Every builder has a junk?.er??Spare Parts? box ? right? A box in the corner that gets those bits and pieces that didn?t turn out quite right, that you decided not to use, that got removed because you had a ?better idea??.you know what I mean. The amazing thing is that, after you have finished building, and the flying is begun, that parts box begins to empty. It is almost magical ? those little bits and pieces find their way into little airplane improvements, extra (other, more) bits and pieces, and even home improvement projects.
Take, for instance, this wire whip antenna I have here. I bought it at a fly market for twenty bucks (porcelain insulator and all) back when I was building the Val. Drilled a hole in the belly of the project, wired it up, and when I fired up the radio, every LED indicator in the cockpit lit up in unison due to the massive RF leak! Out it came, thrown in the parts box, condemned to shop purgatory for untold ages.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a brainstorm. Living at the airpark, I thought it would be nice to have a Comm radio tuned to receive our CTAF frequency ? nice way to know that Louise was ?in range? on her daily commute so I could greet her with a beer when the canopy popped open. But of course, I didn?t want to spend any money on such a thing, so I asked here on the forums. Sure enough, an intrepid RV?ator over at the next airport offered an old Collins Comm-250 for the project (You remember those, the ?Micro-Line? radios ? square, little sexy-looking units that appeared in all the panels I sketched for airplanes I never built in High School. I never realized that while the front was small, the dang things were two feet long! Well?.almost?.) if I hauled it away. So I dropped by on Saturday morning, we met up with the denizens of the T-Hangars at KAXH, swapped RV stories, looked at RV?s, looked at RV projects, flew over to the neighboring field for lunch?a typical way to enjoy a few unplanned hours. Flew home, unpacked my new treasure, wired up a harness, and sure enough ? it worked!
But what to do about an antenna?.Hmmmmm?.oh yeah, the junk?er?parts box! Out came the antenna and up went the ladder. A nice half inch hole in the hangar roof thanks to the Unibit, a little leftover RG-58, a spare BNC connector and voila ? an in-house radio receiver! Total actual expenditure? Five bucks for a box speaker at the local electronics surplus house. Cable, wire, connectors ? and that antenna ? all courtesy of the ?spare parts box? from my build.
So when your significant other asks you to clean out those bits an pieces, just remember ? you never know when you?ll need that spare part you just threw away! It?s not junk ? it just hasn?t been released from purgatory!
Paul
Take, for instance, this wire whip antenna I have here. I bought it at a fly market for twenty bucks (porcelain insulator and all) back when I was building the Val. Drilled a hole in the belly of the project, wired it up, and when I fired up the radio, every LED indicator in the cockpit lit up in unison due to the massive RF leak! Out it came, thrown in the parts box, condemned to shop purgatory for untold ages.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a brainstorm. Living at the airpark, I thought it would be nice to have a Comm radio tuned to receive our CTAF frequency ? nice way to know that Louise was ?in range? on her daily commute so I could greet her with a beer when the canopy popped open. But of course, I didn?t want to spend any money on such a thing, so I asked here on the forums. Sure enough, an intrepid RV?ator over at the next airport offered an old Collins Comm-250 for the project (You remember those, the ?Micro-Line? radios ? square, little sexy-looking units that appeared in all the panels I sketched for airplanes I never built in High School. I never realized that while the front was small, the dang things were two feet long! Well?.almost?.) if I hauled it away. So I dropped by on Saturday morning, we met up with the denizens of the T-Hangars at KAXH, swapped RV stories, looked at RV?s, looked at RV projects, flew over to the neighboring field for lunch?a typical way to enjoy a few unplanned hours. Flew home, unpacked my new treasure, wired up a harness, and sure enough ? it worked!
But what to do about an antenna?.Hmmmmm?.oh yeah, the junk?er?parts box! Out came the antenna and up went the ladder. A nice half inch hole in the hangar roof thanks to the Unibit, a little leftover RG-58, a spare BNC connector and voila ? an in-house radio receiver! Total actual expenditure? Five bucks for a box speaker at the local electronics surplus house. Cable, wire, connectors ? and that antenna ? all courtesy of the ?spare parts box? from my build.
So when your significant other asks you to clean out those bits an pieces, just remember ? you never know when you?ll need that spare part you just threw away! It?s not junk ? it just hasn?t been released from purgatory!
Paul
