You may find this amusing...
The last month or so I was feeling poorly and finally went to the clinic to get checked up. I thought maybe I had a digestive problem. The clinic called paramedics to take me immediately to the ER and they called ahead and told them what was coming. The ER did a whole bunch of stuff really fast and sent me to the critical care floor in critical condition. Seems I had a septic infection in the GU tract and I was extremely ill.
I spent 6 days in the critical care unit and then I was transferred to a nursing facility for "rehab" for another six days as I was (and still am) very weak. I had little to do aside from eating, sleeping and watching TV when I was not in the therapy room being systematically tortured, so I asked my family to bring me my portable ham gear. Bad mistake.
The family are civilians and wouldn't know a power supply from an ashtray so I had to carefully describe what I needed, where it was located in the house. I have a briefcase that has some of my portable gear and my FT-817 with power supply. If I were going portable, I'd grab the briefcase and 817 with either a battery or power supply and been out the door in less than a minute.
Their first attempt was a big MFJ antenna tuner, a broken telescopic antenna, and the wrong briefcase.
The second attempt brought other useless items but they did get the right radio, but without power supply.
The third attempt brought everything needed, at last. So I got busy putting the MP-3 together and after some fussing, managed to locate it in my room's window. Then I turned my attention to the 817 and found that adapter cable for the MFJ supply was not connected to it. The batteries were dead and the radio was useless.
That's when I threw in the towel. If I had asked family to look for the cable they'd bring me every single cable not connected to anything...trust me, prior experience.
Had I thought about it, I would have stopped at my house and grabbed everything myself and gone to the nursing home. The home is right around the corner from where I live. I asked the NH if I could run to my house with family and grabbed what I needed but they said if the insurance company found out they let me go off grounds, they might not get paid. Soooooooooo........
I learned some lessons that will prevent this from happening again.
1) Keep EVERYTHING YOU WILL EVER NEED IN THAT BRIEFCASE!!!! Including things you don't think you will need .
2) Put a BIG SIGN on the briefcase and stick it where it can easily be seen by civilians.
3) When not being used, put the 817 and its power supply plugged in to charge batteries and keep it in plain sight.
4) Keep the *^&%$E batteries charged!
5) Put some basic tools in that briefcase. Socket wrench, screwdrivers, wire cutters, and electrical tape and DUCT TAPE!
6) Put one of my charged-up 12v deep discharge batteries with the briefcase at all times.
7) Get redundant power supply to keep in the briefcase..
<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"> Get a tuner for the MP-3
And the last part of the plan is: DON'T GET SICK!<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin">
73
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