I was finally horrified by one of norm's finishes

[LRod]

What's your call? Seems like the only ones who understand the role and capability of ham radio are hams.

K4QG

[Morris Dovey]

| IMHO, there are other factors to consider as well. When an EMF | burst destroys all these cell-phones, satellites, DTV's and their | supporting infrastructure, good old ham radio and NTSC will be the | only forms of communications for quite some time.

Not too many hams using equipment without semiconductors these days...

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[RicodJour]

Even carpenter's have feelings...

[Greg G]

This is true to a degree, but there are still a lot of vintage tube rigs running these days. The actual point, however, is that the technology is easier to build from scratch. Should giant meteors, MW pulses, or large green aliens cripple modern society as it stands, it's good to have a standby technology in the hands of the citizenry to enable basic communications. Radios were built by hand years ago, from basic readily available materials. Can you imagine trying to re-create the infrastructure needed for DTV from scratch... ;-)

FWIW,

Greg G.

[Greg G]

Sorry to say, haven't maintained a license or rig for 2 decades. Was into it way back in the Heathkit days, but the equipment (and everything else) was destroyed in a mysterious fire. I was then distracted by other things, like survival (and computers). As a youth I climbed far up many a tree to string antennas of various descriptions. Where I lived, it was my sole contact with intelligence (beyond the vicinity...?)

Greg G.

[LRod]

C'mon. He makes 13 projects a year, at two days per project. That's 26 days. I don't know where you work, but most people have to put in at least 250 days to total a year's experience. At 18 years of NYW production, he doesn't even have two years of actual experience in hand yet.

I imagine his "This Old House" gig (which has about double or more the number of episodes per year) takes much more of his time than the NYW gig, not to mention his "Inside This Old House" appearances, personal appearances, etc., I don't think he has much time outside NYW production to work on his furniture making.

I think he does pretty good for only having two years experience.

[fredfighter]

My understanding is that he usually makes each project three times -- once to figure out how, a second time to make the prototype for the show, and then the third, flimed for the show. So that is six days per episode assuming that the first two are done as fast as the last, which they probably are not. Then there is time spent getting materials and hunting for and measuring originals. So I'd guess that amounts to at least 100 workdays per year for NYWS.

I doubt that that This old house stuff takes as much of his time per hour of showtime as does NYWS. Often he just explains what other people are doing.

I think he has plenty of skill. How he choses to do things may simply reflect a lot on his personal preferences.

[fredfighter]

ISTR that it was RUssel Morash who came up with the title 'Master Carpenter', has Nahrm ever referred to himself as such?

If he did, I'll bet it was in jest.

[Lee Gordon]

And many of those choices are made for him. Keep in mind that while Norm is the most visible person involved with the New Yankee Workshop, he is not the boss. Russ Morash is. Most of the furniture Norm builds ends up in one of Morash's residences, one of which I believe is attached to the Workshop itself. Another is on Cape Cod or Martha's Vineyard or some other MA vacation spot. Those are Morash's tools (no doubt provided free by the manufacturers), although apparently Norm has free reign to do his own projects in the NYW because that shop is better equipped than his own. And it is Morash who decides what Norm is going to build and what color it gets stained. I can't tell you if that decision is based upon his personal taste or the fact that Minwax puts up some of the dough for the show or, as I suspect, a bit of both.

Lee

[B a r r y]

Poor Norm... 8^(

I'd trade with him any day, even if the 'wreck didn't like my finishes.

Barry

[B a r r y]

Apparently you haven't been to a Super Bowl party?

I watched ONE game this year, while enjoying awesome homebrew, fried alligator, bacon wrapped scallops, kick-ass cocktail sauces on huge shrimp, a chill contest, and cranberry jello shots, with a whole bunch of other folks who didn't know who half of the guys on the field were. =8^0

Game? What game?

Barry

[B a r r y]

And none of the microprocessor controlled ham rigs made in the last 25 years will work either.

