N5ZDT – N5ZDT

New Hobbies and Old Hardware / Storage Wars for Real!

10 Apr

PART I

So in August of 2023, I decided to do something I had always wanted to try. I decided to try playing “Storage Wars” for real. You’ve likely seen “Storage Wars” on A&E network or at least the re-runs in syndication on DEFY or one of the other free-to-air channels provided by local broadcasting stations. It’s a “dramatized” reality TV show where people bid on storage units that have gone into lien status and are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. It’s one of my favorites to watch for sure. And my hat is off to the creator of the show for some excellent subject matter and humor.

Sometimes the contents of the storage units that are being auctioned off contain real high-value surprises inside. But most of the time the contents aren’t anything exceptionally valuable. Keeping in mind of course that value lies both in whether the bidder/buyer actually recognizes an item for what it is worth or not, and also whether the bidder/buyer has “in-roads” with a target market for reselling the item at a decent margin. Most of the participants/actors on the show have “go-to” individuals or businesses upon whom they rely for appraising the value of unrecognizable items or items they do recognize but with which they have no experience in determining actual resale value. This is a key piece of the puzzle which can determine potentially large profits or equally large losses on the merchandise in question. And having the proper storefront, venue or online market to turn those items is necessary for reselling the merchandise without losing your shirt. I’ll add that selling online via eBay –and even FB Marketplace or CraigsList to a lesser extent- comes with its own set of challenges and costs that can take a large slice of potential profit out of your pocket before you even know what hit you.

There are many factors which can make or break the profits to be had in the storage wars game. But the same can be said of buying and reselling items from estate sales, garage sales, or even items from your own attic. But I won’t try to cover all of the potential hazards of the game in this post, as I want to get to the good part before I put you to sleep.

Skipping forward….I found an online site that allows one to bid on storage units that are up for auction across the nation. There are an average of around 30,000-45,000 units on the auction block each week. Each auction listing has 4-8 photos which are taken by the mini storage property manager when the unit is seized and locks are changed, readying it for the auction block. The photos are taken from the open doorway without the manager/photographer going into the unit. So it’s really a matter of what you can see from the open doorway and identify as potentially valuable for formulating your maximum bid amount. And there are those who take into account the organization factors as well. For instance, neat units typically may reference a more organized or higher income type of inventory. Units that are a disaster area may indicate a tenant with disaster in every aspect of their lives. The psychology is wide open to interpretation for those who wish to speculate. I looked for items I knew I could sell to recover my bid money in a worst case scenario.

I began by searching for units in my home town and also in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, when I ran across a rather large 10′ x 30′ unit in Garland, TX that looked interesting. I noticed some roller cases with the trade show display company name of “Featherlite” on one of them. Having been to my share of trade shows, I recognized the name and zoomed in further on the photograph, moving the cursor left and right to try and determine what else might be inside. The following photo is what I saw.

This is the main photo that was posted in the original listing.

After zooming in, I noticed a handheld radio near the bottom right corner of the photo and recognized the EMS vehicle light bars forward lower left and far right near the wall. Then I also saw the large cardboard tubes leaning against the left wall with what appeared to be a 12′ radome antenna in front of the tubes. As I looked through the rest of the photos I saw this one giving a depth view down the aisle to the back of the unit, showing what appeared to be stacks and stacks of 19″ rack mount equipment covering the back wall. DING! This one was going to be my test unit. I could identify at least 4-5 items that I knew I could resell for a bare minimum total of around $500. So that was my top bid on the unit.

Without even researching prices I knew that I could get at least $100 each for the now 3 light bars that I saw + another $100 for the telescoping mast laying on the floor + another $100 for the two trade show roller cases and the moving dolly. Those items were identifiable and I knew I could sell them.

But to be honest I had no idea of what I was actually purchasing with all of that equipment against the back wall of the unit. Well to cut to the chase here, I set my max bid to $500 and waited. The last day of the auction arrived and the unit was still at around $100 by the time I got up that day. Over the course of the afternoon the price rose in steps until I hit $490 and the “other bidder” went to $500. I had decided that I wasn’t going to raise my bid further if it came down to a situation like this, as a personal test to see if I could stop instead of allowing myself to be bid up by some clown looking to make the other guy pay for it. So I stopped. And I lost the auction to the guy who hit $500 first.

I had been very excited before. Now however although I was happy that I had proven to myself that I could stop and accept loss, I was still disappointed that I hadn’t won the auction. A couple of days went by while I looked at other potential units for a second try, without finding any nearly as intriguing as the one I lost.

