As you can see that my life has devolved into a mini-vacation into my "other" hobby, Amateur Radio, and in constructing a small QRP radio, I discovered my beloved Tek 2445 was turning fuzzy on me. So that turned into a side trek into repairing the 2445 and re-learning the innards of Textronix oscilloscopes. I finally found the culprit with the help of my good friend, Dick, WB6JDH and, after I fixed the little beast, he drooled with envy over the bright, clean, pencil-lead thin trace as well as the on-screen cursors and frequency/voltage level displays.
I am sure most of you are now snoozing but for me, this sort of thing is positively intoxicating. So, grab the NoDoz and hang with me for a minute.
Anyway, the crafty WB6JDH convinced me that I desperately wanted the 7704A mainframe (and four plug-ins) he had and he would gladly swap me for my newly restored 2445.
I laughed and figured I'd take it home to humor him. It'd probably crowd everything else out on the bench so I'd just return it to him on the next trip and either sell the 2445 to him or take it home again. Long story short, with a little ingenuity, I crafted a pedestal for it and put my variable power supply below that so there was actually had more room than before. Here it is, in flagrante delicto:
..and I am now in a learning loop that promises to occupy my time until we get more serious about politics in mid-year. I promise you I'll take this off-line to a new blog I am starting for my ham radio adventures.
Until then, I believed that full disclosure was in order.
And, it seems I surfaced just in time to see that the pantload has stepped in it and got ripped a new one by Speaker Boehner.
“The President of the United States has a unique opportunity and responsibility to lead this nation. President Obama has acknowledged the challenges we face, but – thus far – he has done nothing to offer solutions. Now, worse, his political organization is colluding with special-interest allies across the country to demagogue reform-minded governors who are making the tough choices that the President is avoiding.
“This is not the way to begin an ‘adult conversation’ about solutions to the big challenges facing our country. Rather than inciting protests against those who speak honestly about the challenges we face, the President and his advisers should lead.
“When the American people watched the people of Greece take to the streets to protest cuts to unsustainable government programs, they worried it might foreshadow events in our nation’s distant future – but today, we see the same sort of protests on the streets of Madison, fueled by President Obama’s own political machine.
“Rather than trying to ‘win the future,’ the President’s political allies are trying, desperately, to cling to a failed past by fighting reforms our nation needs to liberate our economy from the shackles of debt and create a better future for our children and grandchildren. The President should make it clear to his friends that the people of Wisconsin, and states across America, can handle their own affairs without Washington special-interest money and meddling."
..pretty stiff language; I just hope Boehner and the rest of the guys we sent back to D.C. in November start putting various members privates in vices and begin turning the crank.
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