Now is the Time for Amateur Radio's Best Bargains! W2XOY Serves Up Another Amateur Radio Tale!

This edition of the Random Access Thought continues the thread I started last week with Bill Continelli as guest host. Prior to the story of "W2XOY's Secret Elmer". Bill had dropped by and recorded a feature entitled:"Now is the Time for Amateur Radio's Best Bargains". We did this back in late February, 2005 with production wrapping up on March the 2nd.

The basic premise of the story is that Bill, planning ham radio purchases in 1974, is visited by himself from thirty one years in the future. Bill's elder self launches a discussion in typical certified public accountant's terms just how buying amateur gear in 2005 will actually be cheaper than it was in 1974. Needless to say, this Random Access Thought was extensively post produced with the added feature of some classic motion picture soundtrack music. Mr. Continelli serves up some fairly intense and quite passionate acting while paying homage to "Gone with the Wind".

By the way, if you listen carefully, you may hear jingling bells in the background. Ed the cat, a fifteen pound street feline with the personality of Scooby Doo and the smarts of a doorbell races feverishly from room to room while the microphonium was hot. Ed is one of those creatures who occasionally discovers his tail and chases it!

This installment, like "W2XOY's Secret Elmer" made use of a production scheme best described as Single Track Overlay. While I currently produce the Random Access Thought in multitrack, back then I used the primary voice track as a template. Primary effects and background ambiances were then overlaid or matted under the voice. Under some circumstances, this style of post production could actually be faster and more efficient.

My thanks to George W2XBS for requesting this episode and reminding me that I still had this classic gem concealed deep within the Random Access vaults! Please download this week's This Week in Amateur Radio Ham Service and the TWIARi Broadcast version, or even better connect to: http://www.twiar.org/N2FNH/RATParts Look for file number RAT081008_BARG_BCQ_R1.cab or RAT08008_BARG_HAM_R1, right click and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the select RAF audio WAV file inside!