Tales From Tex
 

A funny thing happened on the way to the printer last month!  For those of you who are not familiar with the TARA News publishing process, here's a quick explanation.  Articles are submitted to Mr. Bill.  After setting up these articles and producing the front page, Mr. Bill writes some stuff to fill out the newsletter.  Altogether, a rather time-consuming undertaking. The newsletter is put together using Ami Pro (now that Mr. Bill has a Pentium computer, maybe we'll start using some newer software!).  The files are then e-mailed down here to me in Dallas.  I do the proofing on screen and/or on printed copy.  I make a few editorial corrections for spelling and grammar and whatever else I can spot.  I then print hard copy which is used as originals by the printer. Now back to that "funny thing" I mentioned.  While proofreading the October issue (and watching TV with a beer nearby) I noticed on our back page that WA1YXQ was still listed as the call sign for John, one of our repeater gurus.  So, I used my trusty editor's pen, crossed it out and wrote in John's new call sign, N1JP.  Well, guess who forgot to make that correction and print a new page?  That's why you saw a crude correction on last month's issue.  I couldn't believe it when it came in the mail! Anyway, if anyone in the club has access to a Hewlett Packard compatible laser printer, we may have a job for you.  We can speed up our newsletter process by printing the originals back up in New York instead of here in Texas.  We're usually tight on time.  We need someone who can receive the files via e-mail, print out the pages and get them to the printer all in about 24 hours time.  We can provide a copy of the necessary software.  If we start using Microsoft Publisher, you'll need some real estate available on your hard drive.  If you need more information, please contact me or Mr. Bill. I see from another article in this issue that there is a new electronics catalog available from Tech America (a Tandy Corp. company).  One of the store locations is listed as Dallas. I checked their web site at http://www.techam.com.  There they announce that the

Denver store is now open, but no mention of any others.  I'll keep an eye open for the Dallas store and report back what I find.  For those who don't know, Tandy's headquarters is nearby in Fort Worth.  They just sold their Incredible Universe store to Fry's Electronics, a California based computer/electronics chain.  Just this past week, I went to the Fry's grand opening here in Dallas and got a 7.0 GB ultraDMA IDE hard drive for $299.  You may have heard Mr. Bill talk about the stuff I got when Fry's opened in Arlington about six weeks ago.  Unfortuneatly, the Arlington store is about an hour and fifteen minutes the other side of Dallas.  The new store is only about 5 miles from my office. (Tony, WB2BEJ, shoulda been here, they had "a hot dog and a coke" for 25 cents and they didn't keep track of how many you had!!) They also carry test equipment, components, Kenwood gear (including HF rigs) and all kinds of parts.  I picked up two soldering irons for 99 cents each!  For the office, I got 1 surge protector for 99 cents (limit 1) and 5 mice for 89 cents each (no limit!). From my experiences, though, they have good deals if you stick to name brand items or items that you can afford to throw away (like the 89 cent mice).  I had some problems with a motherboard but they did refund my money, no questions asked. We have lots of resources here in the DFW metroplex for parts, etc.  If you are having trouble finding something, let me know and I can check around town.  If necessary, I can make a road trip and take care of shipping the item back to you (within reason, of course - No Bill, I can't get that 35" TV and send it up, it wouldn't fit in your room, anyway!). Before I forget, congratulations to the whole gang at The Hudson Loop on their first anniversary.  This is the only weekly newsletter published by an ARRL division.  The Loop is distributed via e-mail, so subscriptions are FREE!!  To subscribe, visit the Hudson Division home page at http://www.arrlhudson.org/ and select the button for subscriptions.  Fill in the form and you're all set.  Well that's it for this month.  Take it easy pardners!!