Monday, January 08, 2018

January thaw?

I certainly hope so!

Once we get out of this deep freeze my basement shack should warm up enough to where I actually feel like spending time behind the radio and soldering iron again. I spent the afternoon yesterday putting away all the indoor Christmas decorations and my little Brookstone clock/thermometer on the shack bench-top was indicating an ambient room temperature of 56F (13C). Even with a long sleeved T-shirt (my NPOTA shirt), a golf shirt AND a hoodie sweatshirt, it was only slightly comfortable.

Such is the "advantage" of having an efficient gas fired furnace.  It radiates little radiant heat from itself, putting all the energy into the forced hot air going to the rest of the house. Now, when I was a youngster living with my parents, they had an old coal furnace that was converted to oil.  That monster would not only boil enough water to force steam to the radiators throughout the house, it always kept the immediate surrounding area in the basement warm and toasty.

For a brief while, I had my shack down there.  The way the house was situated though, made for a really long run of coax from antenna to rig. I'm sure that I lost more RF through the feed line than I radiated out into the aether.

I know I mentioned a few posts ago about getting a space heater for the basement; but those things really run up the electric bill.  If I'm going to throw money away; I'd rather throw it away on something else.

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

1 comment:

  1. Why don't you just run some duct work from the furnace into the area of your shack? If the furnace is so efficient, heating a few more cubic feet of air shouldn't be a problem.

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