I was tailgating at the Albuquerque Ham Fest in the early hours on Saturday. Lee Maisel, the owner of the HMMWV pictured above, told me about the Ham Fest tailgate party, which, unlike the traditional “before the game” tailgate party with crowds of rowdy fans, loud music, and kegs of beer, was quiet and orderly, with mostly older ham operators walking around sipping coffee and munching on breakfast burritos while looking at ham radio equipment and shootin’ the bull.
Besides being a ham, Lee Maisel owns and operates Albuquerque Laser Engraving. I had him engrave an iPad for a retirement gift earlier in the year, and he did a fantastic job at a very reasonable price. Besides precision engraving, his laser equipment does precision cutting, so he showed me a wide variety of projects he had finished and waiting to be picked up that involved engraving or cutting or both. All the work was very high quality and professional.
Off Center & Not Even 
Hey, your a ham aye? Me too, but I am no longer active….
I’m not a ham. My dad was. I’m still have a few very heavy pieces of equipment I was trying to get rid of.
Oh, I see. The photos look like some serious HF equipment. I always preferred the VHF/UHF frequencies over the low band frequencies. my license is going to lapse but thats OK. I have had my fun with it, time to move on…
We all had serious equipment there. I never got interested in ham. I grew up with it and it was just something dad did.
I have a friend back east who became a ham after she retired from UCONN. She had a lot of fun with it for years. I like seeing all the old equipment. Technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Doesn’t seem that long ago….
Apparently a lot of that old equipment is still useful, and infinitely repairable, which is one of the reasons for its persistence.
Repairability, and reliability – the main things I treasure in equipment, old or new. I often find myself saying, “They don’t build things like they used to…”.
A lot of things are built not to be repaired. Often the cost of repairing equipment is more than buying a new, latest version.
You should get a license TIm, it’s not just the old HF (although that’s fun) we do HSMM Mesh networking (WiFi on steroids because we operate under part 97 rules) lots of digital modes, bouncing signals off the moon, we have a fleet of satellites any licensed Ham can use with basic equipment, a huge merging of computer and radio technology. “This ain’t your Dad’s Ham Radio”
That sounds pretty cool. I’ll have to give it some thought.
My wife likes the idea of bouncing signals off the moon!
I also bounce signals off of meteors (actually their trails)
my father in law was a Ham…he was also into amateur radio…. Great shots!
Thanks!