On Saturday of that week I was visiting my mom and doing a few repair jobs she had on her list when I got a text message from the auction site. Apparently the person bidding against me who won the unit had failed to pay for it within the 24 hour window. I was listed as backup bidder so they were offering the unit to me for my high bid amount. I burst out laughing as I clicked to accept the offer. But never in a hundred years would I have guessed what I had just purchased.

I drove to Dallas the next morning, paid for the unit and was given a gate access code. When I arrived to open the door, I had been told to expect a combination lock. But there was a padlock on the door latch instead. After calling the management to let them know, I was informed that apparently the person who previously owned the contents of the unit had apparently broken in and had probably removed content after it had been listed for auction. The manager told me that if I had a way to saw the padlock off, I was welcome to do so. And she added that if items were missing on which I had counted for recovery of my investment, they would refund my money as if this had never happened. That was pretty much a win/win solution. So I told her I would send her photos once I had it open.

They ended up reducing the price from $490 to $250 due to the few items that were removed –which included the light bars but nothing else I could identify as missing. Those however quickly became irrelevant in light of the value that remained within.

This unit was FULL of Radio equipment and Repeaters including over 300 mobile radios, over 200 handheld radios, around 80 power amplifiers of the 150watt variety, 65 repeaters for bands ranging from VHF to UHF to 800-900MHz. Isolators, combiners, duplexers, diplexers, filters, antennas, bandpass cavities, splitters, radio components, GPS trackers, EPROM programmers, laptops, software, tower hardware, microphones for base and mobile, mobile antennas, remote control heads for mobile units, and just about everything having to do with radio service and sales that one could possibly imagine…THOUSANDS of dollars worth of equipment.

Was it current? Not really. Did that matter? Absolutely not. When you consider that some of the best amateur radio equipment currently in operation is from the 1950s-60s-70s, then you begin to understand the value proposition. Even when you consider that more than 50% of this equipment was made for the 800-900MHz band, it still doesn’t rule out profitability. Consider that no manufacturer of amateur radio equipment actually makes a radio to operate on what we call the 33cm band (902-928MHz). So every amateur radio being used for communication in that band was converted from commercial use at some point or another. And I now had plenty of them and repeaters with amplifiers, antennas, and all of the options to go with them. SO much equipment at such a small price. Of course I had to get an accurate inventory on things I had never seen before while determining value. The research factor alone was daunting –and still is at times. There was SO MUCH of it there. How was I supposed to even know what I had?

After all, there was enough equipment in that unit that it took almost 3 months to sort it all out and complete a semi-accurate inventory, and that only with the help of some very dedicated friends who assisted in getting it organized (thank you Greg, Hope, Ken, Scott and Bob! I am forever in your debt on this one!). Eventual relocation of the inventory to a smaller storage location in my hometown of Shreveport, LA, was once again thanks to the help of some very dedicated and dear friends (thank you Derick, Shelley, James, Clarence, and Lonell!). who worked tirelessly to separate the treasures from the trash, as well as load and unload it into it’s new location. And of course thanks to my mom for keeping my Zoey, my Jack Russell –who would have loved to have been right in the middle of it all, managing the whole affair- while I was away for 3-4 days a week for nearly 3 months during the process.

In addition to all of the aforementioned equipment, there were also eleven filing cabinets full of documentation, software, manuals, parts, cables, power cords, accessories, and other “gank” inside them. They told the story of an amazing company’s journey through the commercial radio service industry from 1991-2011/12, through the era of LTR Trunked radio systems, the transition from analog to digital cell service, and even the 900MHz NexTel walkie-talkie cell phones. The story ended around the time of the Sprint-NexTel merger/acquisition which incidentally signaled the closing of CommNet Communications, Inc. in the DFW area. It also signaled a beginning to my own good fortune, although that didn’t come until a few years later in 2023.

Now it was all mine to resell or repurpose. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

[ The story doesn’t stop there. But I must stop for now, as it’s getting late. This will be continued in a “Part II” article very soon. Enjoy! -David ]

Collectibles

21 Dec

I’ve never been one to believe too much in horoscopes as a reliable source of daily information. But once someone did my birth chart and surprisingly it was very much on target with my likes, dislikes and much to the dismay of my mother, a dogged passion for collecting certain things. Thankfully I don’t have an overwhelming drive to collect everything I see —as those people are called hoarders. And mostly my collectibles have a purpose, are useful, and as well are usually quite old.

