"100 Feet Up In A Pine Tree, Soldering Iron Clinched In His Teeth"

Radio Guys at University of Virginia, 1966

Hi Bill.

I emailed you once to the Yahoo! address, but thought I'd send an updated email to your soldersmoke address, in a desperate attempt to be mentioned in the gonging "SolderSmoke Mailbag"!

I learned of the podcast at May's Hamvention. I wish I had known of the Four Days in May event, but this was the first Dayton I've ever been to.

I thought I'd mention that the ham club I'm involved with here in central Virginia, the University of Virginia club, is putting together a rhombic antenna out in the woods. Although more sweat (and hornet stings) than solder smoke is expected to come from this effort, I still thought it would be worthy of note within the realm of homebrew activity. I hope to have some photographs from our slingshot-and-fishing-line event. With a large crop of able-bodied 20-somethings at our disposal, we should be able to get this thing put together in short order (one of our new members even has extensive tree-climbing skills and a battery-powered soldering iron! If I can get a shot of him 100ft up a pine with the iron in his teeth, I will be sure to pass along). It is hoped that our new monster antenna will help us compete with our cross-state rivals, the Hokies of Virginia Tech. I will be sure to sacrifice a few chickens to Papa Legba prior to our outing.

There are definitely still young people interested in homebrew radio and I work everyday alongside many victims of "The Knack". I'm working on spreading the SolderSmoke gospel to as many of them as possible, and letting them know of our library of "Sacred Texts": EMRFD, Solid State Design, and Electronics of Radio, among others. And of course, some of our "Prophets" of the faith: Ashhar Farhan, the Haywards, and the late Doug DeMaw.

I also wanted to say that since I have a lengthy commute to and from the university, I've been listening to ALL of the soldersmoke podcasts, starting from the first one. I'm up to the summer of 2007 now. I found it very sad to hear of Mike KL7R's death in Jan 2007 and I find that I do miss the back and forth banter the two of your shared on the podcasts. However, it is still a lot of fun to listen to and I've kept a small logbook of ideas from the episodes, building up a list of projects I hope to soon embark upon.

Best 73 and thank you for your podcasts.

Bert WF7I