Notebook comp. for contesting??

[K3BU at aol.com]

In a message dated 97-01-19 18:53:32 EST, you write:

>>As a guest op, I have an almost never used stn at home. Deed restricted,
low wire ant. with tuner, etc. Most bands get into the computer and drive it
crazy, and the computer and monitor generate mucho birdies. Some day I must
debug all this, but I just plugged in a notebook and RF didn't touch it al
at all. 
>>

Being "forced" at this time to operate from other locations, I found that IBM
Thinkpad 500 (oldie, but goodie) works very well. It has monochrome LCD
screen, one of few that is visible in the daylight (field day, beach), by
virtue of the notebook, it has UPS - own battery to backup in case of power
failure (generator dies?), nice and compact - true notelogbook, quite well
shielded, very little hash. Most of the hash was coming from the switching
power supply, but that was supressed with ferite chokes or by use of the
conventional PS. It has built-in 1 ser and 1 par port, I expanded the memory
to 12 Mb and added PCMCIA 2nd ser port for 2nd radio. Using TR loging program
and in last two contests not a hickup. (yea when you put it in suspend mode,
clock stops) Keyboard is adequate and the whole thing fits nicely on table
among radios. I run in windows with GEOCLOCK and TR available at click of
ALT-TAB. While you call CQ, you can look at the grey line map. Just finishing
setup for two radios operation on one band. It all fits nicely in a carry on
luggage with TS870 and rest of the "shack". It is now used also at the home
station for logging.
Good luck!
Yuri, K3BU