[Boatanchors] Effortless Theft

[John Lawson]

   Something that can occur after you let your Moral Compass get too close 
to the Instant Gratification Degausser.


   I LOVE books!

  I have well over 10K books. I have been a lifelong reader since earliest 
childhood. At swapmeets I'm known for buying every box of books I can 
find. Then there's Amazon, abebooks.com, and several BnM bookstores. I 
disconnected my TV feeds years ago and don't miss it for a second. During 
my school years I regularly trolled the alleys and sidewalks for cast-off 
books. Very occasionally certain titles would 'disappear'. My mother 
generally told me she found "bugs" on them and had to throw them out. :)


BOATANCHORS:

  Been working sporadically on my RCA BTA-500MX.  At first I was going to 
tune it up for just 75 Fone, but I've found a slick way to "bandswitch" it 
w/out a lot of manual intervention or excessive mods. It'll do 160, 80, 
and 40 that way. 500 "real" watts is plenty in my 'umble opinion, and to 
stay within the boundaries of my Grant, I'll dial 'er down to about 300. 
Keeps the 833 PA tube barely warm - happy and content.

  I just had the R390 and R-388 out of the rack and on the bench for some 
minor TLC: The -388's dial-drum had slipped a bit and was off by a 
band...  made for interesting tuning, HIHI.  R-390 got a solid-state 
voltage power supply mod to eliminate the hard-to-find rectifier and hot 
VR pass tubes.  Now it works FB and runs much cooler.  All mods were done 
on the sockets, and thus it can be put back to 'factory' in about 5 
minutes.  Also re-did the outboard audio chains to allow for ease of 
recording and playback of audio into the transmitters.  (Currently I'm 
running an Alinco DX-70 with an SB-200 if I need to put some Fire into the 
Wire.) Microphone is a 1956 EV 866 'boom' mike.


   And there you have it - Happy New Year to everyone - and on Monday - 
remember what Dr. King said:  "I have a dream! I have a dream that my four 
little children will one day live in a nation where they will NOT be 
judged by the color of their skin, but by the CONTENT OF THIER CHARACTER."



Cheers
John KB6SCO
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