I spent a very enjoyable evening in the shack with one of my sons 16 yr old friends. It started with a question about how to wire up LED's (and yea, any kid who addresses me a Mr. is already gotten a lot of points). I found out that he was making modifications to his X-box, basically pimping it up, and that this is a common pass time with some of the younger set. In my day I took apart radios, clocks, and such. I guess kids still do that, just with different things.
We'll after a brief explanation about Ohms Law, Parallel vs series circuits and a trip to the Radio Shack down the road (this one still has bins of parts like resistors, caps, some IC's etc). We proceed to melt solder and wire up the LED's and a series resistor. He used some of my tools to cut a pattern in the case and we got it back together. He wants to refinish it in gloss black and clear coat (no I didn't suggest wrinkle finish
).
Of course I had the station powered up, showed him the station equipment and such.
We listened in to some QSO's while we worked, while he tinkered I dialed in some SWBC and a listened to a few CW QSO's as well.
I don't know if he found the Radio's stuff as interesting, but maybe, just maybe...
