Updates From the Radio Room 15

N1GY- The simple Approach to Ham Radio

and My Model Railroad Hobby

UPDATES from the Radio Room 15

September 14, 2026

I realize that it has been an inordinate amount of time since my last entry on these pages, literally almost one whole year. My only excuse is that over several months I have been unable to even get into my site to edit, add or anything. Tonight my son applied his expertise as an IT proffesional, and even he had a rough time getting in. Problem is now somewhat solved but I still have very serious reservations about how GoDaddy is handling access for its long time customers.

In any case, I just wanted to bring everyone up to date on the recent events and changes in my emphasis on my hobbies. I am once again, after a long hiatus back into amateur radio. Not that I ever really left the hobby, but several other hobbies took precedence for a while. I was, as you can tell from the content of the site, seriously involved in the model railroad hobby. That aspect has waned at present although I still maintain a foot in the door of that topic. More recently, I have managed to rebuild my collection of various firearms back to it's old character. I also have a significant interest in Leatherwork. I have constructed four different holsters for some of my firearms and plan on building some knife and utility tool holsters in the near future. Having accomplished that, my interest in Ham Radio was reawakened and my current project is to construct a battery powered setup using a Yaesu FT7900R to be mounted on my mobility scooter. That was going great until one day the 7900 suddenly decided that it was not going to turn on at all. A friend of mine who is a professional radio repair tech now has the radio and is attempting to get it to answer the call. Once and if that happens, some serious testing of the setup will then determine if my concept has any validity or not. If not then the radio will probably be added to my home station, which with the loss of my HF antenna, is now only VHF/UHF and also analog only, no digital radios need apply, at least for the present. THe POTA program for which I built my last setup, also battery powered has been relegated to "nice idea but no progress". THe Xiegu G90 and associated gear was sold off and is in use by other members of my local ham radio club who are more mobile than myself.

Now that my access to the web site has been reestablished I plan on writing a page of the latest battery powered project as time permits. Please remember that at 83 years of age, nothing happens too fast anymore so it may be a while before all these projects come to fruition.

October 16, 2025

My interest in ham radio has been reawakened by the POTA program. Parks On The Air is a very intriguing idea and I have purchased a Xiegu G90, some batteries and an antenna, all of which fits in a metal briefcase that I already had on hand. I am awaiting the return of a fellow ham from Texas who will be my mentor (I hope) so as to get me started on this new aspect of the hobby. Time will tell if I am healthy enough to enjoy this new aspect, but I sincerely hope it will bring me some new enjoyment to amateur radio.

May 25, 2025

I am trying to keep this site up to date, but old age and fatigue are slowing me down significantly. Consider this an apology of sorts. My various hobbies do seem to sometimes interfere with one another. As an example, the local airport, Sarasota Bradenton International has recently built a very nice viewing site on the East side of the airport. I have yet to partake of it's facilities although I am an Aviation Enthusiast of long standing. (9 years at Oshkosh, the worlds biggest airshow and fly-in plus 25 years as a Search and Rescue Specialist with Civil Air Patrol). Another example, although I have plenty of leather and leather-working tools, So far I have made only two holsters for the same pistol. I was not happy with the first one, which came as a kit. The second one I designed myself as a "pancake" outside the belt holster and I am very pleased with the way it came out. My son has promised me that he will send me some of his fishing knives so that I can make sheathes for them. I sit and await their arrival. In the meantime, I see a short nap in my immediate future.

May 8,2025

As I noted below, it has been too long since I added anything of note to this web site. I should however point out that the amateur radio projects herein are still quite valid and worthy of consideration. You will not that I do have several different hobbies besides amateur radio. These include model railroading, currently on hiatus because I have no more room for my collection of locomotives and rolling stock, Photography, which I started as an adjunct to the model railroading, shooting sports, which led to another avocation, leather work so that I could construct my own holsters and other accessories for that sport. Needless to say I am a devotee of many things but a master of none. I just noticed that I failed to provide a date for the previous entry below. I cannot remember the exact date that was written but it probably was in the fall of 2024.

It has been too long since I updated this site, and I do apologize profusely. Since I last updated the site I have added another hobby, that of Photography. I am getting too old and infirm to spend a lot of time and effort on model railroading, although I still enjoy belonging to my club, The Sarasota Bay Model Railroad Society. I currently operate the Facebook page for the group and plan to continue in that role for as long as I am able. Similarly, my participation in Amateur Radio has likewise tapered down. I still have a complement of radios in my office and my car but since I do not like driving at night, I no longer attend most meetings of the club, although I am still a member and when I can, I still provide material to the club newsletter.

Likewise, I do not provide new projects to my website, in part because I have trouble wielding a soldering iron these days, I am 82 years of age, after all. The projects that are on the website are still pertinent to the hobby and useful to those members of the fraternity who are still able to build and use such projects. Likewise, my model railroad layout and my collections of various locomotives and rolling stock still exist and I take much pleasure in them. One of the reasons I decided on Photography as a hobby was so that I could improve my skills in Photographing my layout and others. I also enjoy photographing aircraft of all types and classic cars both racing and street machines. I have even modified a basket for my mobility scooter so that it can carry my camera gear. I promise, as soon as my skill set is up to par with a camera, the images will be posted here and occasionally on Facebook.