[Boatanchors] Hamfest stories - Giving

[John Lawson]

At every 'fest I attend, I always look for, and buy, older gear - scopes, 
generators, meters, etc.

   Then, I always take a stash of them - and any person who looks 18 or 
younger expressing an interest - generally gets thier pick of the gear on 
hand.

   I have given away countless pieces of such equipment and whole bench 
set-ups to interested young people - who of course nowdays are few and 
far-between.

   Even now in one of my storage units are three or four shelves crammed 
with such gear...  I've also donated locally to schools and vocational 
outfits.


   I've been blessed more than once with young persons coming up to me at 
swapmeets to tell me that I started them on their engineering/hi-tech 
career by giving them their first instruments and Stuff when they were 
kids.


  And: any kid at one of my tables who expresses interest can pretty much 
have anything he/she wants, for free or really cheap bux - once I sold an 
HP 141T system complete with tracking generator for next-to-nothing 
because the young man was A) practically salivating over it and B) knew 
what it was for and spoke intelligently about why he wanted it.


    I got my first "good" scope (a Dumont dual-beam monster) in 8th grade - 
I gave $5 for it...  I could hardly sleep for a week - I had to 
practically be physically restrained from playing with that instrument to 
the exclusion of all else...    HIHI.  Never forgot that - I've tried to 
"return the favor" - been pretty successful so far!



Cheers

John KB6SCO