Welcome to Handiham World.
Holiday wishes
Happy Hanukkah! The
holiday season is well-joined with the beginning of Hanukkah (December 16 - 24)
and Thanksgiving already behind us. Since this will be your second-to-last
E-letter and podcast of 2014, we want to take this opportunity to wish everyone
all the best for a wonderful holiday season. Next week we will be closed
for the Christmas holiday on Christmas Eve and reopening on Monday, December
22. We will close on Wednesday afternoon, New Year's Eve for a long New
Year's Day holiday. We reopen on Monday, January 5, 2015. There will
be no E-letter next Wednesday, so we'll take this opportunity to wish you a
Merry Christmas.
What's on your Christmas list?
Assuming you've been good boys and girls, you probably have a wish list. Will Santa deliver? I guess he probably has to balance all of your good behavior on the air with the reasonableness of your requests! Being technical-minded folks, we can imagine a sort of mathematical equivalency. Let's look at a few examples:Wish List format: Item wished for = positive behavior. We will list the item you would like and the behavior that we think should be required to earn it. Santa has to have some kind of accounting system, right?
- Bag of Anderson Powerpole connectors = Always listening before transmitting
- ARRL Handbook = Always courteous when someone else makes a mistake on the air
- MFJ Random Wire Antenna Tuner = Never forgetting to identify using complete callsign
- Heil Microphone = Remembering and using correct phonetics
- TH-F6A Handheld triband radio with navigation accessible to blind users = Participating in local VHF/UHF activities regularly, including passing traffic on local nets and acting as a net control station once in a while.
- Icom IC-7200 160 through 6 meter HF transceiver with built in voice frequency announcements = Now we are getting pretty serious about being good! Santa expects you to volunteer to help other amateurs with antenna or other projects, and to show newbies how to operate their radio equipment.
- Kenwood TS-590S or SG 160 through 6 meter HF transceiver equipped with optional VGS1 voice guide module = Santa says you have to step up to the plate and bring some runs in for this excellent blind-accessible radio. He expects nothing less than the best behavior on the air and off, plus volunteering for ham radio club officer positions, participating in and organizing on the air events, being an active ARRL member, and keeping your Handiham membership up to date.
- Kenwood TS-990S 160 through 6 meter HF transceiver with built in voice guide and recorder, 200 watts, built in power supply, triple DSP, and more = Before Santa spends that kind of money on you, he expects you to do all of the above plus be an A-1 Operator and volunteer for just about every ham radio organization and project in the book. Plus, he may ask you to chip in a bit on the cost.
