THE WELL
Some years ago I junked some old domestic chassis and a few bits of military
gear that were absolutely stuffed. Now if I dump it, it must be way, way
past resurrection!
Anyway I had a big hole on the property that I used for dumping rubbish and
fill and by the time I threw this stuff in there it looked like I'd filled
a mine shaft to the brim with all these fantastic radios. I took a photo
and
sent it in to Electronics Australia. Jim Rowe published it and the proverbial
hit the fan big time. Sacrilige, criminal, vandal, disgusting and other responses
come to mind!
It generated more angst and letters to the editor than would banning radio
altogether. I think it boosted EA sales by 20%. Clyde Witcomb from HRSA wanted
to do me in and wouldn't speak for months whilst others wanted to
come round with backhoes to rescue the stuff. One young bloke did plead for
permission to bring a shovel across to dig. People wrote saying things like
"could they have the third knob on the right off the HMV set in the left
corner of the photo"! In reality I couldn't get the blankity knobs off anyway.
Others wanted my guts for garters.
It was better than any April fool's prank could have been (but didn't really
start out as such).
So I was excommunicated by half the Australian radio crowd and became very
popular with the others who wanted to rummage through and dig up my
well.
So, that's the story of THE WELL. I hope to put it behind me and be forgiven
in years to come : )
THE WELL featured in another of my calamities. I purchased a heap of plastics
raw materials from the Electricity Commission at a good price. However when
I picked it up they had bundled together anything "plastic" and said I had
to take the lot. It included maybe a hundred giant plastic "corkscrews" about
2 meters long and 400mm diameter, made from plastic rod 20mm diameter. I
gather they buried them in the ground as anchors for something. I sold them
for scrap.
However, the big thing I won was about 3 pallets of 1" wide by 12" reels
of computer tape. There were hundreds of them all in the plastic cases. It
was from their accounts section and seemed to be obsolete back ups. Anyway
I
reckoned this was "good stuff" and worth money so I tried for ages to sell
it. New tape was around $30 per reel and mine was $15 - so what a bargain!
I sold some but not a lot and still had about 3 pallets of the stuff stored
under the house, in a bushfire prone suburb. Eventually the penny dropped
that I had a major fire hazard under the house so I decided to drop it in
THE WELL and burn it.
Well you have no idea how well that stuff burns and what great jet black
smoke it makes! It was better than any WW2 battleship's smoke screen. You
see on TV old tyres or oil burning with real black smoke - well this was
at
least as good. I had the Police and Fire Brigade out 3 times because they'd
hose it down and it would be out - they'd go away and the damn thing would
spontaneously re-ignite. Eventually they saw that being in the well, it wasn't
going anywhere so they left it and me alone. They were not thrilled at answering
so many phone calls about a major fire in the area.
It burnt for 3 days and even though I hosed it down regularly it would suddenly
go Poof and re-ignite. When it did burn itself out I had a great pile of
red powder, finer than talcum powder (the iron oxide coating). When
the wind blew it covered everything for 1/2 a mile in red dust. Luckily no-one
seemed to wake up as to what it was and where it came from. Also luckily
the EPA wasn't like it is today or I may still be in jail!
Boy I'm glad I no longer have a well to get me into trouble.
Colin
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I am reminded of a time long ago when a person of Asian persuasion in Sydney
contacted me to fix a whole heap of CPRC-26's. He had around 50 of them.
I declined but some months later had a visit from a gentleman from "a govt.
agency" (ASIO?). He'd got my details from the other guy's records. Turned
out the radios were for (or went to) the Tamil Tigers in Burma and the Australian
Govt. would rather we kept our nose out of the problems over there.
Colin VK2DYM
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Wyong Field Day 2000.
I had been talkng to Colin for about 15 minutes, and a third party walked
up and joined the conversation.
This gentlemen was well known for his ability to monopolise the converstation,
to stray off the subject, to complain about his poor health, his problems
with his wife as she didn't understand him, his loss of his radios over the
years, and other unrelated matters.
Colin said, "Oh! theres someone calling me, gotta go...."
he departed smartly, and abandoned me!
Ray VK2ILV
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