I’m sure that if you’ve seen the welcome page on this site, you at least have a 50/50 chance of knowing what I like in terms of radios. But if you weren’t paying attention, don’t worry too much about it. Because until about 2 years ago, I never really had a good look at anything made by R. L. Drake & Co. Of course I had heard of the brand on many occasions in my youth. But I’d honestly not even seen one until my friend John had me stop by one afternoon so he could give me a 3-element yagi for use on 6 meters.

While I was there he let me know about a radio being offered for liquidation by the local amateur radio club, of which he is a long time member and officer. It was a Drake TR-4, complete with an MS4 speaker and AC4 power supply. And the price they were asking was only around $300. I took one look at it and knew it was THE radio I wanted for HF. And to sweeten the pot, he let me know that it also came with an extra set of matched tubes for the PA section.

So a few days later, I made another journey to the north side of Cross Lake and brought that deal to it’s new “forever home”. It took me a few days to get the hang of tuning it up properly every time I changed frequency. But soon it became second nature. I began researching all of the Drake sites and forum groups to find out about spare parts, modifications, diagrams, manuals, and Drake history. The more I researched, the more impressed I became with the technology. Soon after obtaining the manuals and diagrams, I decided it was time for an alignment and the addition of a cooling fan, to extend the life of the aforementioned PA tubes.

I’ve always appreciated tube type radios and amplifiers due to the sound quality and ease of maintenance. But Drake takes that to an entirely new level by combining tube technology with some really innovative ideas that rival even the “Rolls Royce” level held tightly by Collins brand radio equipment. And they did this at a really decent price point…even when they were brand new. Nothing I’ve heard coming out of any radio produced in the past 30 years even comes close to the sound coming from a Drake tube radio.

So, I began searching for another one (actually a pair of Drake “Twins” made up of an R4A receiver and a TX4B transmitter). Then another after that (a Drake TR-7 transistorized model, with RV7 remote VFO tuner). And then I added a 1500 watt Drake L4B amplifier. And today as I write this, I’ve just received shipment of a Drake TR-6 to add to my collection.

The TR-6 is a “monoband” radio which covers only the 6 meter band (50-54 MHz). They only made a limited number of those. So with my “collector instinct” in full swing, I began searching for a TR-6 about a year ago. I almost had a deal made on one about 6 months ago. But the buyer apparently decided to back out at the last minute and ghosted me from that point forward. He couldn’t possibly have been upset with the price we negotiated ($1250). So I’m guessing that he simply changed his mind about selling. And if that’s the case, I don’t blame him too much, although rudeness has never been a star quality in my book.

Regardless, I’m very happy to have found one in decent shape. Because it will last for many years to come. And by the time I’m no longer able to remember how to turn it on, I’ll have found someone else who can appreciate these things the way that I do. And that person will end up with one spectacular station with which to enjoy the hobby for a long time to come.

There is something to be said about the yesteryear “glory days”, when private entrepreneurs with talent were able to follow their own hearts, building something worthy that would outlast their own generations and lifetimes. And certainly those things are collectible.

David / N5ZDT

QSL Collection

26 Oct

These are QSL cards that I’ve gotten digitally from people with whom I’ve made radio contact since getting my General Class license. All were made using either my Yaesu FT897D for digital contacts, or with my 1967 Drake TR4 tube type radio for voice SSB contacts. I don’t use any linear amplifiers with either station. The Yaesu puts out a peak power of around 100 watts. The Drake does a little better at around 200-225 watts. But the Drake only does voice contacts on SSB at this point. I hope to add some terminal adapter equipment to it for experimenting with digital modes on the Drake. But for now I’m fine with only using it for voice comms. Antenna in use is a modified Jetstream Fan multiband dipole and/or 6m 3 element yagi. My contacts encompass voice and data covering 95 countries as of 01/01/2020, including Antarctica. And while there are some in the amateur community who look down on some of the digital protocols, I say to each his own. I enjoy talking with people overseas. But I also get a thrill out of pulling that one DX contact out of the noise floor, who happens to be digital on some far away island or place I’ve never been before. It takes all kinds of people to truly make a community, with each having his or her own preferences. So thanks to all of the people represented below for making this a killer hobby!!!

So…speaking of Russia

10 Sep

The past few days here in Shreveport have brought some pretty messy weather with plenty of lightening and thunder. Between all of the tropical storms in the gulf, one hurricane down south somewhere, and a front moving down from the north that has parked across the area, it has been an interesting week. And for the past couple of days, 10 and 12 meter propagation has been dead. 20 and 40 meters has been doing fairly well in the evening hours though. Tonight in fact was completely amazing!

