[Boatanchors] Offended by "Ham-mered?"

[Donald Chester]

> From: "David Stinson" <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>

> I've been told a couple of people are "offended" by
> my description of a piece of gear which has suffered
 the usually pointless, needless application of
"the golden screwdriver"
> as having been "Ham-mered."

My pet term for the person who does that kind of handiwork is "Hammy Hambone", and I sometimes refer to the work as "Hammy Hambone modifications".  A classic example would be blasting holes in the front panel of an otherwise nice piece such as a mint condition 1935 HRO, for some useless modification or else one that ends up not working.  I am not beyond component and circuit changes that make a real improvement in performance of a unit that I plan to regularly use in my station, but I try to make modifications on a classic piece completely reversible whenever possible. If some mod would inescapably require drilling a hole into a piece of vintage gear, I rig up a prototype first without the permanent alteration, even if it means components dangling outboard by leads coming out through ventilation louvres.  Only after a change has been tried, tested and proved its worth would I make such an alteration permanent and irreversible.

Whenever making changes to a vintage/antique piece, I try whenever possible, to use components from the same era as when the unit was first manufactured, preferably for modifications that could conceivably have been made by an owner when the piece was new.

People over the air and on web forums are occasionally offended by my use of "Hammy Hambone",  the term "appliance operator", calling a modern transceiver a "plastic radio", referring to SSB as "slopbucket", and calling certain AM hang-out frequencies the "AM Ghetto".

Don k4kyv