In terms of success, this ranks up pretty high.  I wheeled-and-dealed on everything, and I feel like I made out like a bandit!  I didn’t stay very long at Hamvention – I arrived around 8:30 AM and I was gone by around 1:30 PM.

Astron VS-20 Power Supply

It works. I needed a power supply for my bench, and everything new was either adjustable (but not powerful and expensive) or powerful and expensive.  This is better than I thought I’d end up with.

VS-20M Power Supply

RF Millivolt Meter

This is one of those pieces of equipment that I never thought I’d have because they’re fairly specialized.  I saw a few, and after finding the power supply, I looked for one I had already found.  I found this one (with the probe, not pictured) instead.

Millivolt Meter

Percent Explosive Meter

I’m surprised someone else didn’t get this first!  I couldn’t resist it.  This is going to find a place in my basement near a blinking red light.  I’m not sure what it will otherwise be connected to (if anything other than a random/semirandom/not-random time controller), though.

Percent Explosive!!!

Anderson Powerpoles

I’m standardizing on these expensive AF things.  I needed some.

Powerpoles.

Hands On Radio Experiments books

After reading N0AX’s articles in the last few QSTs, the method of teaching has really grown on me.  When I saw experiment #161 in the June 2016 QST, which referred back to a common emitter amplifier, I not only read with interest but also decided to attempt the experiment.  I started looking for all of the experiments and saw that the ARRL prints them in a book.  I found the books at W0TOK books and wheeled-and-dealed to both for $30.  DEAL!

Not from Hamvention: Etherkit Si5351 Breakout

I ordered an Si5351 Breakout Board from Jason/Etherkit a few days before Hamvention and got it on Friday after I returned from Hamvention.  I got one on the kickstarter campaign, but SEE THE UPDATE BELOW! but for some reason it refuses to work despite some troubleshooting.  My guess is that I damaged the chip somehow since I THINK (operative word!) that the two MOSFETs work correctly but my Bus Pirate won’t show an available address .  For whatever idiotic reason, each time I get something from Etherkit, I try to hot-air solder it, and it’s all been without the right stuff (either without a proper hot air rework station or solder paste).  I’ve been set straight thanks to the Twitterverse, and someday will replace damn near every component on my CRX1 and get it to work properly.  And I will always remember the sign in my dad’s auto shop: “Don’t be a fool, use the right tool!”… I’ll also remember Dr. Miller (photography teacher at my high school): “Do not use any equipment for which you have not been trained” (in other words, make sure I know how to set the jumpers before setting power!).

EDIT: I typed all this before testing the new breakout board.  The new breakout board was throwing errors, and I found that the new oscillator pulls more current than the Bus Pirate seems to want to provide.  After finding this, nothing could be found with the I2C search.  I looked back on this blog and found “the CLK pin on the Bus Pirate gets connected to the SCL pin on the demo board and the MOSI pin on the Bus Pirate gets connected to the SDA pin on the demo board.”  I now have two functioning breakout boards! 🙂

Etherkit Si5351 Breakout

That’s it! 73!