Scavengering a friends Stash!
Rest in Peace, Paul....
Today your wonderful collection was dispersed to the masses.
You were a Packrat just as I am, maybe not on the same scale, but you saved little parts you found here and there, and it was a FEEDING FRENZY at the Swapmeet this morning to claim your Goodies.
I scored a pair of 5894 tubes, an 829B and 2 5763's.
A box of JoHansen UHF Variable caps
A box of tiny feedthroughs
and some Varicap diodes. Oh, 2 MPF102s too.
Then there was your Ebay nab of 5 Walter Ashe catalogs from the 50s/60s. You paid $17 plus shipping for them. I got them for $5.
A beautiful book "50 Years of Amateur Radio Inovation" by K9OCO.
and, of course, your Rigblaster Plus which only went for $15. Think you paid around $160 for it.
I felt kind of dirty violating your stash, but if I didn't get it, the rat bastard behind me would. It was interesting you stored all your small parts in Marlboro cigarette packages. Hundreds of them. I store mine in Cigar boxes when I can find them.
As I went through the piles, I felt more and more guilty. This was the personal Treasures of a good friend. I thought about all the time he had spent collecting them, categorizing them and so carefully protecting them from damage. They arrived safely here at my workplace.
But the vast majority of your stash went to others, or is still unclaimed.
It just may wind up being tossed, even though it is so very very valuable.
I thought about my own stash. It was mentioned to the group doing the selling and they outright REFUSED to handle MY estate. There is just TOO MUCH JUNK for any group to tackle. I estimated they would need 3 full sized moving vans to get it out to the Swapmeet. And that is if they tightly pack it.
I will go home and fondle some of the parts I have collected over the past 40 years. Will they be appreciated by someone as I am appreciating Pauls?
Will People build things out of my collection of parts? Will they put the radios I have acquired into their collections or on the air?
I have this Yaesu FT-101FX here that has become a MONEY PIT. It is closer to working, but 20 meters is still dead on TX, and 10 meters is very lame on TX. Something fishy somewhere, but have yet to find it. Will a ham in the future take this radio to their repair bench and FINALLY conquer the problems, and get it on the air?
Or will it all end up in the DUMP? That is where my wife would rather put it. JUNK IS JUNK, and it needs to be THROWN OUT! All my thousands of tubes, crystals, coils, capacitors, transistors, ICs and diodes. Filling up the earth so someone can build a HOUSE on top of it someday.
The more I look at these few parts, the more I think about Paul. I need to resolve to BUILD something out of the parts he allowed me to acquire from his estate. Build something excitng and fun. So that his LEGACY will live on, and not be resigned to the bottom of a refuse pit.
(tears dampening my eyes)
__________________
__________________
EVERY Ham should know how to properly Solder!
|
We appreciate your support.
Linear Mode
