MICROWAVE UPDATE 2004
page two |
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The Surplus Tour continues! |
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Christophe, ON4IY,
has lived in the USA before but even he was impressed with the
amount of surplus at Nortex!
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Next stop is, of course,
Frys! OK, so you Americans have a few things to say about Frys
but we here in the UK have Maplin, a version of Frys without
hormones!
Neverthless, it looks a
good place to get some of those components that just seem to
have gone off the shelves in other stores.
It's a pity we were not
allowed to take photos in Frys ...just what are they afraid
of?
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Another drive, across to
the NE side of Dallas. That skyline, photographed here through Kent
Britain's car window, is certainly something. The sunshine helped
too! |
| We arrive
at TESCO, which is a supermarket chain in the UK! No food here
but,instead, a wealth of great surplus microwave items, some of
which were to appear later on the trade tables back at the hotel. |
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Inside TESCO we could
see that the owner, Ted Buell, tests lots of the surplus items
before he puts them up for sale. I wish more dealers would follow
his example!
Seen here in the foreground
is Doug Friend, VK4OE. There's no place in Australia like this!
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| Sam, G4DDK,
has uncovered some great dishes, ideal for our millimetre bands
of 24 to 76GHz. These dishes have an excellent, rigid profile
and come complete with an integral waterproof housing at the rear.
An offset dish feed completes the system. Although the feed is
unusable at amateur frequencies, it at least serves to pinpoint
the focal point of the dish. |
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Peter, G3PYB bought
two of these dishes for a mere $100 ... a bargain. He later
found a surplus bag (ex computer monitor bag) in which to carry
them home to the UK!
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| The two
photos to the right show Peter, G3PYB proudly carrying his new
dishes in the bag he found and David, G6GXK, trundling a heavy
"boat anchor" spectrum analyser back into the hotel.
He had to buy the equipment to get its manual (which he wanted)
and then he "did a deal" with Kent Britain to take the
analyser from him! |
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