- 2022
- Mar
- 23
Cuyahoga Falls Amateur Radio Club Hamfest - April 9 2022
I’m debating on attending this show. It’s a bit of a drive, but I’m itching to get out of the house and drag home more junk.
If I do end up going, I’ll post some pics of the “good stuff” I bring home.
Where: Emidio & Sons Banquet Center, 48 E Bath Rd, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223
When: April 9th 2022, 8A-1P EDT
- 2022
- Mar
- 23
Just because it fits doesn’t mean it will work…
One of the things you have to deal with while using old equipment is ancient batteries.
This 1985 Kaypro 2X+88 machine has an early real-time clock, but hasn’t kept time for the better part of two decades.
Interestingly, the battery (the yellow cylinder in the right of the picture) was still available as an off-brand replacement. Voltage checked ok, but soldering the battery on the board resulted in a no-boot condition. The battery was removed and the board completely cleaned of any flux before re-installation and successful boot.
I’m not sure what happened here, but that’s another danger of old equipment - stuff may just not work anymore. I assume that either the little bit of flux on the board was causing issue, or perhaps the clock chip is now damaged from the long-term low voltage. In either event, I need to see if I can get a NOS clock chip before replacing the battery with an off-board 3V pack made up of standard alkalines.
The machine seems happy, and has been sitting at directory for quite some time.
This post is from my LinkedIn profile, you can view it here:
- 2022
- Mar
- 23
Don’t overlook the power cord.
One of my pieces of bench equipment needed some minor maintenance recently.
This Eico 147A Signal Tracer, used for tracking audio down in equipment as well as pulling a demodulated signal off AM circuits, needed a new line cord. There really wasn’t a lot to do here save to be careful when working around older components.
The device itself is very clean inside, and appears to have seen very little actual use before my acquisition. As you can see by the picture of the cord itself, it was well past time for replacement.
This post is from my LinkedIn profile, view it here:
- 2022
- Mar
- 23
I don’t know if I want to.
I snapped this picture years ago while taking some scrap in for recycling. Not only do I not have any clue what they were actually doing here, I’m not sure I want to do it in this somewhat rough area…
- 2021
- Jul
- 21
Columbus, Ohio Hamfest 2021
After being cancelled in 2020 due to circumstances, the Columbus, Ohio hamfest returns to the Aladdin Shrine Temple in Grove City on August 7th, 2021.
This is a small show, maybe about 2-3 hours at the most, but I’ve always pulled some good junk out of here. I’m hoping with this being the first show in a few years, it will have even more good junk. Check back for pictures of the event and the finds (er, junk) I drag home!
Time, date, and location of the event.
- 2021
- Jul
- 20
Getting set up.
Welcome to Projects from the bottom drawer and wereboar.com. This blog used to be hosted on pygg.xyz, and was hosted on blogger.com before that. Pygg has since been relegated to a (poorly performing) redirect to here, and the blogger links are long gone.
If you’ve arrived at this page by scrolling through my blog, thank you. This is currently both the beginning and end, check back soon for more posts about hamfests, projects, and the random ramble about tech things.
If there’s something you’d like to see more of (or less!) then LinkedIn is a good way to contact me. If you’d like a more user-friendly venue, you can find me on Mastodon. That avenue is fairly new to me, it will generally follow new posts as they appear here, with comments and conversation.
Again, welcome, and thanks for stopping by. See you at the hamfest!