[Professional Engineer]

Now it's hard to find kits anymore.

There are still some fantastic kit manufacturers out there, though most specialize in ham radio gear rather than general electronics. Give these a try:

Elecraft

My K2 was an absolute blast to build. My dfaughter enjoys it as well. ;-)

[Denver Ditdat]

That's a great pic, P.E. You're raising her right!

dahdahdididit didididahdah

[Denver Ditdat]

A PS to my last post - I love your radio bench. It's easy to tell that you have a lot of fun with your rigs. My kinda shack!

[cva66snipe]

LOL That picture reminds me of a switchboard operator where I worked. I carried a two way business radio and she could never grasp the concept of push to talk release to listen. I would have to walk from where ever I was to the front desk and tell her for the 100th time to release the mike. Oh yea in between that she would hit page out {PL} tones :>{

[AndrewC]

I noticed your Air Force mug.

Peace is our Profession. War is just a hobby. And I've been at this hobby for many, many, years.

[capt. norm]

Oh what I wouldn't give to have a nice setup like you have.

I'd be spending nearly all of my Saturdays there plus many weeknights up to about 4 AM. (it always seems to me that the good stuff happens really late)

Here in hurricane country we very much appreciate the countless hours that ham radio community puts forth. If you think about all the people at TV stations, police departments, National Guard, paramedics, firemen etc. that are hard at work, remember that out of all that, the hams are among the very few who are not getting paid. No tax dollars, just good citizens who devote a lot of time and money (ham gear ain't cheap) to public service.

The government (FCC) rewards them by chopping up the ham bands in ever smaller pieces. In spite of all this the ham operators continue to be the most courteous radio operators out there.

I have a neighbor who has a set of beams up on his roof. A couple Saturdays ago I walked by while he was working outside on some connections. Aloft there must have been at least a half-dozen pigeons perched on the beam elements, so I asked him if the 'bird count' affected the SWR. Although I was joking, he said they really did affect it and for a while he couldn't figure out what was changing the tuning characteristics of the antenna system when nothing else had been changed.