Beauty Shots

Well, I got to Dayton/FDIM with most of a Spectrum Analyzer working. I had offered it to Bill Kelsey, N8ET, to show off in the Kanga booth during the hamfest, and was honored when he took me up on it. So I had a lot of work to do to get it ready. It was a couple of late nights, but I made it, and it ran all day Friday in the Kanga booth (as well as all day Saturday). Bill gave me a ride back from the hamfest Friday evening (during which I had a very nice chat with Roy Lewellan, W7EL) and then it was time for the FDIM construction contest.

It's pretty easy when you look at a receiver or a transmitter...you have a pretty good idea what they do. But I felt that you had to see something to really get the picture of what a spectrum analyzer will do. For the contest, I set the equipment up and with the crystal calibration oscillator as a signal input. This photo was taken by Brian Murrey, KB9BVN, (OO) of my contest entry.

The real fun took place Saturday night. At the banquet, it was announced that I had won the test equipment category (there were some other pretty neat projects entered by others), and then afterwards, we set the contest entries up and had a show and tell. What was great for me was sharing what I had learned in the course of this project. I've always felt a sense of gratitude for what my elmers have shared with me, and it felt really good being able to share it with others.