ELECTRONIC ADVENTURES

Things are good. The last few days I've been playing around with electronics.

Over the weekend I decided I wanted to record our local community radio station on some of my old homemade cassettes using my stereo and that got me thinking about taping things off the internet and recording my voice again.

Tuesday I went to the hardware store and bought a universal adapter for a 1970 tape recorder I picked up at the thrift shop last year, an external microphone, and a cable to connect my computer and my stereo.

After hours of frustration of trying to get the old tape recorder to work, I brought it into the hardware store and said they could have it. The adapter did, however, work with an old HandiCassette II I had, so at least that thing works again.

I tried using the microphone with my stereo, but the levels are low. The guy at the hardware store said I needed a preamp, which I will look into getting next month, Lord willing.

The cable worked great, once I had things figured out. I was able to record off the internet onto tape.

I have also been trying a radio-TV combo Mom got me from the thrift shop a while back. It has good frequency separation on the AM band, as well as a band where you can hear airplane pilots talking to the tower.

Tonight I was also playing around with a digital antenna Mom got me from the thrift shop the same day as the above-mentioned TV. I think I hooked the antenna up properly but I couldn't pick up anything. A Google search revealed I need a TV with a digital tuner, which I don't think either the two portable TVs upstairs or the one down here on which I watch movies has.

Update: Mom let me borrow her little portable digital TV so I could try out the antenna on that. However, there was no white noise so I couldn't even tell when the television was on or off. I then gave Mom back the TV with the antenna for her to try. After talking to the guy at the hardware store yesterday, I've decided to let Mom have the antenna. Digital TVs don't make any noise and a talking TV costs more than I'm willing to spend simply for something with which to play around with and amuse myself.