I am looking for a radio

. . . but not just any radio.

I have been a radio ham since I was 13. Since then I've been on and off the air, mostly off, but when I've been on I've thoroughly enjoyed it. For the last few years my activity has primarily been checking into local VHF nets. It's fun and I get to meet a great group of fellow hams, but I want more.

You see, the kind of radio I'm doing at the moment is mostly limited to line-of-sight communications. Other frequencies allow for longer distance communications, and one of the most fun things about ham radio for me is getting on the air and chatting with random strangers from far away, possibly in a country I only barely know exists and will likely never visit.

There's another reason for having long distance capability. I am volunteering as an emergency communications coordinator for my church. As I interpret it, this means that if things were ever to go seriously sideways around here I'd want to be able to get word out to the outside world. You can do some of that with line-of-sight VHF communications and relaying, but I want the capability of doing it directly, or at least being to use other frequencies and nets if necessary.

(Any radio hams who may by chance be reading this are probably going "Geez, why doesn't he just say he wants HF capability so he can check directly into traffic nets if there's an emergency?" Well that's exactly what I want, but it would take a while to explain that a traffic net isn't something car-eating aliens use to gather their lunch.)

So I'm in the market for a radio that will handle both HF and VHF/UHF and won't set me back a bunch of money I don't have. For a couple of reasons I've settled on the Yaesu FT-857. It will do every ham band below 500 MHz except for one I don't use and is small enough to pick up and travel with if necessary. Its big brother the FT-897 is a distant second. It looks more like a ham rig is supposed to look, but it's $100-$200 more expensive and from all the reviews I've read, the '857 has the same functionality as the '897. The only thing it lacks is built-in compartments for a battery and power supply. I can handle those on my own.

My third choice would be a good used HF only rig. The '857 would be better because it can do HF or VHF/UHF as the need arises, but my budget may force me to go with what I can afford.

So if you happen to know of anyone who has some amateur gear they're interested in selling, pass the word along. I'm already stalking eBay and Craigslist and checking some local sources, but sometimes nothing works better than saying, "Hey, I know a guy who might be interested in that."

Report From The Expedition

This afternoon I took my life into my hands. I donned my khaki shorts and pith helmet, gathered up three days' worth of rations and an emergency flare, and ventured into my garage. (If all the boring descriptive stuff bores you, skip down to the paragraph that begins "Exploring through the garage...")

It never fails. If we live in a house for any length of time and it has a garage, the garage ends up having all kinds of stuff in it, with almost no organization. There's stuff in that garage I swear we packed two moves ago in a box that might as well be marked "Stuff" for all the usefulness.

I went in looking for my fake Dremel. It's a Black & Decker rotary tool, and for some reason I think of it as a Dremel, even though I know the Dremel people would probably be upset at my adulteration of their trade mark. So rotary tool it is for the time being. I know I had seen it in the front of the garage some time ago, but in that garage, there's no guarantee anything will be where you left it.

While I was looking something else in the back of the garage caught my eye, so I went around to the back door of the garage and went on a spelunking expedition. Here's a partial list of what I found:

Three tool boxes!! These tool boxes had been in the garage since the last move. One was almost empty but is made of wood and would make a beautiful steampunk accessory if I could figure out exactly what kind of accesory. Besides a wonderful assortment of tools the other two contained some parts I've been looking for that I'll need to put my ham radio station together. Of course there was an odd assortment of broken earphones, soldering irons with no tips, and miscellaneous unidentifiable hardware. I think I made my wife happy by actually throwing some of the broken stuff away.

My low whistle!! I had a feeling it was in this one particular box with a bunch of yardsticks and the like, but I hadn't been able to get to the box. I cleared out a few things, got to the box and there it was. It was shorter than I remember, which might be why I never found it before.

A music stand!! And not one of those flimsy music stands you buy for a buck three-eighty online. This is a good solid steel one. Probably too big to haul to cons, but I'll have to see if I can find a place of honor for it in my bedroom/rehearsal space.

My didgeridoo! I bought one several years ago when Folklife still had their Musical Instrument Emporium. I miss the Musical Instrument Emporium. I didn't retrieve it because it's up in the rafters and there's something heavy on top of it. It's safer where it is now.

The rotary tool!! Yay. Now I can start work on an antenna project I've been meaning to do.

Several things are still missing and out in the garage somewhere. My old ham radio transceiver I've had for over 30 years; an antenna I bought about 10 years ago; an antenna tuner I will need if I build one particular antenna I have in mind; my wooden alto and tenor recorders; and the rest of my junk box. "Junk box" is a term of art in ham radio for the collection of equipment and parts a ham drawn on for repairs or construction projects, and seldom contains actual junk. Much like a ham's "shack" is his operating position, whether it's a converted outhouse, a corner of the den or a separate structure nicer than most people live in. Yeah, Radio Shack totally stole the term to name their store, and most people have no idea.

With what I have now I'll be able to repair one of my trusty 2 meter handhelds and start on a project I'm working on to build a power supply for the radio I want to buy.

Exploring through the garage brought back happy memories of going to my grandfather's house. My mother's parents lived on a fairly large corner lot near an irrigation canal in Billings, Montana. I think Granddad build the house himself. It had all sorts of quirks, from antlers over the doors to cast iron animals trapped in recessed "cages" in the fireplace. And the garage! Granddad was a rock hound and a pack rat, and nowhere was this more evident than in the garage. There were boxes all through the garage with all kinds of things, from old magazines to lapidary supplies to radio parts. He never really seemed to mind that I poked around through the garage and the basement. It could be because I never asked him.

When I opened the door to the garage today I was hit by the same smell that Granddad's garage used to have. Old wood, masses of paper and mildew. Going through the tool boxes again only reinforced that. It's amazing what memories smells can bring back to you, isn't it?

Low Whistle Is Low

I'm messing around a bit with the low whistle. The first thing I remembered about it once I got it cleaned up and put it to my lips is that the piper's grip drives me crazy. I'm used to playing the recorder, where you stop the holes with the pads of your fingers. I have a tough time getting my fingers positioned right so that they completely cover the holes. I miss the feel of the hole on the pad, except for the ring fingers which still feel like they're supposed to.

If I get a good running start though I can get the whistle to sound a low D. G, A and B are all mostly easy, but I still occasionally lose the feel of the holes, which is frustrating.

I foresee a bit of research at sites like Chiff & Fipple to get my bearings. And then it's back to the banjo.