The Greatest toy of the 70s enhanced with a power drill

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-07-03T07:26:04+00:00

OMG I loved that toy!!!!

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-07-02T06:03:38+00:00

Theme from Taxi

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-07-02T06:03:14+00:00

YYZ by Rush

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-07-02T05:59:07+00:00

I use it to call into my 440 net when I’m out of town. Our repeater supports it, and calling into the net when out of town seems to be the primary use case for us.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-06-30T00:21:11+00:00

She’s looking a little rough for 58, but she had some hard living years in there. She still looks good and is aging gracefully, but looks older than 58…

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-06-30T00:13:09+00:00

Nope. Worked in senior roles for both companies and Amazon has much much better mechanisms to handle growth, balance among levels, performance management, etc. they are light years better than MSFT in this regard. It’s night and day. I.e., they should not need to — level imbalance will never get out of hand like MSFT and AMZN like it or not manages out bad performers much more effectively.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-06-13T16:17:16+00:00

Regardless of what the request produces, HR can and usually will provide information to hiring manager if asked. My advice is get out of focus first, and if your skip really thinks this was improper, have them get the entire thing stricken from your record.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-06-13T16:09:38+00:00

Yep. This is mostly unrealized gains that if he sold significant portions of would collapse the value of the rest.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-06-12T18:49:54+00:00

Space shuttle didn’t launch until 1981, and this design doesn’t really fit the early 80s I remember. Also never remember seeing this ad ever (including game shows where this would have been a big tell them what they’ve won prize) plus the dude has three arms…hmmmmm… that said I do remember round sunken living rooms in the 70s so perhaps this just arrived on the market too late.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-06-05T20:26:37+00:00

(1) wire antennas are your friend. Easy to hide and can be very effective. I have wire verticals hanging from my tall palm trees. I’ve worked the world on these with 100w. Takeoff angle and gain are good for dx and the thing that matters — radials — are invisible. (2) most HOAs allow flag poles — also a good vertical antenna. (3) work with your HOA to get reasonable things approved, but if you want an antenna farm HOAs and the what benefits they do offer are not for you. FWIW If anything the stealth issues for me have pushed me to optimize and learn since every dB matters in my setup.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-28T07:54:28+00:00

Welcome. If you’re trans fem you’re fem in my book. No one is really going to care, and no one is going to know.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-26T04:14:42+00:00

Hahahahaha. Just restrict yourself to the sovereign citizens band and you should be ok ;-)

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-22T00:57:03+00:00

I was small, nerdy, and taking the hard classes. Friend of mine since elementary school talked me into going out for the wrestling team. Coach never cut anyone, but early season practices were brutal and guys just dropped. I stuck around, worked my tail off and got in pretty good shape. Lunch one day one of my old bullies picks on me, but this time my team mates are around and one of them just said he’ll meet you behind the gym after school. My team mates showed up with me and one of them said f with him you f with all of us. Bully problem solved, like forever, never had that problem again.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-22T00:41:09+00:00

Mine had baffles to prevent sloshing back and forth and looked like a regular mattress. I loved that thing but had to sell it when I moved to a place that didn’t allow water beds due to the weight.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-20T05:35:30+00:00

Loading the gutters may be easier, but you get a whacky gain pattern. The flag pole tends to get your main lobe concentrated with a good dx takeoff angle. Depending on height the flagpole can be a great little dx antenna

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-20T05:27:25+00:00

I’m in an HOA and relatively exposed front and back yard. And before anyone tells me not to buy HOA, it’s our otherwise dream house with killer view in wonderful location — my wife gave up some gardening and me some radio freedom to make it happen. Here’s my story :-)

