I have been hard at work on this new novel, now tentatively called Simple Sarah, and just have not gotten around to updating my blog.
Yesterday Lorna and I went to Charlotte and attended our first Ham Fest. We were disappointed, since it was appearantly not only not well attended, but there were about half the usual exhibitors. Even the flea market tables were pitiful. However, I did get to touch and mess with several of the radios I am trying to decide between. The size of buttons and how they are used are more important than what the radio can do. Does not do any good for a radio to have all the bells and whistles I want and the buttons be too small or too close together for my hands to use. I have narrowed the choice down to two: the Icom IC-706MGIIK and the Yaesu FT-895. They are very much identical, even in price. They each have their own quirks and their own special bell or whistle. One weighs less but the other has 3 different power options.
Not that it does any good to decide since both radios run between $750-900 (depending on the retailer) and that is just the radio! I need an antenna tuner (the RT-11 or the Z-100 or the AT-897), the grounding materials, a reliable power source, etc etc.
One of the things that has me leaning more toward one than the other is that the reps in the Icom booth paid me little to no attention. It was as if I was invisible; which is hard to do since I am a fat broad in a yellow powerchair with a rottweiler at my side. Sad that the fact I was a YL (female) outweighed all the other.
However, at the Yaesu booth, the rep not only answered my every question, he also knelt on the floor, so he was at my height, and he understood my needs both physically and drool-wise. He was not a ‘true’ rep, but was a technical guy so he had no sales pitch (and if that was his sale pitch, who cares! It worked!). Keep in mind, the reps are not there to sell you anything, but to provide information about their products and company.
Anyway, back to my writing. Maybe I should push Wayback along so that I can get my radio, huh? My point in initially bringing up the Ham Fest was that on the way back, I read about 16 pages of Simple Sarah to Lorna. She had some good points to make, and I even made notes about them! I think I may be getting the hang of this writing thing.
Counts as of end of 3/13:
- Simple Sarah – 59,122
- Simple Sarah Worldbuild – 2276
- March thus far – 54,895
- Year to date – 182,640 (and ‘only’ 317,360 to go on the year long dare of 500K)