I’ve always understood that good DX connects are completely possible without using high power and large directional arrays. But the conditions have to be just right for it to work well in both directions. I can hear distant stations often, but rarely does my signal make it back to them it seems. After all, I’ve got a rather simple station consisting of my Yaesu FT897D and a Jetstream Fan Inverted “V” Dipole that covers HF from 80-6 meters. It wasn’t actually originally configured to cover 6 meters, but I modified it with an additional span awhile back and it works nicely. The only optional piece of equipment is an LDG AT-897 tuner to smooth out the antenna characteristics a bit. I don’t run any amplification other than the stock 100 watts output offered by the radio.

So I was a bit surprised this evening when I saw RA0ADQ show up across my screen while doing some FT8 digital on 20 meters. Usually I check to find that the contacts I’m making are somewhere in the 800-1400 mile distant range from my station. When I ran this one through the check, it came back at around 6299 miles from my station. WOW. Ok I’ll bite on that hook. I doubt he will be able to hear me, but it never hurts to try eh? I hit the TX Enable button in WSJT-X and watched the sequence repeat a few times with no response. Just about the time I went to click the “Halt TX” button, his response came across the screen, showing up as a bright RED line among the yellows, greens and whites. I did a double check on everything to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. Sure enough he was responding to my CQ!! We exchanged signal info, then 73s and the whole thing was over. My logging window popped up for me to add details and just as easy as that, my first overseas contact happened.

by default 2018-09-10 at 2.21.52 AM

From Shreveport, Louisiana, USA to Achinsk, Krasnoyarsky, kr. Russia, with only 100 watts of power and basically what amounts to a piece of copper wire hanging off of a 35 foot pole at the end of my house. Short path for that contact is 6304.9 miles. Long path is 18551.9 miles. So any way you slice it, it’s a very long distance. I do SO love this hobby!

Thank you Vladimir K. Smirnov / RA0ADQ. You’ve made my first overseas contact a fantastic one! My QRZ.com log has been updated. And I sincerely hope that someday we can try that again using Voice/Phone to connect. Peace and Blessings your way my friend and fellow radio enthusiast.

73,

David / N5ZDT

Yes Sir, General Sir…

19 Aug

Well I finally went back and took that General Class license exam. Of course I did it in a different state (Louisiana) and I waited a few years to go back and take it. But the waiting was mainly due to focusing on my business and removing other distractions while doing so. Regardless it’s finally done. And while I await the paperwork from the FCC, it hasn’t stopped me from jumping onto 20 and 40 meters and trying out some of the digital DXing.

Two or three weeks ago I really couldn’t get my head around the DX contesting thing. I rarely did anything but listen on HF bands over the past few years as a Tech. I just didn’t get involved really. I always had mental images of my “radio mentors” talking to places overseas in more of a relaxed environment, making 1 or 2 new contacts every few days just by nature of the hobby, with lots of listening time between. When I heard a DXing contest for the first time a few years ago, it was all just a fast exchange of callsigns and S0-9-meter readings traded quickly over and again with each overseas participant. No time to talk or exchange much other info at all. “How could THAT be fun?”, I asked myself.

But after discovering FT8 protocol in WSJT-X, and using it for a few DX contacts, I can see where this could get interesting. Moreover I also see how the software and it’s FT8 or alternate protocols could be mission critical for pulling a signal out of an almost impossible noise floor and potentially saving lives during an emergency. What’s more, the ability to use the software correctly could make or break successful accomplishment of that task.

So rapid DX contesting can actually help to train an operator to be proficient in the use of digital operations. And that proficiency could someday potentially save a life. OK I’m in. Stay tuned as I begin experimenting with some digital modes to learn their capabilities and pitfalls. I’ll update this blog as I make my way down “research row”, posting what I’ve learned in the process.

Until then…73,

David

HF vs everything else

22 Jul

It’s funny and a bit strange to me that things have changed so much over the course of time in amateur radio. I wanted to talk to people around the world to find out anything and everything that was happening in far away places.

Since getting my Technician Class license in February 2014, I’ve spent more time listening to and decoding morse on the 40 and 80 meter bands than anything else. Thanks to the addition of computers and software to the hobby, it now takes very little effort to have the computer decipher those dihs and dahs, giving the operator a nice screen printout of what was sent. An operator can even respond to a call by typing what he wants to say and allowing the computer to do the hard part of transmitting it in morse code.

