[Elecraft] (Mini)P3 v SubRX

[Fred Jensen]

in the mid-50's two youngish teenagers with new General licenses decided 
to build a puzzle for the next radio club meeting.  It consisted of two 
of those Bud aluminum boxes.  Box 1 had a cord to plug into the wall, 
two switches, and two single wires coming from each end.  It weighed 
about 1/4 of a brick.

The two single wires went into the ends of Box 2 which had two #47 dial 
lamps poking through rubber grommets on top.  It weighed almost nothing. 
  Plugged in, Switch 1 turned Lamp 1 on and off, Switch 2 turned Lamp 2 
on and off.  We hacked 1/4 of a brick off and put it inside Box 2 with 
duct tape.

You could have both lamps off, one or the other on, or both on, however 
binary arithmetic had not yet arrived in Los Angeles and we failed to 
sense the significance of that.  Convinced we were going to stump 
everyone at the meeting, we brought it out during the coffee break 
before the raffle.  None of our teen friends could figure it out. The 
OT's remained silent but smiled a lot.

We finally said we'd give them a hint.  "Box 1 contains a transformer, 
two switches and two solid state diodes," just then coming onto the 
market.  "Box 2 contain two more diodes, two lamps, and 1/4 of a brick." 
  Still no one could draw the circuit, so Terry did for them.  They 
asked, "What's the 1/4 of a brick for?"  Terry said, "To make it seem 
substantial."

Rather than put a brick inside my P3, I put two little squares of 
double-stick automobile moulding tape under the two front feet to keep 
it planted on the shelf.  While I'd like to think Elecraft has a whole 
bunch of cool electronics and features to make use of all that empty 
space about to be released, I suspect it is as long as it is so it would 
keep the K-Line symmetric when lined up on the desk.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 50th Running of the Cal QSO Party 3-4 Oct 2015
- www.cqp.org

On 3/10/2015 4:14 PM, Harry Yingst via Elecraft wrote:
> You could always put a block  or bag of lead inside
>
>
>        From: Wes (N7WS) <wes at triconet.org>
>   To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
>   Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2015 1:39 PM
>   Subject: Re: [Elecraft] (Mini)P3 v SubRX
>
> Lyle, KK7P, demoed a pre-production P3 to our DX club.  When I picked it up I
> told him Elecraft better put a steel plate inside if they wanted to get that
> much money for so little weight.
>
>
>
> On 3/10/2015 10:06 AM, Jim Brown wrote:
>> K6XX used the void space in the P3 to carry hand tools to WRTC in Russia.
>>
>> 73, Jim K9YC