[Elecraft] building therapy

[Jessie Oberreuter]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, K7FD N7SG wrote:

> I agree with some of what Mike says, however the menial part of kitbuilding 
> I found to be quite theraputic (from the day-to-day troubles of life). In 
> that sense, I feel there is much redeeming value in those tasks that some 
> others may find to be a burden.


     Heh!  A few years back, I was the top R&D engineer for an embedded
company, so schematic drawings and hand made prototypes were part of daily
life.  Three pure software companies later, I was working in a Microsoft
based software shop and going absolutely nuts.  One night, in a fit of
frustration, I yanked the surround sound amp out of my home A/V rack and
spent a few hours each night for the next week reverse engineering the
port select circuitry and adding two more A/V inputs.  It was definately a
form of therapy :).  From there, I had to keep the solder fume addiction
fed!  I built a couple of Pixies for 11m (trying to get friends into cw
:), and then I bought a K1 :).  Putting that little rig together (and all
of the options) really was my sanity for a few months!  I remember coming
home from work one day just totally ready to kill someone and taking it
out on the poor little diode on the ATU board -- I shattered it trying to
make it lay flat :(.  Yeah, that was a very unhappy time for me.  Thank
God Elecraft was able to keep me supplied with projects until I was able
to find more sane employment :).


--
Jessie Oberreuter
joberreu@moselle.com
"He's a bit on edge, Mr. Johnston -- he hasn't slept since 1945."