Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Stupidest thing I've ever done

in my 30+ years in Amateur Radio?

There have been a few; such as frying the finals in my SB-104A, buying used gear that turned out to be dogs. I once bought a Kenwood R599 receiver that some idiot had tuned the 10 Meter band for CB ..... but I managed to rectify that.

Without a doubt, the stupidest thing I have ever done, in my own mind, was to sell my Heathkit HW-8. Back in the 90s, I donated it to one of the Piscataway Amateur Radio Club auctions. If memory serves me, John WA2F was the winning bidder. He's also a member of the Raritan Valley Radio Club. One of these meetings I should ask him if he still has it and make him an offer. Chances are it probably went via the RVRC Hamfest Club table many moons ago.

I've sold a lot of equipment that I've no longer wanted; but when you sell something that you've built with your own two hands ..... there's something regrettable about that. I wasn't into QRP 100% back then. I sure wish I had it now, even though it's definitely not the greatest QRP radio in the world.

Yeah, I could go on eBay or QRZ or eHam and hunt out another; but it wouldn't be the same.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very lest!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:21 PM

    I sold an HW-8. Much worse I sold an HW-9!

    I will never forgive myself for that.

    73 Dick

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  2. Danny Veseth K9KHJ12:04 PM

    My 'rig that got away' that I STILL kick myself for selling was a Ten Tec Century 22.

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  3. I've definitely let a few things slip away through the years, radios, cars, girls...oops. When I was about 13 or 14 I took my DX60B transmitter and HG10B VFO to a hamfest and tried to sell them. No one wanted the transmitter but I had several offers on the VFO. Of course, I didn't want to split them up. But a bit later I spied an SB-401 for sale and figured that with the money I had in my pocket and what I would get for the VFO I could buy it. So I hunted down the guy who had made an offer and sold my VFO. By the time I got to the table to buy the SB-401, it was gone. 6 months of operating crystal control followed and I only had 2 crystals. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

    73 Ed

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