My very first morse decode, after building a homemade balun/unan and hanging a “long wire” out of my home office window, was one that I’ll never forget as long as I live. Because with all I do know about antenna technology, I still couldn’t imagine something like a piece of rubber covered aluminum clothesline wire running across the driveway, attached to the firewood rack on the other side, picking up anything all that distant. But as I spun that dial through the 40 meter band, I suddenly picked up a relatively strong signal…

…CQ CQ DE TX6G TX6G…

At first I was a bit confused. For a signal THAT strong (S7-S8), I was expecting a more local (at least to the USA) call sign to be decoded. I thought that I must’ve gotten the cursor a little off center of the signal. But after rechecking my signal on the waterfall display, I decided to try doing a lookup on the call sign. The results of my search completely blew me away.

It seems that TX6G is the call sign for a DX Expedition team that was transmitting from Raivavae Island, which is part of the Austral Islands in the South Pacific. When I say “South Pacific”, I mean 5145 miles away. In fact the closest major land mass to the place is New Zealand.

Here is a link to their site: http://www.tx6g.com

Well that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I’ve GOT to find a way around my mental block with learning code. Sure, I could use the computer to be my “surrogate code flunky”. But that really just feels like “cheating” in a way. So I’ve downloaded morse programs to my iPhone, iPad and Mac laptops and am going to give it another stab. Somehow all those “dihs” and “dahs” make sense to other people so I’m going to find a way to get them to make sense to me. Wish me luck!

73,

David

Tower Crazy

21 Jul

Thinking back to my younger years, I was enthralled by those huge radio towers from the time I was a small child. I have a visual image in my head from childhood: I was riding home in the “rumble seat” of a VW bug, with my parents up front. We were coming home from a place called “Cool Point”, a restaurant on Caddo Lake, in Northwest Louisiana. Somewhere out across the darkness were 3-4 towers with blinking red lights all in rows pointing straight up at the sky. I knew they were towers for our local TV stations. They looked like pillars of a huge gateway to the world or into space.

At age 13 I still had a fascination with towers, although now it was more technical in nature. I would gaze with fascination when I saw the really tall towers, with huge directional beam antennas combing the sky. I often watched while passing them, when riding in the car, just to see if I could catch one in motion, rotating to point somewhere else for a chat.

And while I hadn’t achieved my amateur radio license due to the code requirement, I had done what most other people in the United States were doing at the time. I became a CB Radio operator. The nation was engulfed in the CB Radio craze from about the time I turned 12 until around age 16. I fit right in. And although it wasn’t the same as being a “ham operator”, it was more mainstream and therefore less expensive. I made many friends —usually with people twice my age on the other end of the call- and made a few enemies as well.

Much to my folks’ chagrin, I did finally manage to get that tower with the huge 11 meter beam array at the top. I liked to tinker so my grandfather had his welder at the shop add a hinged plate onto the bottom of the tower. It allowed me to use ropes and pulleys to lay the thing down across the back yard and make my adjustments or repairs.

It was an unsightly thing really. And although it wasn’t that tall (30-40 feet), it allowed me to reach places farther away than the distance I was able to ride my bicycle or motorcycle. At the time that satisfied my communication needs. Even though “long distance” communications weren’t allowed on the 11 meter “citizen’s band”, someone forgot to tell the ionosphere. So whether the FCC liked it or not, there were heavy sunspot days where you just couldn’t help but end up talking to someone 500 or even 1000 miles away with a simple 4-5 watt rig. It was amazing and wonderful to me then, as it is now, thinking back on it.

My parents however held back with their wonder and amazement over my technological addition to our yard. For some reason they didn’t see the “wonder”. And their only amazement was possibly being amazed that I would put something like that on the property. In retrospect, I guess it really was an ugly beast. Thankfully they bit their tongues as parents must do from time to time.

When it’s all said and done, my parents will likely be sainted for all they endured during my CB Radio phase. At around age 15-16 we moved into a much nicer neighborhood. And my radio equipment —having been unused for many months- got packed away in boxes and stored. My folks silently breathed a sigh of relief as my tower and antenna left our driveway on the back of a trailer, after I agreed to sell it to a family friend.

Thanks Mom & Dad. Sorry if I didn’t choose a career as a Radiotelephone Technician after all. But that computer phase I went through a few years later? Spot On!

73,

David