This week, see what we missed last week and the week before that and the week before that.

If you like radios with lots of chrome, you will like the circa 1960 ham radio equipment from Utica.

I received a lot of mail in response to the last three installments of Surfin' and I want to share some of it with you here.

Transceiver Under the Tree

Regarding the column about the Yaesu FTdx560, Tom Pope, K9TWP, wrote, "...if you like chrome radios, you may remember the Utica 650 vintage mid 60s." Truthfully, I don't remember the Utica, but there is a Utica Ham Radios Web page that does remember. Be sure to click on the Previous Page and Next Page links to see what else Utica had to offer to radio consumers and to read about the history of the Utica Communications Corp.

Time for the Leaping Second

In response to the leap second installment of Surfin', John Ackermann, N8UR, wrote, "I did the leap second in style and have a page up with my results. I recorded the audio from WWVB, CHU, and two frequencies of WWV, as well as capturing the serial data from a couple of receivers and trying (without much success) to get a photo of the leap second on the only receiver I have that has a human-readable display (it didn't behave the way I thought it would, which qualifies it as an 'experiment.' I guess)." For those of you who missed the leap second (like I did), you can relive it at John's Leap Second 2005 Web page.

The Return of the HAAT Calculator

George Cleveland, WA1QGU, Six Meter Coordinator for the New England Spectrum Management Council (NESMC) confirmed that their HAAT (height above average terrain) calculator is still online. It is intended only for making HAAT calculations within the six New England States, but it does have a feature not found on the Metric System-bound FCC version, i.e., the NESMC version allows you to choose feet or meters for your calculations.

If you are still in need of an online Metric-English System conversion, Peter Laws, N5UWY, suggests Google. Simply enter what you need in Google's search field, click on the Google Search button, and it quickly returns the answer. For example, entering "12 1/2 feet in meters," "100 miles per hour in furlongs per fortnight," and "the answer to life the universe and everything" all returned answers (3.81 meters, 268,800 furlongs per fortnight, and 42, respectively).

Until next time, keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, enjoys receiving mail that expands his knowledge about the Web pages he writes about here, so keep those cards and letters coming by e-mailing Stan or adding comments to Stan's blog.

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