Greetings:

Life goes on at the shack at a leisurely hobby pace. Dave worked China, East Malaysia and is trying to catch YC right now.

The biggest news is that I tutored two Chelsea High Schools students, Jamie and Charlene, for 3 months in radio theory, construction , and operation for a science project - and it was a struggle (for a non-teacher). I can't even begin to try to portray the environment at a modern American High School (God save the teachers). When the girls didn't take to 'Now You're Talking', I checked-out, digested, and regurgitated the Harvard WW II pre-enlistment radio course. Full of great art and the old time poetic feel of the magic of radio and building (and burning) things. We recreated the early radio experiments from Oerstad Ampere Faraday and Hertz. The coup de gras was building a milliwatt am transmitter and a crystal set (free electricity!) as their receiver.

The girls also came to Harvard. I did it as a motivator. I promised them Tea at the Faculty Club and they bragged about it for weeks. Oh yeah, they also got excited about the radios when they contacted a guy way across the ocean on some island off Afica (the Azores).

Come the day of the fair - there were over a hundred projects competing. The girls booth was assaulted by wave after wave of judges from, ugh, MIT. One of them pointed to a potrait on their board and asked "Explain Mr. Maxwell's equations." Charlene - "we can't but we put him up cause all the other guys experimented to figure things out - he did it in his head and completely explained the relation between the electric force and the magnetic thing." They completely explained the MAGIC of radio to a general audience with simple elegant historical break-through experiments, a confident verbal presentation, and a pretty cool visual board. Were these the same two students I had to wait for to finish putting their make up on in physics lab so I could begin the lesson?! They beat out over a 100 projects and WON FIRST PLACE huge trophy - CASH prize! The power of Earl Grey tea!

We lugged over and assembled the R7 antenna and ICOM 736 but never had time to work the appliances - they were too busy with their own home builts. Don't ever ask about licenses - no time. It was a great intense experience. Boy did I learn a lot from the latest generation - they had me worried - but they made me very proud (and I was gonna loose that hair anyway).

-Tim McBride,
N1QZY