A good day at the hamfest...
The what???
OK, so amateur radio still exists, and there are still ham radio operators, and they still get together in clubs, and talk endlessly about what they've been doing, who they talked to, and maybe even some technical stuff.
And then, to get some exercise, they fill their minivans with stuff to sell, and bring it to a parking lot and have a "hamfest." No, this is not some sort of Druid wedding ceremony, it's a chance to look at crap and maybe haggle about the price and transfer it from their basement to your basement (or visa versa!)
So I knew that I needed a Wifi antenna for an old PC (the one I'm using now) and maybe that would be a good place to find one, even though it wasn't ham radio. So I went, and wandered through the ancient radio displays, "The Whole Internet Catalog" (complete with info about Mosaic and the new World Wide Web!) and connectors, batteries, old reel-to-reel tapes and much much more.
And there was, for $5 a PC card with Wifi antenna... Good thing... I'll buy it and then throw out the card, use the antenna.
The owner threw in some computer memory SIMMs and also convinced me to take two RocketFish disk clamshells, for recovering/cloning a PC's hard drive.
When I got home the antenna worked great... all the bars are lit on my wifi. excellence! Not only that, the disk clamshell contains a new 300GB hard drive, still unformatted. So it is, essentially, a 300 GB "thumb drive" for my PC. Perfect for backups, and who knows what else. I can put several versions of Linux on it, and play around!
Maybe the memory can fit in an old laptop, but I don't think it is the right type.
Oh, and there's a telephone modem card in there too... like I'll ever use that again!
So much for my ham radio exercise program!
OK, so amateur radio still exists, and there are still ham radio operators, and they still get together in clubs, and talk endlessly about what they've been doing, who they talked to, and maybe even some technical stuff.
And then, to get some exercise, they fill their minivans with stuff to sell, and bring it to a parking lot and have a "hamfest." No, this is not some sort of Druid wedding ceremony, it's a chance to look at crap and maybe haggle about the price and transfer it from their basement to your basement (or visa versa!)
So I knew that I needed a Wifi antenna for an old PC (the one I'm using now) and maybe that would be a good place to find one, even though it wasn't ham radio. So I went, and wandered through the ancient radio displays, "The Whole Internet Catalog" (complete with info about Mosaic and the new World Wide Web!) and connectors, batteries, old reel-to-reel tapes and much much more.
And there was, for $5 a PC card with Wifi antenna... Good thing... I'll buy it and then throw out the card, use the antenna.
The owner threw in some computer memory SIMMs and also convinced me to take two RocketFish disk clamshells, for recovering/cloning a PC's hard drive.
When I got home the antenna worked great... all the bars are lit on my wifi. excellence! Not only that, the disk clamshell contains a new 300GB hard drive, still unformatted. So it is, essentially, a 300 GB "thumb drive" for my PC. Perfect for backups, and who knows what else. I can put several versions of Linux on it, and play around!
Maybe the memory can fit in an old laptop, but I don't think it is the right type.
Oh, and there's a telephone modem card in there too... like I'll ever use that again!
So much for my ham radio exercise program!