Yet Another Boring Gripe
It seems that I have loads that gets in the way of an easy way out these days, there is a list of things that are ever growing that are so annoyingly in the way of what I would hope is an easy day off things I suppose does that make sense? I have lost two morse keys that after turning this place upside down and ripping apart I have not located two of my most favourite keys, this is not all, there are things that I really want to get, but either funds stop me, or that the people selling them will not return my e-mails, it’s kind of like the “Palstar Effect” or the problem with “Peter Rodmell”, maybe an easy life is ignoring people that will not answer or choose not to answer you, and then you get everyone e-mailing you because they share the same interest, and I suppose that I kind of suffer from the same incurable disease as I too do not answer everyone, although with me its due to the lack of many brain cells being dimmed by the cancer treatment as well as the medications that follow, so on my account if I have not answered you then please make it known in another e-mail as I “DO” quite often forget, and that is all that it is.
I have been busy cleaning house a little, basically computers, radio equipment, electronics are being cleaned out of the house and making it’s way to the local refuse site, and as they do not except any electrical items I have had to say goodbye as it gets tipped into the ‘metal only’ bin, I have too much stuff that I basically have no use for, having cleared out the VHF, UHF radios in the past, I did not need the VHF, UHF and SHF Amplifiers, Pre-Amps etc, and why do I really need to keep all these old RF Linears that I hoped to return to life one day but either have not been able to locate the spares that I need or am not paying the rippoff prices that people think that they are worth, so I cleared out about 12 Linear Amplifiers, I was not totally stupid though I had a good few days breaking them down for Transformers, vacuum tubes and the odd relay etc worth keeping which only now leaves me with the thought that I need to get yet more storage cabinets, bugger!
In the quest to empty two rooms to 1. Find things that I have lost or 2. Make room for refurbishment, I have learnt a few profound things, the first is the fact that there never enough space to enable any room to be truly emptied, and whatever does get taken to the tip there are always more things to get tipped.
I now live in a bit of a mess, I have a workshop that has been upturned and made into a mess, I now have space under the desks to put my feet, it is a nice change, I have enough desk space even for the cats to find another keyboard to walk over when they need to. Cleaning the rooms out a little have proven one thing though, I only have enough strength to do this for one day before spending a day asleep and then two days in pain, I hate being ill, and this bloody stuff is a constant remember to me that I really wish that it would end sometime, when you get times where I cannot take a sip for an entire day, by the end of this day my throat is raw, in pain and feels like it is on fire, I am on so many painkillers these days that it numbs down most of the side effects of having cancer, but one thing that cannot be numbed down is how I would die for a Burger or a Pizza, and I would possibly die for any flavour at all, I was told recently by my consultant that there is a good chance that my taste buds along with my Saliva will never return as it has been so long, so even if this horrible stuff does get killed off, then can I really put up with the lack of enjoying food and drink, those around me seem to think that this is something small and something that can be ignored, we will see, I can still remember what things used to taste like, walking around Tesco’s it seems is something of a torment, I look at things, and simple things that even a five year old might taste and enjoy, and yet, it bites at me that I can not even enjoy this, I have even tried things that I do not like, and thankfully these do not have any taste as well. All I can say is thank god the Isle of Man will soon have assisted dying, a service that I may need to make the use of one day soon, and thankfully being allergic to something I may not need their services anyway.
Let’s get away from the morbid bits for a while, I have decided that I need to get hold of a few parts, I gave up on the spare parts for the FT-980, FT-200, and the many other items that still await a full restoration, from the latest Hammarlund unit that has already been causing much of a headache, to the many old KW Electronics Radios of which I still have way too many, among all of the radios that has caused me the most pain has been the Icom IC-910HX, I have put so much into this radio and spent so much, but every time I get a step nearer to having a working transceiver there is always another fault that always appears, I should have just bought a new one (ok a second hand one),by now and I would have had a bit more cash available for other jobs, it has been one radio that I had always wanted to get working, it was either this or the TS-2000X but they never made their way to my humble home, I am tempted by the IC-905 but the cost is just a little scary, it has only been the boxes of Pre-Amps and Linears for the higher frequencies that I have always wanted to just see what all this SHF was before whatever happens, happens.
So still no news from ‘Outbacker’, cannot hold my fingers crossed any more than I have but I am gripping onto hope. I need to buy two new keys, I hate to say it but I have lost two keys and I will have to replace these as until I do I will not be happy so that is another announce to me as those funds could have gone into something else. I was looking on eBay for some stuff the other day and cannot help but notice that there is a lot of gear on there with people asking for a lot for them, the one thing that made me chuckle was a Begali Morse Key and they were asking £450 and that was the starting bid, for a key that I could buy today for £299, I cannot believe some people these days, why are people getting so greedy, and looking at some photography gear and the cost on eBay is just ‘Rippoff Britain’, even stuff that I have given away in the past. There is one prick over here that was once called a friend who used to ask me for stuff and then I would see it on eBay a week later and for a bloody lot of money, then he would come round and ask for something else and then he would repeat it, so the next time I gave him a duff unit which he pit on eBay, and after selling it for a £300 profit, he came around about a week later to tell me that he could not get it working, I had it out with him and thankfully I not longer see the prick, sometimes you just know that some people want something from you just so that they can sell it and make some money from something that you gave them as a gift. They are certainly up there with idiots that want to charge you for an item that is basically crap and not going to work, I do not mind buying an item that does not work as I enjoy the challenge of restoring it, but sell it at a fair price, or do not ask a small fortune for something that is duff and you know is not repairable without spending over £600 restoring it. It is like those idiots that will put something on eBay and label it as ‘RARE’ just because it is old, I sore someone labelling a Yaesu FT-897D as ‘RARE’, Why? Are people really that pathetic?
I have slowly been working through the old backup I did of the AntenneX website that went down many years ago, it is a sad loss that site went silent key, it was a bloody useful website and as I have had to work my way through the pages and put them on this website under Amateur Radio > Antenna Play > AntenneX banner, I am only about 20% of my way through it and taken a week off due to wanting some sleep, but I will get back to it soon, sadly I must have been in a rush as I missed loads, sorry for this but what is left is still really useful, there is a lot of stuff by a load of people that need to be remembered.
Last Updated : 22nd June 2024
