[BC] it's tough out there

[Broadcast List USER]

Have your child call me.

I will explain that Daddy can bring home some pretty fantastic stuff  
from work!  <g>

Of course, Daddy can bring home a NEW 40 kW FM transmitter, or a NEW  
50 kW (or more) AM transmitter.

However, the real fun comes around when Daddy brings home modules that  
can be lashed up, just like taping down the PTT on a consumer hand- 
held portable two-way radio.

Oh, the fun of it!

It reminds me of when I was a kid, and my Dad could bring home nearly  
any chemical I might want.  Sadly, he did not have a source of radio  
parts.  I asked for some Sulfuric Acid one day.  He did.  He handed me  
a wood box that had a glass box with a wax "sealed" (only to keep it  
from moving) and wire tied glass stopper on a glass bottle of 18 molar  
Sulfuric Acid.

I gently closed it back up, and handed it back to him.  I didn't want  
it.  He asked why.  I told him it was too strong.  He said, "dilute  
it!"  I explained that just removing the glass stopper could cause the  
water vapor in the air to boil in the acid, and I didn't want to be  
burned.  It took a while to explain it, but he took it back to work  
and brought me some six molar.  If he knew what I would do with even  
that, it wouldn't have come home, OR he would have wanted to watch.

He had the box sitting on the seat of his 1966 (I think) Chevy pick-up  
truck on the way home.  I THINK it was on the floor, or maybe in the  
bed on the way back to work.  The bottle was in a hinged and latched  
wood box, packed in a straw like material.

The six molar he brought home was more conventionally packed.   
Similar, but cardboard.  I left it home when I want to college.  I  
wonder what happened to the left over acid.

And, no, I never made any explosives.  However, I could really build  
up a nondestructive stink bomb.  And, no, I never took one to school.

I never fully "got" chemistry fully.  I wonder what I would have  
lashed up if my father had access to what you have.  I imagine I would  
have, at minimum, 1500 Watts on all VHF and UHF bands, and maybe more  
at MF and HF.

--chip

On Feb 16, 2010, at 3:14 PM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:

> Message: 22
> From: Jeff Welton <welton.jeff at gmail.com>
> [...]
> Fast forward to last night - I'm plugging away on the laptop and he  
> comes down and says, "hey Dad, listen!".  He holds up one of the  
> talkies and I'm hearing to cartoons... he taped the PTT switch down  
> on the other unit and put it in front of the TV - he was so proud  
> that he could walk anywhere in the house and listen to the TV (I  
> said, "boy, you just invented radio" - automated radio, but the  
> concept was good).  Then he asked if he could take the unit he was  
> listening on to school tomorrow.
> [...]
> Jeff Welton
> Regional Sales Manager - Central U.S.
> Nautel