[Elecraft] OT- A trip into Yesteryear!

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

David wrote:

I marvel at the attraction some of this old gear seems to 
still have on folks.  Nonetheless, I've seen some excellent 
restoration jobs, and I suppose there was a great deal of 
satisfaction in doing it.  

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As you know, people restore whole stations such as the "queen" of the
coastal stations KPH in California (sited by Marconi himself!)
(http://www.radiomarine.org/kph-proj.html) and ultra long-wave station SAQ
in Grimeton, Sweden (http://www.alexander.n.se/startsida_e.htm), railroad
trains and even whole ships (http://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/) as well as
cars, buildings and just about anything you can name! 

I'm glad they do. I believe it's easier to see where we're going if we can
see where we came from. 

I enjoy using simple radios just like I enjoy a good hand plane or saw in
the shop. Something gets lost when I switch to a powerful, precision machine
to do the work. Sure, state-of-the-art gear can get the job done more
reliably and more quickly, but it loses that intimacy of requiring my skill
to make it work at all. 

So, one might ask why I use Elecraft gear? I and a lot of fellows like
myself enjoy it because it's so well designed and works so well. But, for
us, raw performance isn't everything. Something we built from scratch and
had to tinker with to make it works has a certain magic that no commercial
equipment can provide.

"Fire" up, literally? Sure, that happens too, sometimes. It's part of the
challenge, Hi! 

Ron AC7AC