Aug. 28, 2009 - 12:06pm

OK. There it is. Christ, this LED headlamp I bought has proven to be
priceless to us.

My Fathers radio is an old Collins KWM-380. This thing is built like
a tank and weighs almost 50 pounds. He had it all set up for Field
Day with a couple of 12V leads and battery clamps.

I hauled the old beast upstairs. To power it, I pulled the battery
from the new Toro riding lawn mower in the garage. Somehow, I not real
worried about the lawn right now and I'd rather not run the generator anymore than
absolutely necessary.

I grabbed about 6 feet of old lamp cord and inserted it into the
antenna jack on the back of the radio. Not good for transmitting,
but it is OK for receiving if I remember correctly.

When I powered up the old rig. I was greeted by the familiar glow
of the display. I cannot describe the feeling of freedom we had.
It meant a possible new form of communication. REAL TIME God 
miss cell phones.

So I tuned around a little to see if the BBC was out there. Hell,
I'd would have even settled for one of those religious stations
right then.

I got Nothing.

Guess most of these stations have moved on to satellite or
internet radio or something.

Then I thought about the HAM bands. There's gotta be somebody
out there flapping their jaw about what's going on.

Weird. There was nothing but some kind of odd warbling noise.
Even if someone were talking, I couldn't hear shit over that.

Ah well, it was worth a try. I guess this old radio really is
shot after all. May as well quit farting around and get back
to reality.

Suddenly, I heard something. It is faint and I almost missed it.

I tuned the dial to better pick up the faint station I was
hearing on 11.545 Megahertz.

Listen.