Interests Outside of Radio

I have a few different hobbies and interests outside of ham radio... I list them as follows...

1) Music. I am a violinist. Although I don't play professionally I do play for an orchestra and I also enjoy practicing and learning new pieces of music as well as working on practice etudes and other things to enhance my skills. I started playing as a child and recently (over  the past 3 or 4 years ) got back into it.  Over the past year my playing skills have improved dramatically and IO find myself able to easily play difficult pieces of music that seemed next to impossible only 1 short year ago,

2) Powered Model Aircraft. Since I was a child and saw my first gas model airplane in flight I have been a model aircraft enthusiast. At the age of 10 I started building rubber powered wood free flight models. Then I started putting small gas motors on them and flew them by wires, or what is known as "control line" flying. Over the years I graduated into larger and larger control line models with larger engines and more sophisticated models. round 1983 or so I built my first gas powered radio controlled model airplane. Then after being inactive in the hobby for a long time I more recently stated getting into radio controlled helicopters. Most of the rc helicopters I fly are powered by very powerful electric energy and high capacity LiPo batteries. They range in size from a micro sized helicopter that can be flown indoors or outdoor on calm days. I can fly it pretty high up outdoors and then bring it into the house and land on the dinner table. I also fly a few larger ones such as a single rotor 250 size and the largest a 450 size electric with full collective pitch and tail rotor pitch control. One thing I like about helicopters is that I can fly them in limited space, they don;t require a large takeoff and landing area. However, I haven;t lost interest in airplanes either and one of these days I might get back into planes as well.

3) Recreational Math... I enjoy delving into various topics in math just for the fun of it as well as a profession.

4) Computers and programming. Occasionally I still enjoy writing my own software.

5) Vintage stuff. In particular I enjoy collection vintage pocket watches, clocks and wrist watches and vintage pocket knives.

6) Electronics. I occaisionally enjoy building electronics and gadgets either from kits or from scratch.

7) Lasers... I becaume interested in lasers in high school. Eventually I built up my own helium-neon gas laser. I also play around with solid state lasers or various power levels that I build from laser diodes salvaged from DVD writers.

There is more but at present those are my main hobbies and interests that take up most of my spare time.

BTW with respect to radio I also enjoy Shortwave listening, scanner listening, and other radio related things from time to time

Books, I like to collect old books. Not any of particular value to anyone but me but that is beside the point. Aside from that I really enjoy fishing, catch and release. I also used to hunt but have not in about four years. The last shot I took was with a Nikon. I assorted antiques; anything from phonographs to cars. Not that I am a collector or anything, just an admirer.

KB3LAZ wrote:Books, I like to collect old books. Not any of particular value to anyone but me but that is beside the point. Aside from that I really enjoy fishing, catch and release. I also used to hunt but have not in about four years. The last shot I took was with a Nikon. I assorted antiques; anything from phonographs to cars. Not that I am a collector or anything, just an admirer.

Sounds good on collecting old books. Even in todays digital world there is something about a print book with real printed pages. I still read and use them often mostly for reference but sometimes for enjoyment. I am not a collector but I do have some olf books round here.

As for antiques in addition to the knives and clocks and watches I also collect some old electrical appliance, in particular antique and vintage electric fans from the turn of the century on up through the 1950's. Most still run and are used here extensively during the summer months. Others need some cleaning, rewiring, and restoration