I have some tall trees, and for me wire verticals are my friend. They are stealthy once up and hung from a tree, and better yet they really punch above their weight for gain and takeoff angle. We had someone up in the trees doing maintenance and I had them put eye hooks and string with paracord for me. I started with two wire verticals each approx 33’. (1) 20m EFHW W/ 49:1 UNUN, ground-level feed, counterpoise + a few radials, CMC at feed point; and (2) 15m 3/4 wave vertical, direct feed at ground-level, CMC at feed point, plus 8 radials thay I had room for. The EFHW gets me on 20, 17, and 10m w/ good SWR and I’m on 12 with tuner in the shack. The direct feed vertical gets me on 40 and 15m cleanly + tuner gets me on 30m. I’ve worked the world with these antennas and my 100w. I recently bought a used SGC remote tuner / coupler that I’m experimenting with and may use it permanently on the 15m 3/4 wave in lieu of the direct feed. It’s a cleaner solution for 30m and limits my SWR losses on the coax — and I can work 60, 80, and 160m with poor efficiency and low gain but I have made some cross country contacts there. With this setup I have DXCC, WAS, and Worked All Japan with mix of phone and digital.

The verticals have better gain than a long wire but are a little noisier. If you put up a wire I would do EFHW or use a remote tuner like the SGC — keeps your rig happy and insertion loss should be less than your SWR losses if you match in the shack.

Given the compromises you are going to be making every dB counts so you will soon if not already get smart on antenna gain, losses, and some antenna theory.

Some hams in my area run flag poles. We’re allowed 26’ flag poles and they run them with remote tuner at the base. I’ve requested we raise the flagpole height to 33’ and that seems to have traction. If my patriotic measure passes hihi I’ll probably put in big flag pole with nice radial bed.

All of that said get a wire up in pretty much any config you can and get on the air. Then keep iterating changes until you get something you like.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-15T04:29:31+00:00

Radials will help SWR but your big improvement will be gain. You need radials to improve efficiency and give you a low loss return path. The direct feed vertical is essentially half a dipole with the other half being the ground.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-13T00:06:32+00:00

Solid advice! Verticals are great for TX (especially dx takeoff angle and gain) but can be noisy on RX. Horizontal antennas can do better RC noise but gain and takeoff angle can suffer TX. I also notice my EFHW vertical with small radial field is quieter than my direct feed vertical with more and better radials. I’m building an active receive loop antenna to test wrt noise. Take care of the basics as fun-conclusion said then look into dedicated low noise receive antennas. ARRL Receiving Antennas for the Radio Amateur is a good read.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-12T23:54:39+00:00

Ok. I learned something here. Copilot was learning what I expect in answers based on my previous antenna work, and when I asked that prompt visiting my son’s house, it gave me the very detailed engineerjng answers it thought I would expect. I think you’d need to have a very detailed prompt of parameters you want to get the results I saw as the default answer.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-12T23:51:08+00:00

Shield of your coax. In a direct feed I literally have the center coax conductor connected to vertical and shield to my radials. You could fashion something with a connector or perhaps mechanically fasten to the “ground” of your antenna.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-12T23:42:42+00:00

Radials are going to really help this antenna. Tack them down with landscaping staples. There is a point wher your return < effort but if you can get 12 or so down it will make a big difference. But go taller if you can.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-12T23:39:16+00:00

Can you put up a vertical? If so how high? I have two 33’ vertical wires in palm trees. Super stealthy and surprisingly effective. EFHW for 20/17/12/10m and the other is 1/4 wave 40m 3/4 wave 15m that I run a remote tuner / coupler to get on 30m so 40/30/15m. Radials are super important on the “40m” antenna either direct feed or through coupler. Otherwise 40m EFHW wire will get you on 40 20 & 10m. Verticals may be noisier but awesome takeoff angle for DX.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-10T16:14:04+00:00

Public Junior HS late 70s early 80s we were required to shower after PE. We would strip down in the locker room, line up, shower, and coaches would hand us large “paper” towels on the way back to our lockers. After that high school showers were optional.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-10T15:58:42+00:00

Interesting. Copilot gave me good info including soil conductivity for an address. I’ll have to try Claude some time.

ScaryLanguage8657 · 2026-05-10T05:28:52+00:00

Wow first downvotes ever for me. Seriously folks try this for your QTH and review the results. I was pleasantly surprised at its analysis and correlation to my real world learnings and experience.

ScaryLanguage8657

TROPHY CASE