New radio

There's two shiny new radios downstairs at the moment. One hadn't even been out of its box until I opened it.

They aren't my radios, they belong to my brother Laurie. He and I are both radio hams, Laurie's callsign is VK4VCC and mine is VK4VSP. Because Laurie is in the process of having a new house built, he and his family are living in rented accomodation, so he can't put up an antenna. While the house is being built he's been buying some new gear and he brought them around this morning so I could have a bit of a play.

After they'd left I went downstairs, unplugged one of my radios and made some room on the desk for one of Laurie's radios.

At the moment there's a DXpedition on at Clipperton Island. A DXpedition is where a bunch of hams get together and take their radios to somewhere remote. Usually it's somewhere where there aren't any other hams, so everyone wants to contact them while they're there, so they can say it's another country they've contacted. With all the bells and whistles Laurie's new radios have, they're ideal for contacting a station such as the guys on Clipperton, while half the world's hams are trying to do the same thing.

Unfortunately, I managed to blow a fuse in my one and only power supply. Why not replace the fuse? I hear you say. I'm going to, but the trouble is, the fuse is internal. There's two huge capacitors inside that thing and they're still charged up. There's no way I'm putting my hands inside the case while they're still charged. I've zapped myself that way too many times when I used to do electronic repairs years ago. The slightest sudden noise turns your bowels to liquid when you're working on something like that. In fact, it wasn't unusual for someone to sneak up behind you and clap back in those days. We were cruel buggers back then.