IT'S GETTING HOT DOWN HERE IN TEXAS
It seems like yesterday when we were faced with ice, sleet, and the loss of electricity, yet here it is: May 09 2021, Mother's Day, and even with this Sunday forecast to be mostly cloudy, the temperature is expected to be around 88° (and humid). A scant 23 days from now it will be the start of the 2021 Hurricane season as well.
This months update has some new (and old) listening and reading enjoyment for most of you. In the listening dept. I've added several new QSO's to listen to (upper right corner):
- UK Freeband Net of May 2nd
- Tango-Charlie Net from yesterday (May 8th)
- And older hams discussing dating in the modern world
SHACK NEWS DEPT.
Several rigs sacrificed their lives to enable me to purchase a new QRP transceiver, ICOM's new IC-705. Since it's arrival, and after playing around with only a few of it's many features, I think I feel good enough about the 705 to slim the shack down even further.
Beyond financing, the biggest obstruction I had to overcome to buy this ICOM was it's ergonomics - It looked like a large detachable head that was missing it's body, and to me it looked almost unnatural. I've owned several FT-817's over the years and while tiny, it looked like a complete radio that was ready to be tossed in a backpack or just slung over the shoulder using a strap. Once I got past the appearance hurdle it was "Game On". I don't want to tell you too much about my experience with this marvelous portable QRP rig at the moment, as I would prefer it all to be in one blog post as a review, so 'nuff said about the 705 for now...
OLD NEWS DEPT.
As you noticed last month, I posted an old newspaper article about CB radio which seemed to be popular with many of you, so I'm going to do this periodically, perhaps once a month. This months piece comes from 1974, and is entitled "THE CB SUBCULTURE".
THIS MONTHS RETRO CARTOONS:
HAM
CB
MAGAZINE COVER OF THE MONTH
(This months cover comes from the February 1973 of 73 magazine)
THIS MONTHS YOUTUBE CLIP
So until next month -
73,
Woody