Barry (who's Icom aviation handheld will be a doorstop, but he's got a steam gauge airplane and a bicycle)

[Greg G]

LOL. I guess that is one of the things I resent most about aging. Friends aren't allowed out of the house by their spouses, and parties are pretty much out of the question. So I spend my time working...

They call it 'keeping the peace at home' and 'being responsible'. I call it P-whipped. ;-)

Young people don't want to hang with older and think you're vying for their girlfriends. (Which might just be true when single...)

Funny, I never had these "problems" in Florida, just here in high-stress, paranoid Atlanta.

FWIW,

Greg G.

[Odinn]

Like I told you earlier, yer living in the wrong part of Uhlanna. Need to move out my way :)

[Wes Stewart]

I still have the BC-342-N that got me interested in radio in 1950. It survived WW-II and would likely survive EMP, but would I?

[Ba r r y]

BTW, I flew through ATL a few times this week, and I think I saw some of the McMansions you were describing a few weeks back.

These neighborhoods are located on the end of the airport where one flies over the Ford plant and Atlanta Exposition Center. They are HUGE, extremely close together new homes, located right in the approach and departure path of the busiest airport in the USA.

[Odinn]

That's a few of the McMansions. There are also quite a few on the north side as well. I was going to our Buckhead office the other day (North Atlanta) and passed by some new condos, 3 bedroom, 3 floors, about 1500 sq ft, $500,000 each. Not for me, I'll take my 1400 sq ft doublewide and 5 acres of land that I paid about $85,000 for.

[CW]

I'm sure the residents are petitioning the city to get rid of the airport as we speak. Happens around here all the time. People build their houses off the end of a runway then claim the noise is ruining their life. Same with the local dragstrip. Heard a top fueler lately? Why would any sane person by a house in that area?

[Ba r r y]

I think they'd have some difficulty closing ATL, but I hear those stories all the time from other general aviation guys about smaller fields all over the US. Heck, Mayor Daley turned Miegs field in Chicago into a park in the middle of the night! The airport was built in 1936, and I built my house in 2005, so CLOSE the airport!

One of my local GA fields (KMMK) spans two towns, with the southern town refusing to left them build buildings in the hopes that they'll go away. The town that hosts the northen end has just offered to build new hangars and offices, and wisely placed their sewage plant and dump next door. The northern end keeps growing, along with the tax revenue from the buildings, while the southern end is just grass, some lights, and a fence.

FWIW, I live 30 minutes from a former dragstrip that is now the Consumer Reports test track. It's on a 300 acre property, which the dragstrip owner sold in bankruptcy. CR added an off-road course and a skid pad. The residents are thrilled, as CR only runs street legal, muffled cars, so there isn't much noise.

Barry

[LRod]

In all fairness, though, CGX (Meigs) wasn't about noise; Da Mayor just wanted the land for some more lucrative use. It wasn't a particularly dangerous airport so far as threats of crashes in the neighborhoods go, as the approaches were all over water, both north and south.

There was never going to be an instrument approach to it, what with the Loop buildings so close by. Without an instrument approach and only about 3500' of runway (if I recall) it was unlikely to ever attract commercial flights (the straw man of all airport expansion NIMBY arguments)--even the state airplanes, when they filed into CGX had to shoot the approach to MDW (Midway), cancel IFR, and then go to CGX VFR (if they could).

One of my most dramatic memories, other than flying in and out of there myself, was when United Airlines donated an obsolete Boeing 727 to the Museum of Science and Industry, and they flew it into CGX to later be barged down to the museum. They pretty well stripped the airplane, loaded minimum fuel, flew the approach completely dirty (as they usually do anyway), but at a seriously low speed, and used up just about all the runway to get it stopped. It wasn't leaving.

Bulldozing that was a shame. Probably the single most recognizable airport in the world, particularly because of Flight Simulator. Chicago could/should have milked that for all the publicity it was worth, rather than depend on a few measly millions for rich people's yacht berths.