on places like Ebay (the unit he was looking at came with
>the 18 GHz plug-in).
>
>My guess is that this fellow would make a good ham. He
>didn't seem shy at all about jumping into what looked to be
>a fairly challenging construction project (he has likely built
>more amps than I have). If I see him again maybe I will try
>steering him in our direction.
There ya go, Mike -- this is EXACTLY the kind of person we need to bring
into our fold!
Now, there is an outside chance he might slip an amp to a CBer under the
table, but it's a whole lot likelier that when he tells his friends he
worked into the Falkland Islands or Borneo on 20 watts voice on 20 meters
-- they'll want to become hams too!
Ain't no big deal working the next county on 11 meters with 50 kW -- unless
the receiver is a cavity tuned DUMPSTER!
Please, please, be nice to the freebanders and show them the One True Way.
Save the wouff hong for later, because their "maul" can ignite any wouff
hong ever made except for the one the Old Man placed in the France
standards museum -- it's made from a titanium-palladium alloy and has a
temperature expansion coefficient of +0.00000000001 m/degree C. And it's
stored for immediate use in a vat of liquid nitrogen in the lobby.
Be afraid. be very, very afraid.
jim N6OTQ
|