Trials & Errors #79: Our Expensive Hobbies

I just wanted to throw my thoughts in here even though it is a little late. I find myself slowly gravitating to hobbies that allow me to create, besides ham radio, I also do whittling and I am getting ready to learn to sew as well. My lovely lady has agreed to teach me the finer points of sewing.

As for balancing it all with my better half......I just happen to have a lady that is also a Ham and encourages me whenever I need it. I make sure to not take advantage and spend too much however. Anyways, great article even if I am a little late to the forum.

 

Warning. Sewing is HARD.

 

Well, if you are Alan Milliard you take either an engine from an aeroplane or build a V10 and put it in a bike, but the biggest commercial bike available in the UK is probably a Triumph Rocket 3 with a 2.5 litre sized engine.

There are many bikes round here that are 1000cc or bigger. My two bikes are a Yamaha 900 Tracer, at 850cc and a KTM 390 Duke at 373cc.

In the UK you usually start by doing a "Compulsory Basic Training" (CBT) course that lets you have up to 125cc on 'L' plates then you can go on to do various stages of license. Mine is a full 'A' which means I'm allowed any size bike. Getting insurance is another issue.

Dave (G0DJA)

 

My wife says my hobby is collecting hobbies.

#1 Electronics and building things. One of my first kits was a Knight KM-15 audio amplifier that I built when I was 12. I’ve continued with audio, upping the game as I went. My most expensive hobby by far. I’m now building a 9.4.6 home theater, 144” Dia screen, laser projector, etc. Big system engineering job. Lots of fun.

Ham radio has always been a great avocation, somewhat on and off as living and working conditions dictated what I could put up for a station. Doesn’t seem to matter how sophisticated my station is- I have lots of fun with it.

#2 Backpacking and camping and other outdoor pursuits. I get at least one backpacking trip in a year, and do a lot of day hikes. Yesterday was 11 miles and 3000’ vertical to Lake of the Clouds in the Sangre de Christo range. Next week I’ll do a 14’er with some friends. M Kelly and I have a Class B camper van and are touring the US. I occasionally get to the Boundary Waters for weeklong wilderness canoe trips.

3. Bicycling has been a love from an early age. I’ve done a few Ride the Rockies Trips - week long adventures over mountain passes, 500 miles and 24000 feet of climbing. Haven’t done one of those for awhile. Now it’s mostly mountain biking here in Colorado.

4. Flying. PPMEL IA. Soloed when I was 17, got my private at 18. I owned a Grumman AA5B, fun airplane. This hobby demanded a lot of time to stay safe and current IFR. Not active now.

5. Photograpy - I started on B&W using school darkrooms in HS and college. I still shoot the occasional roll of HP5 or Tri-Ex. Have a digital SLR gathering dust on the shelf.

6. Astronomy. Almost became a professional astronomer. Built a 10” reflector and got into film astrophotography. That proved to be a PITA. Haven’t gone digital yet. I have a small Questar 3 1/2 telescope that I love to use. It’s a work of art.

7. Boating and fishing. We own a pontoon boat, a sunfish, and a canoe and use them all every summer. I go fly-in fishing in Canada with a group of friends. We land an occasional trophy Northern and feast on Walleye. Always a good time.

Sometimes I get to do these in combination, like SOTA and POTA, and taking pix when backpacking. That makes these hobbies really fun.

 

Amazing Tom . . . you've got us all beat, for sure. Keep up the good work! Dave

 

Many hobbies allow a vast range of expense. Ham radio is one of those hobbies, where one can build a QRP transceiver kit and add a wire to nearby tree for close to if not less than the cost of acquiring an amateur license. Sub $20 HTs are also available. Or, at the other end, some buy acreage on an island and put up a forest of towers with stacked Yagi's. Or anything in between.

Or the expense can even go negative. Some years, I sold a good amount of ham radio iPhone apps (there was less competition than today, what with AI coding and such). My accountant told me how much I could expense of my "test equipment".

 

Thanks Ron. Lots of us are familar with your work and the cool apps you've come up with. Seems like you turned a hobby into a business! Regards, Dave

 

As a guy from completely different "culture", we usually date friends (I am not going to say there is not a problem with friendzoning, but some weeks ago I tried to calculate how often I got friendzoned and there were only 3 attempts, all of them unsuccessful, although last one lasted a bit too long - that was because she was a student of psychology, thus I suppose she was trained in using many manipulation techniques and probably wrote a MSc. thesis based on her experiments on me - we are trained to avoid friendzoning here) thus most of my girlfriends shared significant part of my interests. Or at least pretended that for some time (first one).
But, while I know some YL ham radio operators, I would say only one or two I know I consider attractive (and one of them is free ). None of my gfs was interested in ham radio at all, including Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology graduate (that one is IT security expert/cryptologist).